The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Edition – Week 7

The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Edition – Week 7

Week 6 of the NFL season is in the books and it was another profitable win for me in cash games. Whenever there are cheap, chalky RBs that allow me to take a couple of free spaces and move on, I always seem to do pretty well. When I have those extra dollars available at WR to get the real standout players, my weeks are much more stress free than usual. Last week was an embarrassment of riches at the RB position so the only difficult part was in deciding which of them I was not going to be rostering for the week.

If you did not start Rhamondre Stevenson last week, we need to talk. I could not have made that play any easier for you when starting your lineups. I do not always tell you exactly who I am going to play, but sometimes I give an exact player or two and normally, it is in your best interest to follow along with my script. Stevenson was about as easy of a play as I can imagine last week. The Pats are a run first offense that pounds the ball on the ground relentlessly. Usually, Stevenson splits touches with Damien Harris, but with Harris out and the Pats up against the worst rush defense in the NFL, this one was a no-brainer. He found the endzone twice and put up over 25 DK points. He was also massively owned, so if you pivoted, you better not have missed.

The other auto play at RB was Eno Benjamin. He was 90% owned in cash due to his salary and projected role in the offense for the Cards last week. The numbers were not pretty, but the cap relief was useful. He had 18 touches for the game against Seattle so even though the stats were not monstrous, we are using players based on a combination of price and value to project efficiency so I have no issues at all with my use of Eno.

At QB, it felt like another Josh Allen week all the way. His high floor/high ceiling combo makes him tough to avoid at a salary that is not prohibitive. He managed to sleepwalk his way to 30 DK points and it could have been even bigger had he not been charged with a red zone fumble on the first drive of the game that McKenzie dropped or failing to convert on 4th and goal from the 3 yard line in the 2nd quarter. With his combination of speed, athleticism, the weapons that the Bills have on offense and their commitment to the passing game, DK is going to need to start bumping up his salary to make sure he is not 80% owned in cash games every week.

I was always punting on Defense last week. The Panthers looked way too cheap against a battered Rams offensive line. For the third week in a row, my punt defense scored a TD which means I have been running a little lucky there, but the matchups made sense each week and Week 7 provides another easy plug and play option for us so I will continue to use defenses on the cheap.

Those four plays were locked in for me all week. It was only the other five slots that I had to worry about, but I felt good about my path very early on. Stefon Diggs was pretty close to a must play for me. I loved the game script against the Chiefs where he would finally be in a spot where the Bills were not blowing their opponent off the field. I was a little concerned that he had not had monster games against the Chiefs previously, but with the improving group of WRs for the Bills, it gets tougher to try to double up on him. He came through for a huge day with 10 catches for 148 yards and a TD for 33.8 DK points.

I wanted to find a way to play Ja’Marr Chase as well. By Saturday afternoon when Marshon Lattimore was ruled out, Chase seemed in line for a huge day and produced as expected. Unfortunately, I just did not have the cap space to get to him at $7700. I was playing Lockett in every lineup that I built after his price fell going into last week. He has been so dependable this season and was coming off of a strong game against the Saints. It looked like another safe spot to use him and about 75% of the field agreed with me. Somehow, the Seahawks got nothing going with either Lockett or DK all day in a game that the won pretty easily. Lockett caught two passes for 17 yards. I wish that he had been priced up so I could have avoided that debacle, but there was almost no chance I was fading him at that salary.

The next spot I looked at was the Flex. With so many good value RB options on the board, I had it down to Kenneth Walker or Darrell Henderson. Breece Hall was in my player pool, but I ruled him out for two reasons. First, I thought that going on the road to Green Bay seemed like the toughest of the three matchups. That was wrong. However, my other reason was that I felt like even if I did not use Hall, he would be very low owned so it would not hurt me if he did have a big game. I ended up using Walker. Henderson is a known quantity, but not an impressive player. He’s had a few decent moments, but has spent his career being the guy that the Rams seem ready to replace anytime the opportunity presents itself. He’s a good secondary RB to have in a rotation style backfield. I gave Walker a shot after seeing some explosiveness the previous week and knowing that he’d get plenty of volume which he did with 21 carries and 3 targets. He found the end zone and lost out on the 100 yard rushing bonus after a garbage holding call took back the run that put him over. He outperformed Henderson, but did not hit Hall’s numbers, but I still think Walker was the correct play given the situation.

My last two spots were my TE and WR3. With Chris Olave ruled out (along with Landry and Thomas), I had to decide on whether or not to do the back up WR dance with the Saints. I hate having to do that unless it frees up enough salary to get me a really highly graded player. In this case, the savings was not going to help me at TE. I loved the spot for Chris Godwin at $6100 against the Steelers who were missing their Top-3 CBs and Minkah Fitzpatrick. How could the Bucs not explode in that game environment? Well, they did not explode, but Godwin was targeted 12 times and caught six passes for 95 yards, just missing the bonus. He did not provide GPP upside, but with Godwin, you get a steady stream of high percentage targets almost every game. If you need a player to fill a roster spot, he’s very dependable in cash games. I was surprised that only 20% of the field owned him.

At that point, I needed a punt play and had done the math to get to Godwin which left me just enough to get Hayden Hurst at TE. He was probably my 5th option at the position by the time I built my team, but that was fine. I considered Zach Gentry from the Steelers, but the extra salary did not get me anything so I went with the veteran and hoped he could fall into the end zone or at least get me 7-10 DK points. He was active early, but then did not do anything in the 2nd half even though he played on 70% of the snaps for the Bengals. 5.1 DK points was disappointing, but not massively so. As long as he was not totally out of the mix, I was fine with punting here. Kelce and Andrews were just a tad too rich for me last week and I am comfortable paying down at TE so I was happy that it did not come back to hurt me.

I won easily again last week in cash games with a total of 151.06 DK points. I felt good about my process and had little to changes come Saturday afternoon when most of the injury news rolled in. I have not actually lost money in any of the six weeks of the season so far which has been fantastic, though two weeks were basically break even. I know a few of you have struggled, so if that is the case, reach out to me this weekend and we can go over your lineup and some of the close decisions that you are dealing with. Cash games are all about a handful of decisions each week so do not get too discouraged with yourself.

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