“Buy or Bye”™ – Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Week 9 2021 Cash Games

By Ha Kung Wong 

Twitter: @FBGarbageTime

In 2020, we were over 70% for cash lineups and we’re back with more Daily Fantasy Football advice for Cash Games for Week 9 of the 2021 season!

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!

And this year, we’re also adding our ThriveFantasy prop picks to help you win even MORE money!

Let’s get to winning you some CASH in Week 9 of the 2021 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. ?

ThriveFantasy is actually quite a bit different.  There you have your choice of various player prop bets to pick from.  You can enter a traditional contest where you pick the Over or Under on 10 of the available prop bets, getting more points for risker picks, and compete for the most points in the contest.  Or you can just select two, three, or four player prop bets to create a custom lineup from the list of player predictions. Pick 2/2 correctly, win 3.6x your entry amount ($10 entry wins $36). Pick 3/3 correctly win 6.2x your entry. Pick 4/4 correctly win 11x your entry amount. The only limitation is that you choose athletes from more than one team to be able to enter.

I’ll be providing my 2 way prop bet picks each and every week!

If you’d like to try ThriveFantasy, go to www.ThriveFantasy.com and use code GARBAGETIME to get an instant deposit match up to $100! 

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.

FanDuel 

Draft Kings 

Yahoo! DFS

ThriveFantasy

Game Notes:

• For those new to this column, note that I never advocate against you paying up at any particular position for DFS.  We all know that the likes of Josh Allen and Derrick Henry 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 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.
• The “Free Square of the Week”™ is Devontae Booker.
  • .
• The Minnesota Vikings @ Baltimore Ravens has the highest over/under of (50) of the Sunday afternoon slate, with the Ravens favored by 6.  I love the shootout potential here, and the Ravens have an implied total of 27.5 points, the fourth-highest on the slate, so I’m in on Lamar Jackson, Mark Andrews and Marquise Brown.  In addition to Jackson’s rushing floor (most QB rushing yards per game this season with 68.57), Minnesota struggles against big pass plays being ranked 19th in QBR against deep balls.  The Ravens however have struggled against all passing having the worst pass defense in the NFL, so I like Dalvin Cook (who in addition to having the 4th most rush yards per game this season also averages 4 targets per game), Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen, in that order.
• The Los Angeles Chargers @ Philadelphia Eagles has the 2nd highest over/under of (49.5) of the Sunday afternoon slate, with the Chargers favored by 1.5.  I can see plenty of offense here, so I’m in on Austin Ekeler and Keenan Allen.  Allen leads the Chargers with 25% of team targets and bumped up to 32% of targets in Week 8.  Allen also ranks 17th in the league in routes run from the slot, where the Eagles are mediocre in yards per target allowed.  Ekeler is average over 100 total yards and a TD per game this season and is facing the Eagles bottom 10 run defense.  The Chargers are much better on pass defense, but are last against the run, so I don’t mind speculating on share of Boston Scott, though it’s tough to be sure with Jordan Howard and Kenneth Gainwell also splitting touches.  I also don’t mind a few shares of Jalen Hurts due to the propensity to pile on rush yards.
• My favorite QB if you’re looking to punt on the positions is Jordan Love. The Chiefs are really struggling across the board and have the 8th worst pass defense in the NFL.  Love has upside with Davante Adams returning this week from the COVID list, and is essentially minimum salary across industry, which leaves plenty of cap space to pay up elsewhere.
• Everybody on the Buffalo Bills passing attack is on my radar against the Jaguars 5th worst pass defense.  If you have cap space, feel free to use Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs, and although he disappointed in Week 8, I still like Emmanuel Sanders who’s been averaging 6.14 targets per game this season.
• On defense, I love taking value and paying down, which has me all in on the Dallas Cowboys defense against the Denver Broncos having the most INTs (11) and most return TDs (7) in the NFL this season.  I also don’t mind the Miami Dolphins defense against the Houston Texans, even with Tyrod Taylor back.
• With regard to ThriveFantasy, I really like the Najee Harris rush yards prop and Teddy Bridgewater passing yards props.  The Steelers continue to feed Harris even though he’s averaging just 3.7 yards per carry and just averaging just 68.4 yards.  And the Bears have been a little bit lacking on defense, but still have been relatively effective against the run.  Further, I see the Bears going run heavy to maintain time of possession, which obviously works against Harris’ inefficiencies.  This all means that Harris is unlikely to exceed 81.5 rush yards.  The Broncos have been a mess for quite some time, and now without Von Miller may get even worse.  Bridgewater has struggled significantly when forced bring the offense from behind, and the Cowboys are no slouch on defense, recently shutting down the Vikings pass game.  I’m thinking that Bridgewater would have to get awfully lucky to exceed 258.5 passing yard.

Good luck everyone with your Week 9 Cash Lineups, and I’ll see you next week for some Week 10 Cash Lineups!