“Buy or Bye”™: Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Week 2 2020 Cash Games

September 19, 2020

By Ha Kung Wong

In 2019, we were over 70% for cash lineups and we’re back with more Daily Fantasy Football advice for Cash Games for Week 2 of the 2020 season!

As usual, before we get to winning you bragging rights (and DFS cash), remember, the Oopoint 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!

Let’s get to winning you some CASH in Week 2 of the 2020 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 for Week 2 contests, along with they’re prices on FanDuel (“FD”), Draft Kings (“DK”) and Yahoo! Daily Fantasy (“Y!”).

FanDuel

Draft Kings

Yahoo! DFS

Game Notes:

For those new to this column, note that I never advocate against you paying up at any particular position. We all know that Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson 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 those into your lineups, but you can’t pay up at every position because there’s simply not enough salary to go around. So 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. So feel free to sprinkle in those to end players if you have cap space!
“Free Square of the Week”™ – With Marlon Mack out for the season, much hyped rookie Jonathan Taylor is now the starting RB for the Indianapolis Colts. Sure, Nyheim Hines got plenty of run last week, and you can feel free to play Hines as well, but Taylor will surely be favored for early down and goal line work, plus he’s the 22nd priced RB on FanDuel, 10th on Draft Kings, and 18th on Yahoo DFS, which is about the same as Hines. He’s an auto-play on FanDuel and Yahoo DFS, and strongly recommended on Draft Kings although being more fairly priced. Plug him in and enjoy the savings.
- If you feel like playing an even cheaper “lead RB”, feel free to fill in Frank Gore. With Le’Veon Bell on IR and La’Mical Perine still working back from an injury, Gore should get plenty of volume, though I wouldn’t count on much efficiency as the Jets are really struggling on offense. Regardless, he’s near minimum price around the industry.
I really like most skill players in Dallas this week as the Falcons @ Cowboys game has the highest over/under of any game in Week 2 (53.5) with Dallas favored by just 3, meaning it should remain relatively close. For the Cowboys, I like Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott and, if you’re looking to catch lightening in a bottle, CeeDee Lamb. I’m not as high on the Falcons, but I don’t mind playing Matt Ryan, Todd Gurley or Calvin Ridley. I don’t like paying up for Julio Jones, particularly with the hamstring injury, no matter how minor. Gurley was mediocre in Week 1, but is only a year removed from 1,251 rush yards, 580 receiving yards and a whopping 21 TDs, and the upside is still there for the price.
Ravens @ Texans has the second highest over/under in Week 2 (50), and the Ravens are just unstoppable on offense, so I like Marquise Brown (who’s a great value across industry) and Mark Andrews, and don’t mind sprinkling in some Lamar Jackson, though he’s pretty pricey. Andrews might be my favorite TE this week if you can afford him. I’m not as big on the Texans in light of the Raven’s defense, but that being said, I do like rostering the Baltimore Ravens Defense, as they’re fairly priced around industry.
I also have a few favorites at each position:
- At quarterback, now that I have a week’s worth of information, I typically like balancing value with upside. And that means I’m taking Josh Allen and Kyler Murray. Allen and Murray are respectively the 4th and 5th priced quarterback on FanDuel, 5th and 11th on Draft Kings and 4th and 6th on Yahoo DFS. Between the two, I’m favoring Murray slightly because of salary, particularly on Draft Kings. Allen faces the Dolphins, who had the last placed defense in 2019 per DVOA and 29th in Week 1. Murray faces the Washington Football Team who had the 27th ranked defense in 2019. Washington now has Chase Young and that disruption caused a world of hurt for Carson Wentz in Week 1, but Murray still has plenty of upside, which he flashed in Week 1 with 231 passing yards, 91 rush yards and 2 total TDs. Those rush yards are gold in DFS, and Allen had them as well in Week 1, adding 57 rush yards and a rushing TD on top of a whopping 312 passing yards and 2 passing TDs. You essentially get the upside of Mahomes and Jackson at a discount.
- At wide receiver, I’m loving Adam Thielen, Allen Robinson and Marvin Jones. Thielen put up 110 yards, 2 TDs and 2 PT conversion in Week 1 and faces in Week 2 a Colts defense that allowed three different Jacksonville WRs to catch a TD in Week 1. Robinson put up 74 yards on 5 receptions in Week 1, but he’s got plenty more upside than that as Mitchell Trubisky’s favorite target (last year having the 3rd most targets of any WR in the NFL). And he now gets to face a Giants team that was carved up for 229 passing yards and 3 TDs by Ben Roethlisberger. If you want to save some salary, I actually don’t mind going with Anthony Miller as your third WR or flex based on the match up and price. And finally, with Kenny Golladay out again, I like Jones at a discount against the non-existent Packers secondary that was just carved up by the aforementioned Thielen.
- At tight end, as I mentioned above, I really like Mark Andrews. Andrews followed out his breakout season in 2019 exactly where he left off with 5 receptions for 58 yards and 2 TDs. He was in on 41.5% of the Ravens’ offensive snaps in 2019, which increased dramatically to 71.2% in Week 1. And he wasn’t just blocking as he ran a route on 87% of the Ravens’ dropbacks in Week 1. Jackson loves targeting him in the redzone giving him huge TD upside on top of his consistent use in the passing game. I’m all in on Andrews this week, and probably for the entire season at his current price.
- At defense, I usually just take value, and thus week, that’s the Kansas City Chiefs defense. The Chiefs defense was 14th per DVOA in 2019, and managed to keep the the Texans in check through 3 quarters prior to some garbage time scores. Their the 6th priced defense on FanDuel, 7th on Draft Kings and 3rd on Yahoo DFS, making them an exceptional value on FanDuel and Draft Kings, and still favorable on Yahoo DFS. I mentioned the Baltimore Ravens defense above as a reasonable alternative to sprinkle in and the Buffalo Bills defense are probably the top choice, but are expensive everywhere except for Yahoo DFS, where they’re a steal at the 6th priced defense.

UPDATE (9/19) – With Chris Godwin and AJ Brown ruled out, both Scotty Miller and Corey Davis make interesting value plays as your 3rd WR or flex across industry.

Good luck everyone with your Week 2 Cash Lineups, and I’ll see you next week for some Week 3 Cash Lineup suggestions!