Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games – Week 16

By Ha Kung Wong  Daily Fantasy Football

Twitter: @FBGarbageTime

I’ll admit that Week 15 didn’t go off exactly as planned, we’re still cashing at over a 75% rate this season!  And we’re back for the Week 16 NFL games and even MORE DFS CASH!

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!

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 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 15 contests, along with they’re prices on Fan Duel (“FD”), Draft Kings (“DK”) and Yahoo! Daily Fantasy (“Y!”).

FanDuel

To provide you with a little diversity, I have two sample lineups for FanDuel this week.

At QB, I like Cam Newton and Blake Bortles.

  • Cam Newton is back to being Cam, particularly with the return of his favorite target, Greg Olsen, returning to form.  And he arrived in grand fashion with 300 total yards and 4 TDs in Week 15.  Best of all, his rushing yards are back as he’s had at least 50 in 5 of his last 6 games.  And this week he gets to face the Buccaneers 4th worst pass defense in the NFL at home.  Sounds good to me.
  • This game also has the highest over/under of any game this week (54).
  • Bortles is a value play, as he’s had 4 straight games with at least 220 total yards and 2 total TDs.  He’s been productive throwing and running the ball and now faces the 49ers 2nd worst pass defense.

At RB, I like Todd Gurley, Kenyan Drake and Dion Lewis.

  • As I’ve mentioned in the past, Gurley is a beast.  He has the 3rd most rushing yards (1,187), most rushing TDs (13), 2nd most receiving yards (630) and 3rd most receiving TDs (4) of any RB in the NFL.  He’s matchup proof.
  • Drake embarrassed the Patriots in Week 14 to the tune of 114 rush yards and 79 receiving yards and followed that up in Week 15 against the Bills with 113 total yards and a TD.

  • With Rex Burkhead and James White out, Dion Lewis looks to get the majority of the snaps in the Patriots backfield.  He’s been doing great on just 15 touches in 3 of his last 4, so he should do well against Buffalo’s 28th ranked run defense.

As for WRs, I like Michael Thomas, Brandin Cooks, Larry Fitzgerald and Keelan Cole.

  • Thomas is Brees’ favorite target in an important game for the Saints, that also happens to have the highest over/under (52.5) of the weekend, so I expect him to get plenty of work.  But keep an eye on whether his hamstring injury becomes and issue prior to game time.

UPDATE – Since Thomas is going to try out his hamstring in warm-ups and is only “50/50” to play, I’m going to try to reduce my Thomas ownership in my lineups.

UPDATE 2 – Thomas is ACTIVE.  Feel free to deploy as usual, but I have no issues pivoting to Keenan Allen instead at a similar price point.

  • The Pats have to keep their feet on the gas if they want to maintain homefield advantage, so I like Cooks to continue seeing action.  He’s gotten at least 7 targets in 6 of his last 7 games.
  • Fitzgerald is just Mr. Consistent.  He’s averaging almost 10 targets per game over his last 6 and this week he faces the Giants who have allowed the second post yards per game to opposing receivers (272.2).

At TE, I went with Greg Olsen and Eric Ebron.

  • Olsen is finally back!  He’s healthy, hitting on all cylinders and showed up in a big way in Week 15 grabbing 9 of 12 targets for 116 yards and a TD.  He gets the Bucs defense this week, who are ranked 20th defending against TEs.
  • Ebron might have finally turned the corner.  He’s had back-to-back strong games with a combined 15 of 18 targets for 127 total yards and a TD.  And he faces the Bengals who are ranked 30th defending against TEs.

On defense, I went with the Jacksonville Jaguars against the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Chargers against the New York Jets.  The Jets aren’t as bad as I thought they would be with Bryce Petty behind center, but they won’t be a challenge for the Chargers defense.  The Chargers were embarrassed by the Chiefs last week, but that won’t happen against the Jets. As for the Jaguars, they’re the best defense in the league hands down.  Garrappolo looks like the future for the 49ers, but the Jags are much harder challenge and I expect him to come back to Earth here.

Draft Kings 

On Draft Kings, I also liked Kareem Hunt, Theo Riddick and Rishard Matthews.

  • Hunt is back to early season form and the Chiefs are motivated to keep winning to maintain control of the AFC West.
  • Riddick is a PPR monster and Ameer Abdullah appears to have taken a back seat.  Plus, the Bengals are only 17th defending against RB receptions.
  • Matthews is definitely the number one target in Tennessee and they’re also motivated to win this week to stay in the Playoff hunt.  The Rams are solid on pass defense, but are only 10th against WR1s.

Yahoo! DFS

With Yahoo, I also like Ezekiel Elliott.  I’m sure he’ll be ready to go coming off his 6 game suspension, and the Cowboys really need this game.  Plus, he’s criminally underpriced on Yahoo.

UPDATE – This report makes me feel even better about playing Elliott.

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 Tom Brady
  • QB Russell Wilson
  • QB Drew Brees
  • RB Alvin Kamara
  • RB Mark Ingram
  • WR Keenan Allen
  • WR Michael Crabtree
  • WR Marvin Jones Jr.
  • TE Evan Engram
  • TE Delanie Walker
  • DEF Chicago Bears
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