The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Edition – Week 12

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to spend it with family, friends and loved ones. If you were really fortunate, you avoided both D’Andre Swift and Darren Waller in your lineups and had a prosperous day. Unfortunately, I landed on both of them and ended up missing the cash line by about 9 points which was incredibly frustrating as I likely would have doubled up easily had both hit anywhere near their normal projections. Of course, Tony Jones did not help out at all later on in the day. We learned a couple of key pieces of information about the Saints’ running attack when Kamara and Ingram are out. First of all, Jones is not particularly good at all between the tackles. For the majority of the night, he averaged a yard per carry until a garbage time carry of 11 yards brought him to a forgettable stat line of 16 carries for a paltry 27 yards. We also learned that Jones has no role in the passing game whatsoever. He was not targeted one time all night.

The tough part was that since it was a three game slate, you needed to be proactive as news came out during the day with so many injuries to account for. Dallas made it sound like CeeDee Lamb would play after practice Wednesday only to change the designation to out Thursday morning. With him out, I dropped from Lamb to Gallup and upgraded at QB to Josh Allen. When it was announced that Ingram was unlikely to play, I went up from Juwan Johnson at TE to Waller and then at the Flex dropped from Diggs to Tony Jones. It seemed like a way to maximize touches and I think with the info that we had going into the game was a good decision. Juwan Johnson never saw so much as a target while blocking TE Nick Vannett hauled in a TD for the Saints. Oh well, when two of the players you pay up for get hurt on a slate, you are in for a tough day. Fortunately, I always play a relatively small portion of my bankroll on Thanksgiving (about 25% of a normal Sunday) and look at DFS as added entertainment on a short slate so it was not too demoralizing and since Dallas and New Orleans both got beat (two teams in the playoff hunt with my Vikings), it was a good day of football.

Week 12 went much better than Turkey Day and continued a run of wins for me over the last month as I was able to college easy victories on both sites again in a week where cash lines were much lower than usual due to some surprisingly poor performances at QB from some of the chalkier players on the slate.

My DraftKings build started again with the value RBs who were stepping in for injured starters. AJ Dillon, Mark Ingram and Jeff Wilson all were in high volume spots against suspect defenses so I started my build plugging all three into my lineup. Jeff Wilson busted, though he should have had another 7.5 points as he was all by himself on a pass play from the 5 yard line and Jimmy G completely botched the throw. Wilson was over 80% owned in most of my cash game contests so it did not hurt my team all that much and he was so cheap that it gave me options at other positions.

I really wanted to get the Browns in as my defense. I considered Carolina as well, but with the Lions playing a QB with zero NFL experience in poor weather, the odds of a 15-20 point output were high enough that I made the decision to pay up a little bit which is something that I typically do not do on defense. The Browns only getting 8 points was disappointing as they allowed D’Andre Swift to bust off a long TD run in the second half, but it was not a terrible output.

With the Cowboys losing Amari Cooper mid week to COVID, it bumped up Michael Gallup to the WR2 role for the Cowboys in a high point total game where I knew he would come in chalky. He did not produce much, but it could have been a much different day had Dak not overthrown him on the first play of the game when he sprinted by a fallen defender and was wide open for what would have been at least a 40 yard gain. He was around 80% owned in many of my cash game contests as well so his weak effort did not hurt much.

The two players that I targeted on DK the most were Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams. Adams was easily the top WR option last week. He had an amazing matchup against the Vikings indoors at Minnesota against a team that he has destroyed for the last couple of seasons. I knew that either Hill, Adams or both would break the slate and Adams ended up being the man to do it. Hill put up solid numbers against the Cowboys in a game where both offenses were stuck in the mud.

By paying up for two stud WRs, I had to drop down at QB which is normally something I try to avoid. I have been burned over the years in paying down at QB so I have to feel really good about a matchup in order to pull the trigger, especially when I knew that Mahomes and Dak were going to come in with plenty of ownership and were both capable of 30+ point efforts. I especially feel queasy about it when that QB ends up being Tua Tagvailoa. I had been considering Cam Newton during the week, but then the head coach mentioned that PJ Walker would get worked in for some snaps which I did not like hearing at all. Even though the matchup was perfect, I hate trying to deal with uncertainty in my cash builds. With Tua going up against the worst defense in the NFL, I put my hands together to pray and told the fellas in the Slack chat that I was looking for 18-20 points. My wish was granted as Tua hit right in that exact range and then it was just a matter of waiting out the Cowboys/Chiefs game in hopes that the QBs did not both go off for ceiling performances. Shockingly, they both bombed as neither threw a TD pass and my lineups cruised to an easy victory.

At TE, last week was probably the worst week of the year trying to pick a TE on DK. I knew I was not going to end up paying up for Kelce with my priorities being on WR, but the punt options were awful. I knew Cole Kmet was going to be the chalk against the Ravens, but could not wrap my head around it as he has not been that productive this season (until Thanksgiving) and I still am not a Fields guy. I ended up using a very low owned Tyler Conklin who has been a steady producer for the Vikings this season. Plus, he was at home, indoors and against a Packers defense that has not defended the TE well this season. Conklin did not do much, but his 6.5 points was better than Kmet and much better than the zero than Dan Arnold posted so it ended up being a small win overall.

The only big differences for me on FD was that the cap space again allowed me to build an all-star team. I was able to ‘upgrade’ at QB to Mahomes, Kelce at TE and I bumped up to Myles Gaskin in the flex against the Jets as Ahmed being out put him in a potential smash spot. While Mahomes flopped, Kelce played well, Gaskin was solid and though the Seahawks defense was poor, there was no way I was going to be able to pay all the way up to get the Browns on FD and they were not nearly as heavily owned so it was a small hit to my lineup.

 

DraftKings					FanDuel
Tua Tagvailoa	5500	18.52			Patrick Mahomes	8300	8.5
AJ Dillon	6200	15.7			AJ Dillon	7000	12.7
Mark Ingram	5400	16.3			Jeff Wilson	5000	6.3
Davante Adams	8400	33.5			Davante Adams	8400	27
Tyreek Hill	8200	20			Tyreek Hill	8500	15.5
Michael Gallup	4200	9.4			Michael Gallup	5400	6.9
Tyler Conklin	3900	6.5			Travis Kelce	7300	16.3
Jeff Wilson	5100	6.8			Myles Gaskin	6200	17.2
Browns	3100	8			Seahawks	3700	2
	50000	134.72				59800	112.4

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