Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games – NFL Divisional Playoff Games

By Ha Kung Wong  Daily Fantasy Football

Twitter: @FBGarbageTime

Well, we’ve finally made it to the playoffs and we got treated to 4 of the dullest games in NFL postseason history.  But hopefully you won some DFS cash to make it more fun!  And we’re back to help you win more cash in the NFL Divisional Playoffs!

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 Divisional Playoff games!

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 Divisional Playoff 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 Divisional Playoffs, you could probably tell I’m all in on Matt Ryan at QB.  I actually don’t mind if you want to play Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady instead, but Rodgers is more expensive and Brady may be asked to do little in the second half as the Patriots roll over the Texans, so I like Ryan’s price to performance ratio.  The Falcons averaged 36.7 points per game over the final 6 weeks 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 Seattle defense that is just 13th at defending the pass per Football Outsiders DVOA.

I’m also expecting Richard Sherman on Julio Jones, which doesn’t mean that Jones won’t get his since he did exceed 100 yards with a TD the first time they met, but it does open up some additional targets for Mohamed Sanu.  The last time the Falcons faced the Seahawks, Sanu garnered the most targets he’s seen in a game this season (10) and snagged 5 of them for 47 and a TD.  Plus, the Seahawks are 3rd worst defending WR2s as per DVOA, by far the most vulnerable part of their defense.  You can play Jones, but he might be tough to fit in with Bell’s astronomical pricing, so I prefer getting exposure through Sanu.

As for the Packers and the Cowboys, that game features the highest total over/under (52.0) and provides plenty of DFS options.

On the Cowboys side, my favorite play is Ezekiel Elliott, who absolutely embarrassed the Green Bay defense with 174 total yards on 5.61 yards per carry back in Week 6.  The Packers went on to give up a total 950 rush yards and 9 rushing TDs, allowing 4.68 YPC, to opposing RBs over its last 10 games of the regular season.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a near repeat for Elliott since the Cowboys led the NFL in rush attempts (499) and the NFC in rush yards (2,396) and yards per carry (4.8) during the regular season.

On the Packers side, with Jordy Nelson ruled out due to cracked ribs, I like all three of the WRs, Davante Adams, Randall Cobb and Geronimo Allison, plus I like Jared Cook at TE.  Adams had one of his most prolific games of the season after Nelson left, catching 8 of 12 targets for 125 yards.   Adams also ranked 3rd in the league in redzone targets (22), so I would be surprised if he didn’t at least grab one TD.  More surprisingly, Cobb, who was questionable to even play last week, destroyed the Giants catching 5 of 7 targets for 116 yards and a whopping 3 TDs.  He won’t repeat the TDs, but will get plenty of opportunities.  Allison is little more of gamble, but his price is pretty low, and Rodgers mentioned that Allison would be the one to step up in Nelson’s absence.  When Allison had WR3 duties with Cobb out, he drew 6 and 7 targets, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do the same this weekend.  Cook is drawing consistent targets week-to-week and makes for a solid value play.

As for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Kansas City Chiefs, I already broke that game down in a previous article.  But the bottom line is that Le’Veon Bell is THE CHALK PLAY this weekend and has to be in your lineups.  He was a beast all season and the Chiefs primary weakness is defending the run.  I don’t mind Antonio Brown, or punting TE with Jesse James since Ladarius Green is out again, but Brown is too expensive for my taste and James is too TD dependent.  On the Chiefs side of the ball, Travis Kelce grades out as the top TE play this week, while Tyreek Hill is a reasonably priced lottery ticket with huge upside.

As far as the Patriots are concerned, I don’t mind playing Tom Brady, but I think the Patriots take a big lead and start milking the clock with LaGarrette Blount.  Whatever you think about the Texans defense sans J.J. Watt, they’re much more vulnerable on the ground than over the air.  Which means that Blount should have plenty of running room to build on his league leading 18 rushing TDs.  And his price is reasonable compared to other top RB options.  The other chalk play for me is the New England Patriots Defense.  They’ve played well as of late and the Texans are no threat to score.  Heck, they were shut out the previous time they met, and I doubt they’ll come close to keeping this competitive this time around.  But from a value standpoint, I like C.J. Fiedorowicz at TE.  He’s had at least 7 targets in 5 of his last 7 games and the Patriots ranked 20th in catches (75) and 24th in yards (725) allowed to TEs this year.

Draft Kings

On Draft Kings, you’ll note that I took Will Fuller.  The price is rock bottom and the matchup also helps.  Believe it or not, the Patriots are ranked only 23rd against the pass per DVOA on Football Outsiders.  And it’s pretty likely that the Texans will have to throw to catch up for most of the game.

Yahoo! DFS

On Yahoo, you’ll note I’m using Thomas Rawls.  I’m not totally excited about his upside, but he piled on 161 yards and a TD in the Wild Card game against the Lions.  And the Falcons are the 4th worst in the NFL at defending against the run per DVOA.  He’s particularly well priced on Yahoo, so I like the value.

Alternative Options

Feel free to use any of the players that I’ve selected on one site in any other site if you have cap space.

In addition to the above, here are few other suggestions for players to use:

• QB Aaron Rodgers @ DAL (FD: $8800 / DK: $8200 / Y!: $40)

I don’t think he’s a chalk play, but he’s probably going to produce.  It’s just that he’s the most expensive QB in the slate, which is why I prefer Matt Ryan.

• QB Tom Brady vs. HOU (FD: $8600 / DK: $7600 / Y!: $37)
• RB Devonta Freeman vs. SEA (FD: $7600 / DK: $5900 / Y!: $27)
• WR Antonio Brown @ KC (FD: $8800 / DK: $9600 / Y!: $40)
• WR Julio Jones vs. SEA (FD: $8300 / DK: $8400 / Y!: $31)
• WR Dez Bryant vs. GB (FD: $7600 / DK: $6600 / Y!: $25)
• TE Travis Kelce vs. PIT (FD: $7100 / DK: $6100 / Y!: $22)
• TE Jesse James vs. MIA (FD: $4500 / DK: $2800 / Y!: $11)

He’s minimum salary and he’ll be starting again that Ladarius Green not playing.  He’s a risky TE punt play, buy can be useful if you don’t want to pay up, or need room to fit in Bell.

Good luck everyone, and I hope you all win DFS Cash in the Divisional Playoff Weekend!