Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games – NFL Conference Championships

By Ha Kung Wong  Daily Fantasy Football

Twitter: @FBGarbageTime

Well, the NFL Divisional Playoffs were WAY more interesting than the Wild Card games.  Hopefully, you played Matt Ryan and Jared Cook like I suggested and won some DFS cash to make it even more fun!  If you didn’t, no worries, because we’re back to help you win more cash in the NFL Conference Championships!

So before we get to winning you bragging rights and DFS cash, remember, the point of this article is not just to give you one lineup for each site, it’s to give you examples of one or two 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!

So without further to do, here are my favorite cash lineups for FanDuel, Draft Kings, and Yahoo! DFS, plus a few others suggestions you might consider for your lineups.

Let’s get to winning you some CASH in the 2016 NFL Conference Championship games!

Daily Fantasy Football

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 2.5 fantasy points per $1000 spent.
  • For Draft Kings, try to target at least 3 fantasy points per $1000 spent.
  • For Yahoo! Daily Fantasy, try to target at least 0.7-0.8 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.

So, without further to do, here are my suggestions for the Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games for NFL Conference Championship contests, along with they’re prices on Fan Duel (“FD”), Draft Kings (“DK”) and Yahoo! Daily Fantasy (“Y!”).

FanDuel

Again, to encourage some diversity in your lineups, I’m giving you two sample lineups for FanDuel this week.

In the NFL Conference Championships, you have only two games to choose from, and frankly, I think you have only one game to choose from, and that’s the Green Bay Packers at the Atlanta Falcons.

I broke this game down in this week’s podcast, but the long and short of the matter is that this game has the ridiculously high over/under of 61 and honestly could go even higher than that, as both teams have red hot offenses and exploitable defenses.  That means all offensive skill players are viable options, but for the Packers, I prefer Aaron Rodgers, Randall Cobb and Jared Cook, while on the Falcons, I prefer Matt Ryan, Devonta Freeman, Tevin Coleman, Julio Jones and Mohamed Sanu.

As between Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan at QB, both are equally good, but I have a slight preference for Ryan.  The reason is because Jordy Nelson has 2 cracked ribs and a cold/flu, Davante Adams has a sprained ankle and Geronimo Allison has a hamstring injury.  It’s possible they all play, but it’s pretty clear that Randall Cobb and Jared Cook may be the only two truly healthy targets on the field.  Plus, although Ty Montgomery had a decent day against the Cowboys, Green Bay’s ground game is mediocre at best.  And finally, Rodgers himself is now “under the weather” with a cold/flu.

I’m sure it will take more than a cold/flu to hold Rodgers back, but that plus the potential shortage of viable targets and lack of a reliable ground game make him a slightly riskier play.

UPDATE – Jordy Nelson, Davante Adams and Geronimo Allison will play, but Nelson likely to wear a Kevlar vest, and the word is all three would likely have sit out this game if this were a regular season game, so none are recommended DFS plays.

Matt Ryan, on the other hand, should get his full complement of weapons, even with Julio Jones’ minor toe issue, and he has two solid running backs in the backfield, whom he also likes to target in the pass game.

The Falcons averaged 36.7 points per game over the final 6 weeks of the regular season and have been dominant on offense all season long.  We’ve all waited for Ryan to implode, but he’s been all-systems-go all season, as he’s tallied the 2nd most passing yards (4944), 2nd most passing TDs (38) and 8th least interceptions (7) in the league.  And I don’t think that stops this weekend against a bottom 12 Packers pass defense per Football Outsiders DVOA.  And, to top it off, Ryan is a little bit cheaper than Rodgers.

Feel free to mix-and-match the receivers I noted above as your cap space allows, but Jared Cook is the chalk play at TE this week.  He was the hero of the Divisional Playoffs and totaled 100+ yards and TD.  Particularly with healthy options dropping like flies, and a Falcons defense that struggles to defend TEs (giving up the 9th most catches (86) and yards (988) and 6th most TDs (8) to tight ends this season), there really isn’t a safer play.

And as for RBs, both Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman are in play as both have used almost evenly in recent games.  Last week, both scored TDs and both are involved in the pass game out of the backfield, so you could even play both if you want.  The Packers are vulnerable on the ground, allowing 4.68 YPC to opposing RBs over its last six games.  If you have cap space, I like Freeman slightly better based on slightly higher volume, but don’t be shy about saving money with Coleman.

As for the Pittsburgh Steelers at New England Patriots game, I’m probably looking to fade the high price options.  I’ve already broken down this game in a previous article and in this week’s podcast, but the fact of the matter is that the Patriots have a sneaky good run defense, so I don’t want to pay up for Le’Veon Bell this week.  He may still produce, but he’s just too expensive for the matchup.  If you must roster a Steeler, I’d go with Antonio Brown.  The weakness in the Patriots defense is against the pass, so Brown has the highest upside.  Plus, it’s pretty likely the Steelers will be behind.  However, I’d stay away from Ben Roethlisberger, as he has horrible home / road splits and demonstrated how low that floor can be last week against the Chiefs.  It’s just not worth the risk.

On the Patriots side, I can understand playing Tom Brady, but if you’re going to pay up for QB, I just like Ryan and Rogers more.  But if you need the extra cash to fit in other elite options, particularly on FanDuel, go for it.  And if you must play Patriots at the skill positions, then I prefer Julian Edelman and Dion Lewis.  Brady spreads it around a lot, but Edelman gets plenty of receptions, which is nice for full PPR sites like Draft Kings, and Lewis takes advantage of both the ground game and targets from Brady.  It’s tempting to give Lagarrette Blount and his league leading 18 rushing TDs another go after a disappointing week, but it just seems incredibly risky as his floor is incredibly low when he doesn’t score.  The one chalk play here is the New England Patriots Defense.  The defense prices are pretty close, and I just don’t trust the Steelers to contain Brady.

Draft Kings

On Draft Kings, the defenses other than the Patriots are incredibly cheap.  They’re all at least $1700 cheaper.  Honestly, I still think it’s worth paying up for the Patriots, since I think the other three defenses are going to allow a lot of scoring.  But if you must go with another defense so you have enough cap space for other elite options, try the Pittsburgh Steelers.  They at least have a solid pass rush and could bring interior pressure with James Harrison and Bud Dupree and could at least pick up a few sacks.

You’ll also note Lagarrette Blount is in the FLEX spot.  Honestly, part of it is that he’s the best value for what fit under the cap space, but last time Blount faced the Steelers he had 100+ yards and 2 TDs.  I don’t think he’ll get that, but perhaps he’ll get another #revengeTD.

Yahoo! DFS

Good luck everyone, and I hope you all win DFS Cash in the NFL Conference Championship Weekend!

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