The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Edition – Week 1

Welcome to the 2021 NFL Season!

It always feels like the one sport that is gone long enough so that I always have time to miss it each year and am truly excited to see it return. None of the other major seasonal leagues have anything quite like the buildup to the NFL each fall and that is on display as much as ever in Daily Fantasy Sports where the salaries for Week 1 dropped about 6-7 weeks ago in helping to build up that anticipation.

This is always one of the most fun Sundays of the year as every team enters the season with a clean slate and at least a few compelling story lines unless you live in Detroit or Houston (though the Deshaun Watson fiasco is at least something to see in Houston). Nearly every other team around the league enters the week feeling a bit of hope. This is similar to what most fantasy owners feel as they look over their rosters for season long leagues and start to do their research for Week 1.

There are some unique aspects to Week 1 that make it a lot different from the rest of the season. While it is great to have the hype  building up in August with the salary release, as training camp gets going, the picture of who will actually be on the field becomes much more clear. Injuries take place to a lot of key players which opens up opportunities for backups to step into starting roles immediately. Also, the pricing tends to be really lenient to open the season. If DK or FD were to come out and make it really tough to build a fun lineup the first week it would lead to novice players getting discouraged early and not wanting to come back in future weeks. It is a lot more fun for casual players to see 3-4 stars on their roster to root for than trying to dig too deeply to sift through hundreds of names. These types of fantasy players want to do a few minutes of research, plug in a quick team and have something to casually follow for the rest of the day. It is a week where it is harder to make mistakes, which also means that it can be a little more challenging for better players.

The best part of my fantasy season each year happens at around Thanksgiving through the end of the season. While we have a lot of data to work with in building our player pools this week, there is still so much that is unknown. There are a handful of examples that are worth mentioning, but as a Vikings fan, I did see one that really stood out. I think Joe Mixon is a three down RB this season. He’s priced well this week and worthy of consideration for cash lineups. But I have repeatedly seen really questionable analysis of his matchup. One prominent DFS writer gave a high percentage of carries that resulted in TDs against the Vikings in 2020. Another well respected member of the fantasy community mentioned that the Vikings had improved their secondary but were no better upfront. Huh?

I don’t think the Vikings have an elite defensive unit, but they are going to be far superior to last season. They return Danielle Hunter from a neck injury that cost him the entire 2020 season. He’s averaged over 10 sacks per season in his career. They signed stud defensive tackle, Michael Pierce before the 2020 season who sat out due to COVID fears last year. This offseason, they further backed up the truck to sign defensive tackles Dalvin Tomlinson and Sheldon Richardson. The return of Everson Griffin should give them a nice complimentary edge rusher and Erik Kendricks is back to full health leading the linebacker group. This defensive front should be among the better groups in the league if they avoid injuries. If people look blindly at the numbers from last season and their rationale for playing Joe Mixon is that the Vikings ranked 30th against the run last season (DVOA), they might be in for a rude awakening tomorrow.

This is what makes Week 1 so interesting, but also challenging. Sure, most teams have a lot of the same key pieces in place from a year ago, but it is not unusual to see 50% turnover or more on any given roster around the league. That is one the things that makes what Tampa Bay did so amazing in that they were able to return every starter after winning the Super Bowl. Unreal. But for most teams, it will take a few weeks to put everything together. The NFL reduced the number of preseason games from four to three and it really seemed to take the air out of what was left in those games. There were a few teams that gave starters meaningful time, but not many. Some that did, like the Ravens, paid a heavy price. I would not draw many conclusions based upon those games.

Accept that there are still some mysteries going into the season. Your biggest advantages are going to come as we gather more data and can start to interpret how things have changed, even if just subtly from last year. It is a great week to jump back in, but take your time. The wisest advice I can give is to manage your bankroll carefully. Start with maybe half of your normal amount to put in play and gradually increase it over the first month until you get comfortable again and start to see how these teams come together and which teams look especially strong or weak in certain areas on offense and defense. I’ll be here doing my best to guide you across the cash line for the next 20 weeks!

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