“Buy or Bye”™ – Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Week 1 2022 Cash Games

September 10, 2022

By Ha Kung Wong

In 2021, we were over 70% for cash lineups and we’re back with more Daily Fantasy Football advice for Cash Games for Week 1 of the 2022 season!

You’re welcome.

As usual, before we get to winning you more bragging rights (and DFS cash), remember, the point of this article is not just to give you one or two lineups for each site, it’s to give you examples of a few POSSIBLE lineups. Getting exposure to a few different lineups is always a good idea, so don’t forget to mix and match additional lineups from my suggestions below. Trust me, it’s a lot more fun that way AND you’ll improve your chances of cashing!

And as we did last year, we’re also adding our top two player prop picks to help you win even MORE money!

Let’s get to winning you some CASH in Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season!

Cash Games, for those who don’t know, are essentially the lowest risk games. They include “50/50” games, in which half the entrants win about 1.8x the entry fee, and “Double Ups”, in which slightly less than half the entrants win 2x the entry fee.

Since there’s so many different sites, and I can’t cover them all, I’ve decided to cover just the most popular sites, including Fan Duel, Draft Kings and Yahoo! Daily Fantasy.

First of all, as a general rule for 50/50 Cash Games, there’s a basic target of points per salary cap spent that you’d like to look for:

For Fan Duel try to target at least 2 fantasy points per $1000 spent.
For Draft Kings, try to target at least 2.5 fantasy points per $1000 spent.
For Yahoo! Daily Fantasy, try to target at least 0.6-0.7 fantasy points per $1 spent.

Remember, this article is not focused on GPP (Tournament) Games, JUST Cash Games. Feel free to use a few of these suggested players as a base when constructing a GPP lineup, but you’ll have to take some chances on a few low cost, upside players as well.

As per usual, I’m going to provide you with a few sample lineups on each site and give you a few notes to consider. You’re welcome.

So, without further to do, here are my suggestions for the Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games and player props for Week 1 contests, along with they’re prices.

FanDuel

Draft Kings

Yahoo! DFS

Player Props

Game Notes:

For those new to this column, note that I never advocate against you paying up at any particular position for DFS. We all know that the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Christian McCaffrey are probably going to have the most consistent upside in terms of potential fantasy points from week to week. But remember that DFS is a salary cap game. You can feel free to sprinkle high priced players into your lineups, but you can’t pay up at every position because there’s simply not enough salary to go around. I try my best each week to provide my thoughts on how you might want to balance your cash lineups in terms of points potential and salary.
My approach to DFS in Week 1 is to rely on at least one solid RB to anchor my team, since we have so little information on the teams in their current 53-man incarnations. And for this week, I’ve also noted that there’s plenty of value in the WR ranks this week, so I have no problems paying top dollar at other positions.
The “Free Square of the Week”™ is Sammy Watkins. It’s not like I think Watkins is amazing at this stage of his career, but with Davante Adams and MVS on other teams and Allen Lazard injured, it’s either Sammy Watkins, 32-year old Randall Cobb or “other”. Maybe Amari Rodgers finally has an opportunity to breakout, but I’m going with the bottom barrel priced and currently healthy veteran.
The Kansas City Chiefs @ Arizona Cardinals game has the highest over/under of the weekend (53.5), so I’m in on most of the skill players here, particularly Marquise Brown who will be the default WR1 for the Cardinals with Deandre Hopkins suspended and Rondale Moore ruled out, and gets to play with his old college QB Kylar Murray. His pricing is way to low for such a great set up, particularly in a game where there will need to be plenty of offense to keep up. I’m also in on James Conner, who should be the bell cow for the Cardinals. I also don’t mind paying up for Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce or Kylar Murray.
As I mentioned, I like paying up for a premium RB, and you don’t get more premium than Christian McCaffrey. His high involvement in the passing game gets him a nice floor, particularly for full PPR sites like Draft Kings, and you already know he’s the focal point for the Panthers offense. I would be surprised if he doesn’t at least break 100 total yards and a TD.
My favorite premium QB is Lamar Jackson. Jackson is betting on himself by not agreeing to a contract extension and should open the season with a statement facing a Jets team that surrendered the fourth most passing yards, the fourth most rushing yards and the most rushing touchdowns to opposing teams in 2021. Plus, the propensity to run the ball provides a terrific floor.

Sources: Lamar Jackson rejected a Ravens' 6-yr contract offer with $133 million fully guaranteed at signing, which is more than Russell Wilson ($124 million) and Kyler Murray ($103.3 million) but well short of the $230 million fully guaranteed deal that Deshaun Watson got.

— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) September 11, 2022

If you want to pay down at QB, I’m a fan of Kirk Cousins, who has all his weapons healthy at the beginning of the season, including Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, Irv Smith and Dalvin Cook. The Vikings will likely have to keep up with the Packers, and playing at home should also help keep the offense going.
On defense, I love taking value and paying down, and mysteriously, one of the top defenses of the weekend, the Baltimore Ravens Defense facing the Flacco-led Jets, is almost minimum salary on Yahoo. So load up. On Draft Kings and FanDuel, I prefer the Miami Dolphins Defense, which is a nice mix of opportunity and price, or paying all the way down for the Jacksonville Jaguars Defense.
I’ll be discussing my player picks on the podcast, so tune in for that!