“Buy or Bye”™ – Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Thanksgiving 2022 Cash Games

November 24, 2022

By Ha Kung Wong

Gobble gobble everyone and hope you’re having a terrific Thanksgiving!

But what’s better than stuffing your face with gravy drenched turkey, mashed potatoes and those weird green bean casseroles which are really just Campbells cream of mushroom with canned vegetables? Winning money on your DFS cash games, of course!

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 on Thanksgiving of the 2022 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 and player props for Thanksgiving contests, along with they’re prices.

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 for DFS. We all know that the likes of Patrick Mahomes 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.
My approach to DFS on Thanksgiving is to pay down up at QB since there are so few games and get at least one stud WR to anchor my team. There’s some decent values at RB.
No “Free Square of the Week”™ for Thanksgiving, but I do like the value you get from Darius Slayton. Wan’Dale Robinson is out and Slayton has quietly averaged 6.5 targets and 76.3 receiving yards over the last 4 games. Being the defacto WR1 in a game where the Giants will likely need to chase points increasing his chances to do more of the same and his price is fairly low across industry, not having caught up to his production.
The Buffalo Bills @ Detroit Lions game has the highest over/under (54.5) of the Thanksgiving games, the Lions have just the last ranked defense in the NFL so I’m really in on the Bills, including Stefon Diggs, Devin Singletary, Gabe Davis and Josh Allen, in that order. I’d like Allen more if he was 100% healthy and not so expensive across industry, but I don’t mind sprinkling him in since the Lions recently allowed big games to mobile QBs Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Fields and Daniel Jones, which is something that Allen can also take advantage of. The Bills defense is better, being ranked 13th, but the Lions have showed some offensive prowess over the last couple weeks and will likely also need to chase points. I like Jamaal Williams and Amron-Ra St. Brown, but I prefer to pay down for D’Andre Swift, who is the better RB even with more limited carries and is priced way below Williams across industry.
I’m really in on Dak Prescott since he’s been on fire over the last 3 games, averaging 263.7 passing yards, 18.7 rush yards and 2.7 total TDs and faces the Giants 17th ranked defense. I think he’s the safest QB play this week and is priced almost 25% lower than Josh Allen across industry.