Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games – Week 9

November 3, 2017

By Ha Kung Wong Daily Fantasy Football

And we’re back for Week 9 of the NFL season and MORE DFS CASH! Hope you followed my advice last week, since most of my lineups CASHED! If not, no worries, we got you covered for this week too.

We all know that DFS is a great way to prove you have serious football IQ and earn you bragging rights among your friends (and if you’re like me, among your family as well!). And heck, if you win cash, that’s just gravy, right? (No need to answer that question, it was totally rhetorical. I know you all like cash. And gravy.)

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!

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.

So, without further to do, here are my suggestions for the Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games for Week 9 contests, along with they’re prices on Fan Duel (“FD”), Draft Kings (“DK”) and Yahoo! Daily Fantasy (“Y!”).

FanDuel

To provide you with some diversity, I have two sample lineups this week.

At QB, I like Drew Brees, but I don’t mind saving a little cap space with Jared Goff.

Brees has a terrific matchup at home against the 2nd worst pass defense per DVOA in the league. He’s sporting the 3rd best completion percentage in the league (71%) and the 4th most passing yards per game (278.7), plus he’s always better at home. Plus, this game has the second highest over/under of any game this week at 52. If you’re paying up at QB, I like his chances.

Drew Brees leads all QBs in adjusted completion % pic.twitter.com/Hy6Y96Fjjh

— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) October 31, 2017

As for Goff, he’ll be facing a bottom 10 Giants pass defense per DVOA that will be without their top corner in Janoris Jenkins. Goff doesn’t have a ton of upside, but he’s done well against bottom tier defenses, including in Week 1 against the Colts, Week 3 against the 49ers and Week 7 against the Cardinals. He averaged 278 yards and 2 TDs over those three contests, and think he can do about that this week as well.

At RB, I like Ezekiel Elliott, Carlos Hyde and Alvin Kamara.

Zeke not only has a terrific matchup against the Chiefs 2nd to worst run defense, but he also has extra incentive after getting yet ANOTHER stay from having to serve his 6-game suspension. Maybe he’ll get to play more than one more game and maybe not, but as long as he’s on the field, the Cowboys will definitely feed him the ball.

Believe it or not, but Hyde has the 11th most carries (112) and the 5th most target (46) in the league this season. The Cardinals run defense is no pushover, but Hyde is getting plenty of volume and with Drew Stanton under center now for the Cardinals, I suspect neither team will be able to run away with the game. At the price, I think he’s worth firing up.

As for WRs, I like Julio Jones, Dez Bryant, Ted Ginn Jr. and Russell Shepard.

I’m not usually a fan of rostering a RB and WR from the same team, because there’s only so many offensive snaps to go around and I always feel like I’m hedging when I do that. But in the case of the Cowboys vs. the Chiefs, I’m making an exception. Part of the reason is that this is the game with the highest over/under of any game this weekend at 54. But the main reason is that Bryant will be facing the 3rd worst pass defense in the league who have allowed a league leading 13 WR TDs. He’s been shuffling a but in terms of receiving yards, but is still drawing the 8th most targets per game among WRs in the league (9.1). I think he gets his this weekend.

Jones has been shuffling a bit as well, but is still the number 1 option in Atlanta and has quietly had the 5th most receiving yards per game this year (77.1). The Panthers have a decent pass defense, but they’re only ranked 22nd in the league against WR1. Cue Jones for a big day.

Julio Jones is as consistent as any WR pic.twitter.com/Af5zaRGKUP

— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) October 28, 2017

Ginn has had solid outings in 4 of his last 5 games, and has significantly benefited from the long ball. Ginn gets you some cheap exposure to everything that I like about Drew Brees above.

And finally, we all saw the Panthers essentially give up on their season by trading away Kelvin Benjamin to the Buffalo Bills. Devin Funchess should immediately benefit, but so will bottom basement priced Russell Shepard. Sure, Curtis Samuel should also steal some targets, but Shepard will play more on the outside in that WR2 spot where the Falcons rank last defending against per DVOA. If you punt, it opens more cap space to shore up elsewhere, so feel free to slot him in. Think of him as a punt with upside.

At TE, since I had the cap space, I went with Travis Kelce. Kelce has the most receptions (44) and most yards (556) of any TE this season. Plus, Dallas is ranked 29th at defending TEs per DVOA. Add it all up and you have blow up game written all over it.

On defense, I’m all in with saving money on the Indianapolis Colts against the suddenly offensively challenged Houston Texans. I don’t think the Colts defense is really that good, but with Tom Savage taking over after the freak ACL tear to rookie superstar Deshaun Watson, I fully expect the Texans offense to become dysfunctional again. So why not pay the minimum and take advantage?

Draft Kings

On Draft Kings, I also liked Kareem Hunt, Doug Martin and Evan Engram.

Hunt hasn’t been scoring TDs lately, but he does have the most rush yards (763) and the 5th most receiving yards (307) of any RB in the NFL this season. They’ll need all of that in the likely shootout against the Cowboys this weekend.

Martin is just a great underpriced value in a great matchup against the 29th ranked Saints run defense. If you need to save a few dollars, here’s a solid pick, particularly with the Bucs pass game sputtering.

And Engram has been essentially the only bright spot in a “stick a fork in it” year for the Giants. He has the 5th most targets of any TE in the league (53) and has led the Giants in receptions and yards two weeks in a row, ever since OBJ and Brandon Marshall were injured. He’s priced to move on Draft Kings, so slot him in.

Yahoo! DFS

With Yahoo, the only new face is Vernon Davis.

To be clear, I like Davis on every site, but he’s particularly well priced on Yahoo this week. With Jordan Reed out, Davis has plenty of TE1 upside. The only reason to worry is that the Seahawks are one of the best at defending TEs, but for the price, I’m going for it.