“Buy or Bye”™ – Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Week 1 2025 Cash Games

September 6, 2025

By Ha Kung Wong

In 2024, we were over 70% for cash lineups again and we’re back with more Daily Fantasy Football advice for Cash Games for Week 1 of the 2025 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!

Let’s get to winning you some CASH in Week 1 of the 2025 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 Week 1 contests.

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 Josh Allen and Jahmyr Gibbs 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 in Week 1 is to mostly go mid-priced throughout the lineups since we have no actual intel on who is worth paying up for in the current 53-man rosters. I think you can get one or two premium studs at the RB or WR position with all the value, but don’t have to.
The “Free Square of the Week”™ is Ricky Pearsall. It’s tough to pick a “Free Square” in Week 1, because most starters are healthy, but we do know that the 49ers are having issues keeping healthy WRs on their roster. Brandon Aiyuk is still recovering from an ACL injury and Juaun Jennings is just coming off an injury, not to mention a bizarre request to be traded, so George Kittle may be his biggest competition for targets. Pearsall has a season under the belt and has shown great chemistry with Brock Purdy this preseason, so his he’s underpriced for his opportunity. For similar reasons, I like Egmeka Egbuka as well as a cheap value play with Chris Godwin out.
- UPDATE: With Christian Kirk ruled out, Jaylin Noel should pick up both his slot receiver and punt returner responsibilities. He’s essentially minimum price, so he’s not a bad punt play.
The Cincinnati Bengals @ Cleveland Browns game has the highest over/under of the main slate (48.5), so I’m in on most of the skill players here, particularly Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Chase Brown for the Bengals and Joe Flacco and David Njoku for the Browns, but for different reasons. I’m a fan of the Bengals offense who’s now locked in their top 3 plus Chase Brown is a steal with his pass catching upside. With Bengals defense still a wreck, even in the preseason, the Bengals will have to keep scoring to win. Speaking of which, Flacco and Njoku are cheaply priced across industry and get to face the aforementioned dumpster fire known as the Bengals defense, so they make for great salary saving plays with upside.

De’Von Achane is priced about right for his projected workload, which should be pretty extensive. Getting the lion’s share of the backfield carries with Jaylen Warren out and only rookie Ollie Gordon backing him up certainly helps, and the pass catching upside makes him and even better play against the Colts 25th ranked pass defense.

De’Von Achane Rushing & Receiving Stats
			Rush	Rush	Rush	Rush	Rush	Rece	Rece	Rece	Rece
Season	Team	G	Att	Yds	TD	Y/A	Y/G	Tgt	Rec	Yds	TD
2023	MIA	11	103	800	8	7.8	72.7	37	27	197	3
2024	MIA	17	203	907	6	4.5	53.4	87	78	592	6
2 Yr	2 Yr	28	306	1707	14	5.6	61.0	124	105	789	9
17 G	17 G	17	186	1036	9	5.6	61.0	75	64	479	5

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table

New Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak has a positive history with running backs putting Kenneth Walker III in a great spot now that he’s healthy. He looked good in the preseason, and priced way below value across industry.
Rookies are always priced down at the beginning of the season, but Ashton Jeanty‘s pricing on FanDuel and Yahoo are just criminal. He’s the clear bell cow back in Las Vegas against the Patriots 31st ranked defense, and outside Brock Bowers, there aren’t a ton of great options for Geno Smith to toss the ball to.
And continuing the same theme, Travis Hunter is listed as the WR2 in Jacksonville, and the Jaguars didn’t draft him 2nd overall to not get targets. Plus, Trevor Lawrence is fully healthy and should be targeting Hunter almost as much as the much more expensive Brian Thomas Jr. The Panthers 30th ranked pass defense make both Lawrence and Hunter solid plays.
On defense, I love taking value and paying down, and mysteriously, some of the better defenses of the weekend, the San Francisco Defense against the Seattle Seahawks, is near the bottom salary on Yahoo. On Draft Kings, I like the Steelers and Texans, both really cheap and on FanDuel, I prefer the Los Angeles Rams Defense.