The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Edition – Week 4

*NOTE* Just prior to publishing my article, Cam Newton tested positive for COVID. As of now, no announcement has been made about the game between the Patriots and Chiefs, but I would assume at this point that it will at a minimum be shifted out of its current position on Sunday and off the main slate. As a consequence, be sure not to use ANY players in your lineups for those game. For those of you that built rosters early in the week, be sure to go back and remove those player before tomorrow. There are a few scenarios for how the game could be played. One involves moving it to Monday or Tuesday this week. The other option is if the NFL were to add a week or two at the end of the season to play makeup games for any teams that have games cancelled throughout the season. Keep an eye out for developments as this will be an ongoing story with one game, the Steelers and Titans already having been moved this weekend.

The highs and lows of DFS were on display last Sunday as I watched my team go to work. For the second consecutive week, I lost a wide receiver early on due to injury when Diontae Johnson suffered a concussion on a silly end around play near the goal line. It was nearly identical to the week prior when Paris Campbell got knocked out of the game against Minnesota on his first touch of the day. Rather than getting even a pedestrian floor performance of a few catches for 40 or 50 yards, we got a grand total of 9 rushing yards. Fortunately, Johnson was heavily owned, but in this era of DFS where the margin for error is very small, losing a player to injury early in a game is usually crippling.

The afternoon games last week presented some opportunities for a winning week, but I knew it would require big performances out of all of my players to get the job done. It really did not seem to be my week when Red Zone took us to a Seattle highlight with the announcer telling us that DK Metcalf went for 63 yards, but that it should have been 65 and a TD.

Nothing sets me off more when I watch the NFL than when players start an early celebration before getting into the end zone. Whether that entails them slowing down to a casual jog, holding the ball out like a loaf of bread (though I have never actually seen some one carry bread in the manner that it is compared to in football) or the all-time worst when they either spike the ball early or simply drop it on purpose just before crossing the goal line so as not to be too encumbered during the ridiculous, preplanned celebration.

In the latest case of early TD celebration syndrome, Metcalf slowed up just yards from the end zone and got the ball punched out of his hands, Leon Lett style by hustling rookie, Trevon Diggs which took away a for certain touchdown and worse yet, triggered the always entertaining rule of a fumble that went through the end zone which turns the ball over to the other team. It amazes me that this still happens every season at some point. Rather than being an example of what not to do on the way to scoring, Leon Lett has become the ‘how to’ example of what to do to make yourself look like a buffoon and DK joined the club last week.

While I just spent three paragraphs lampooning DK, Seattle QB Russell Wilson never lost faith in his young wide out. As my hopes for a late Sunday comeback seemed to be dwindling down to just about zero, Wilson led a late game drive, even converting a key 4^th down play and then found Metcalf in for a 29 yard TD pass in the final two minutes, which was all the more miraculous as Seattle could have conceivably played for the field goal to end the game and win without having to give the ball back to Dallas. That late catch pushed Metcalf over 100 yards so it was a 12.9 point play and pushed me just across the cash line for the weekend.

Here is a quick look at my lineup for Week 3

Week 3 Team
Kyler Murray	6800	24.7
Miles Sanders	6400	14.7
Mike Davis	5100	23.1
DeAndre Hopkins	7900	26.7
Diontae Johnson	5400	0.9
Ceedee Lamb	5400	11.6
Logan Thomas	3700	7.1
DK Metcalf	6500	23
Eagles	2800	8
	50000	139.8

 

The Kyler Murray/DeAndre Hopkins stack worked out as planned and could have been even better had Murray not thrown three picks. He also came up just short of the 300 yard passing bonus on DraftKings so there was a 30 point week out there, he just was not quite as good as the last two weeks. Even without that, he still posted close to 25 points and Hopkins remained an absolute target machine. We did not get a lot of differentiation in our lineup with either of these plays as both were plenty popular against a weak Lions defense, but they both exceeded value based on their price which put us in a position where we still had an opportunity to win for the week.

The play that really stood out for me that other owners were unwilling to make for some reason was with Mike Davis. He was only owned by around 6-7% of teams last Sunday which was a big surprise to me. It’s one thing to play the backup RB in a situation like this when a star player goes down with an injury, but when you took a look at Carolina, you quickly realized that there really was not another option besides Davis to fill the role of Christian McCaffrey. They gave the ball to Reggie Bonnafon twice and worked wide receiver Curtis Samuel in for a few forgettable carries, but that was it. We talked about Davis essentially having the same sort of role in the offense as CMC, including as a pass catcher. We knew he would catch the ball well as he had managed eight catches after coming off the bench the prior week. Now, his numbers were certainly not close to what we would expect from CMC, but he totaled 91 yards, caught eight passes and did manage to get into the end zone once so it was a huge week compared to his salary with 23.1 fantasy points on DraftKings and with his very limited ownership, it gave us a massive boost in comparison to the field. Not every backup situation is going to present a similar opportunity to what Davis had last week so do your research, but always think back to the 3x formula I talked about in my column last week and it will help you to cut through the noise when making these key decisions each weekend.

The rest of the lineup fell into place based on dollars available. Miles Sanders was good, though not great against the Bengals. At the price and with the match up, he was nearly considered a ‘must play’ and was heavily owned throughout all cash game contests. Ceedee Lamb played well in a shootout game with the Cowboys though another pass catching threat emerged for them in the form of Cedrick Wilson who came out of nowhere to have a massive game. This development really complicates things for DFS owners trying to utilize receivers from Dallas. Obviously, this is going to be a great offense, but there are only so many targets to go around this season so we now need to adjust our expectations for Lamb, though his effort was not bad in catching five passes for 65 yards. Lastly, Logan Thomas put up another middling effort against the Browns. For the price, it was not terrible. The TE position is usually a difficult one as it is tough to pay up unless you really feel strongly about a match up so there are going to be plenty of weeks where we end up scraping by. However, as is the case much of the time, no other highly owned players at the position had a big week so it really did not matter who we used and the extra salary saving turned out to be very beneficial.

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