The Daily Spin – NFL Edition – Week 8

Another week, another nice payday for NFL which continues to be one of the more predictable DFS sports from week to week for cash games. While everyone seems to be on information more so as the years go by, we’ve been able to exploit the best matchups to gain a little edge over those chasing after Matthew Berry each week. We are getting into the part of the season where things start to get really tricky. DraftKings, in their infinite wisdom to try to squeeze as much juice out of its players as possible has continued to short change the main slate each Sunday by keeping the night game out of the schedule. Some of you have expressed your displeasure over this while others simply shrug and move on.

The problem with leaving the Sunday night game off the main slate is that inevitably, we run into weeks with more byes than normal and then when another garbage London game gets thrown into the mix, we end up with a slate of nine games instead of the normal 12 or 13 that makes for the best possible combination of games. The other problem with losing the Sunday night game is that since it is a nationally televised game, it is usually one of the more prominent games of the week with plenty of relevant fantasy talent. Did you have any interest in LeVeon Bell or Antonio Brown this week? Unfortunately, we don’t get the chance to use them in the big contests on DK for now or the foreseeable future. This will become even more frustrating later on in the season as NBC begins to flex games and pulls some of the top games into the night game slot. You can already see ownership bunching up around players as it is so when the main slate gets smaller, this issue is only exacerbated that much more.

In looking back at how things went for us last week, I notched another cash game win to push my record to 5-1-1 on the season. I know that not all of you made it with me last week and that many have done both better and worse than my record so far, but analyzing the one cash game I build seems to make the most sense as far as being transparent and letting you know where I put my own money based upon my research from week to week.

Last week, we had two main options at QB which really determined the build out of your team overall. The big choice for me came down to either going after a deep value play in Tyrod Taylor at $5,100 or in paying up for a ‘can’t miss’ play with a lot of potential upside in Dak Prescott at $7,300. While the decision was very close for me, I ended up paying up for Dak. I felt like 30 point upside was just too much to pass up on. Had I known ahead of time that Tyrod would put the run back into his repertoire, I would have been happy to go with Tyrod as it pushed him to a 4x effort, but he had not shown much of a burst this season and I thought there was a good chance that LeSean McCoy could do most of the damage so that Dak received the nod. Fortunately, he did not disappoint and with some late game garbage scores, he did reach that ceiling that we were looking for to help us out.

The running back position handed us a play last Sunday morning that was just too cheap to pass up. With Leonard Fournette out of the lineup for the Jags, Ivory was pushed into the featured role for $4,800. With the way he had caught passes the week before, it looked like the perfect spot for him to have a big day against the terrible Colts defense. When he punched in an early 10 yard rushing TD, things looked great, but he struggled the rest of the day, fumbled at one point and it ended up being TJ Yeldon that had over 100 yards rushing and a TD. However, Ivory was owned by over 80% of owners in cash games last week, an astounding number even for an injury replacement. He posted 9.7 points so it was not a total disaster for the price, but in this situation, playing Ivory in cash was mandatory. With 80% ownership, if Ivory has a big day, then we’re fine as we largely keep pace with the field and hurt a few folks who opted to stay away. If he just hits value, we have not gained or lost anything on the scoreboard, but did open up additional salary cap space to work with for the rest of our roster. If he completely tanked, we’d be disappointed, but with 80%+ on board with us, it would hardly hurt our chances of cashing and we’d still have the extra salary to work with to make up for it. However, if you fade an 80% value place in cash and they post an enormous stat line, you are nearly drawing dead. This is really important to understand in cash. Sometimes, you’re going to need to make a defensive play that largely mirrors the field in order to avoid being ruined by one player. This is an area where cash strategy is distinct from that of GPP contests.

I plugged LeSean McCoy in at my second RB slot last week in a nice matchup against the Bucs and he pounded his way to big day, finally getting into the end zone and posting close to 30 points. Here again, we were not alone in our love of McCoy as 80% of the field was with us here as well. The price was just too cheap in a spot where McCoy would get a lot of opportunities against a poor defensive unit.

At WR, I had some choices to make. I wanted to find a way to build Antonio Brown into my lineup with Adam Jones out for the Bengals along with a banged up secondary overall. I felt good as he caught two passes and scored on the first drive, but he was held in check for the rest of the game while LeVeon Bell shined again. I’m not sure what it is the Bengals do to shut down Brown, especially when they are short in the secondary, but somehow, they got the job done again, holding Brown to just 16.5 points.

For value, I started Jarvis Landry last week and it paid off well as he had one of his best games of the year in the absence of Devante Parker. With Landry, you know that he’s going to catch 8 for 60 almost every week, but he managed to find the end zone early last week and nearly got to 100 yards receiving as well. Getting 22.3 points from Landry was huge for us as Landry is usually good for 2x value, but it is typically a stretch to get him to 3x and above.

Finally, I locked in Robert Woods for $4,000 in my last spot for a WR. I hate playing Woods, but with Sammy Watkins drawing coverage from Patrick Peterson and Woods having a soft matchup, he looked like a high floor type of play with minimal upside which was precisely what we got in a five catch, 59 yard effort along with four yards rushing to get us just under a 3x day. With tight pricing, this is the sort of effort that we needed to hold ground and save money.

At TE, I started Kyle Rudolph who was in a great spot against a Ravens defense that while tough in most areas, does struggle with the TE position. We did not get a huge effort out of Rudolph who we were hoping to get 11.4 points from, but 9.3 didn’t put us that far behind the curve and it was certainly a reasonable output.

When you squeeze a play like Antonio Brown into your cash lineup, it does force you to make some sacrifices with the rest of your roster. This was the case with using Orleans Darkwa against the Seahawks at home for $3,700. I had some potential yardage targets to get him in range of 11.1 and I still feel okay about the projections. He ended the day with 7.8 points so again, we avoided disaster by getting at least 2x and it allowed us to be a little more aggressive in other spots.

On defense, the Vikings posted 6 points which was disappointing considering how much they dominated the Ravens overall, but a total garbage TD from about 15 yards out on the last play of the game was to blame as it cost them 3 points which would have gotten them within a point of a 3x day.

 

QB	Dak Prescott	29.96
RB	Chris Ivory	9.7
RB	LeSean McCoy	28.2
WR	Antonio Brown	16.5
WR	Robert Woods	11.3
WR	Jarvis Landry	22.3
TE	Kyle Rudoloph	9.3
F	Orleans Darkwa	7.8
DEF	Vikings	6
	Total	141.06

 

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