“Buy or Bye”™ – Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Week 2 2025 Cash Games

September 13, 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 2 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 2 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 2 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 2 is to pay up at QB and RB and go value at WR and DEF.
The “Free Square of the Week”™ are Cedric Tillman and Kayshon Boutte. Both are terrific cap savers this week.
- Cedric Tillman caught 5 of 8 targets for 52 yards and a TD in Week 1, cementing him as the WR2 in Cleveland. He gets to face the Ravens this weekend, who have a terrific defense but is still just 18th against the pass, plus should benefit from a negative game script.
- Kayshon Boutte was the Patriot’s most involved WR with an 82 percent snap share, and also the most productive Drake Maye target grabbing 6 of 8 targets for 103 yards. He has the Dolphins 29th ranked pass defense on tap, which should allow for some upside compared to his bare bones pricing.

The Jacksonville Jaguars @ Cincinnati Bengals game has the highest over/under of the main slate (49.5) with just a 3.5-point spread, 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 (in that order) and Travis Etienne, Brenton Strange and Brian Thomas Jr. for the Jaguars (in that order). The Bengals offense didn’t click in Week 1, but they’re just too good not find their footing, plus they’re facing the 20th ranked Jaguars pass defense. On the other side, the Bengals defense is still a wreck, only avoiding losing to Joe Flacco and the Browns due to a missed extra point. Speaking of which, the Jaguars are cheaply priced across industry and get to face the aforementioned dumpster fire known as the Bengals defense now ranked 31st in the NFL, so they make for great salary saving plays with upside. In particular, Travis Etienne is back on track after 143 rush yards and 13 receiving yards in Week 1, leading to Tank Bigsby being shipped out of town, meaning that Etienne should continue getting bell cow treatment.

Travis Etienne Rushing & Receiving Stats
			Rush	Rush	Rush	Rush	Rece	Rece	Rece	Rece	Rece
Season	Team	G	Att	Yds	TD	Y/G	Tgt	Rec	Yds	TD	Y/G
2022	JAX	17	220	1125	5	66.2	45	35	316	0	18.6
2023	JAX	17	267	1008	11	59.3	73	58	476	1	28.0
2024	JAX	15	150	558	2	37.2	52	39	254	0	16.9
2025	JAX	1	16	143	0	143.0	3	3	13	0	13.0
4 Yr	4 Yr	50	653	2834	18	56.7	173	135	1059	1	21.2
17 G	17 G	17	222	964	6	56.7	59	46	360	0	21.2

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

The 49ers are really struggling with injuries, and now both George Kittle and Brock Purdy are out leaving Mac Jones behind center passing the ball to basically just Ricky Pearsall and Christian McCaffrey. I think the 49ers are going to lean pretty heavily on CMC, so he’s one of my favorite plays if paying up at RB, but Pearsall could be a decent play due to the lack of viable targets for Jones.
Josh Allen is insane. After managing to put up 17 points in just under 5 minutes for a come-from-behind victory against the Ravens in Week 1, he gets to roll into a showdown with a Jets defense that just let a 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers pass for 4 TDs. There’s certainly some danger that he only plays 3 quarters after getting up big on the Jets, but the Jets offense do look legit so it should stay close enough to keep him in most of the game. He’s one of my favorite pay up plays at QB.
The Chiefs don’t look as dynamic as they were in previous seasons, but they’re still the Chiefs. Rashee Rice is still suspended and now Xavier Worthy is doubtful with a shoulder injury. When Worthy went out last week, it was Hollywood Brown who picked up the additional targets, catching 10 of 16 for 99 yards. Travis Kelce should also pick up some targets and is always a threat to score as he did in Week 1. Both make for decent plays in Week 2 in a Super Bowl rematch against the Eagles.
On defense, I love taking value and paying down, and mysteriously, one of the better defenses of the weekend, the Baltimore Ravens Defense, is minimum salary on Yahoo. On Draft Kings, I like the Los Angeles Rams Defense, which is priced too cheap, and on FanDuel, I prefer the Arizona Cardinals Defense.