“Buy or Bye”™ – Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Conference Championship 2020 Cash Games

January 22, 2021

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 the Conference Championships! We’re 72% on lineups so far this year, but we’re looking to win even more!

You’re welcome. ?

As usual, before we get to winning you more bragging rights (and DFS cash), remember, the point 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 the Conference Championships!

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 the Conference Championships, 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. But remember that DFS is a salary cap game. You can feel free to sprinkle high priced players into your lineups, but you can’t pay up at every position because there’s simply not enough salary to go around. 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.
Tough to find a “Free Square of the Week”™ for the Conference Championships, but if there’s one position to pay down for, it’s RB. Aaron Jones is probably the the top RB option, but his premium pricing is tough to justify against the top tanked Buccaneers run defense. So I’d rather pay down for Ronald Jones and Devin Singletary. Jones is finally healthy and looked great even less than 100% last week. When they met in the regular season, Jones put up 113 yards on 23 carries and 2 TDs against the Packers, who are more susceptible on the ground than through the air. His price is depressed coming off injury, so it looks like a nice place to save some cap space. Singletary did essentially nothing to take advantage of Zack Moss being out last week, primarily because the Bills didn’t let him do anything. But they’ll have to be more than one dimensional to beat the Packers, and the Packers defense are worst against the run (19th) than the pass (11th). So I’m going back to the well this week.
The Buffalo Bills @ Kansas City Chiefs game has the higher over/under of the two games this weekend (54) and we’re expecting fireworks. For the Chiefs, I like Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and Mecole Hardman, in that order. Sure, I like Patrick Mahomes as well, but coming off a concussion/nerve injury with ultra premium pricing makes me a little wary. I’d rather pay up for his targets instead, and with Sammy Watkins questionable and coming off injury, Hardman and even Robinson can be a decent place to save cap space (though I prefer Hardman). For the Bills, I’m all in on Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs. I know I said they have to be balanced to beat the Chiefs, but the honest truth is if Allen and Diggs aren’t firing on all cylinders, no amount of balance will same them. Allen has been incredible this year with the 7th most passing yards (281), 6th most passing TDs (2.22) and 4th most rushing TDs (0.5) per game of any QB this season. He’s my preferred QB play this week. With Gabriel Davis also coming off injury and questionable, I also don’t mind playing John Brown after his 8 of 11 for 62 yard performance last week. Clearly he’s getting plenty of opportunities.
- UPDATE – With Clyde Edwards-Hilaire set to play and Le’Veon Bell likely to sit, I don’t mind sprinkling in some Edwards-Hilaire at his discount price.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Green Bay Packers game should also be fairly competitive with two solid offenses. For the Packers, I prefer to target Davante Adams and Robert Tonyan instead of Aaron Rodgers. About 43% of Rodgers passing yards went to the combination of Adams and Tonyan and Adams has had a TD in 14 of 17 games this season. And I prefer to do the same for the Bucs, targeting Chris Godwin and Mike Evans instead of Tom Brady, particularly now with Antonio Brown ruled out. I don’t mind punting with Scotty Miller as well to take advantage of Brown’s absence.
On defense, I prefer just to pay down to the cheapest option. The Bills defense gets to face a slightly less than 100% Chiefs team and is actually pretty opportunistic having the 3rd most total takeaways this season (26). As I mentioned on the most recent podcast, although the Buccaneers defense will be facing a steep challenge in the Packers, they’re also a decent play with the 5th most total takeaways this season (25) and with 14% of defensive series ending in a turnover, as well as allowing the 6th least yards per game (327.1) and tied for the 4th most sacks (48) this season. The Chiefs defense has the 10th most takeaways this season (22) and are facing a pseudo one dimensional Bills offense. You can make an argument for any of them, and none of the matchups are ideal, so fill this last and take whatever fits.