The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Selections – Week 14 – UPDATE

We are down to the last 25% of the NFL season and the games now take on extra importance for many times while others slide into tank mode and get wild with the players that get shuffled in and out of the starting lineup in order to ‘give them a look’, though we all know that it basically means, we want to get new players experience, but we are not worried about winning. Lineup building takes on some additional effort as we try to work through the mind of each coach to see how his view of the remainder of the season has changed and with it, any personnel decisions that go into planning each week.

Last week was a pretty decent week overall for my player selections. In looking at my cash roster and my column, I feel good about what we were able to do with the field last week. There were some great price breaks due to injuries or mid week changes that did not get factored into the salaries of players so it was a little easier to maneuver to get the higher salaried players onto your roster compared to other weeks when it took work to get a CMC or Michael Thomas onto your teams.

The only real whiff that I had was at the RB spot with Jonathan Williams of the Colts. With Marlon Mack out, he had been the featured back for two games with Wilkins out as well and had seen his usage climb the second game, which he took full advantage of by piling up the yardage. Unfortunately, with Wilkins back last week, the Colts stupidly reverted to a committee approach and for some reason, Coach Reich opted not to let Williams touch the ball in the second half, deciding to go with what he termed a ‘hot hand’ approach, which was odd since nobody rushed for more than 47 yards in the game. It was a strange twist, but one that I likely should have anticipated. Even with Williams having two solid efforts the previous two games, his workload was a reflection of the lack of healthy bodies so it was anyone’s guess as to whether or not he would remain the primary back once Wilkins came back to full health. In cash games, we have to avoid those kinds of mistakes so that one was frustrating as we watched the little snowflake next to Williams all afternoon and a number that quit moving at halftime.

The other player that burned me was Mike Evans. What a weird season that those Tampa WRs are having. It has been tough to guess from one week to the next which one will show up. We have seen weeks where Evans has been a star and others where Godwin has been the top dog. Unfortunately, we have also seen a few weeks where neither guy does much of anything. Despite destroying the Jags, there were not really any big offensive outputs from notable players with the rarely utilized Peyton Barber getting into the end zone twice and the defense scoring the other TD. However, I am still fine with my Evans play. He received 11 targets for the game and though he corralled only four for 53 yards, with wideouts, all we can aim for each week are targets when it comes to the players that we roster.

If you tell me that Mike Evans is going to get 11 targets in a game and he’s under $7k, I’m using him for sure. It’s a much different result than Williams. With Williams, there were questions of usage that should have signaled to me that he might not get the opportunities that I was anticipating. With Evans, we got the targets, just not the production. Had Williams received 20 touches and not put up points, I would have been okay with my decision because once again, we are looking for opportunities. His price was low enough so that we would have been willing to take on some extra risk against a good defense if we had a feature back to work with. The key is knowing whether or not a player is definitely going to be the featured back and in this case, I overestimated the value of two solid fill in performances for Williams so I will take the hit on that.

The other positions played out about as expected. We got plenty of production out of Lamar if you paid up at QB and did not get killed if you paid down for Dalton, though he basically gave you a floor performance for the savings.

At RB, most everyone went the same direction with CMC and Miles Sanders. Sanders finally had the sort of game we were looking for while CMC could not get on track against the Redskins, breaking a long string of great performances in a weird spot. CMC could have scored 3 points or 30 and it likely would not have changed much. He was very heavily owned so he was not the reason you won or lost. Sanders was also very heavily owned so it was a challenge to gain a big edge there. Most of the other chalk RBs struggled, especially Leveon Bell.

At WR, we discussed my miss on Evans, but the other plays were solid. Davante Adams was a pretty obvious play against the Giants and rewarded us well. Sterling Shepard was a great low priced option as well who could have done more, but still gave us a TD. Davante Parker and Tyler Boyd both played well, especially Parker and if you had him, you likely cruised to an easy win.

For TE, there were really only two plays we were seriously going to consider in Tyler Higbee and Jack Doyle. Both were extremely cheap which opened up CMC at RB as an option so there was little reason to pay up. I grabbed Higbee at minimum salary and he kept up the destruction of the Cards from the TE spot this season as nearly everyone they have played have put up a massive game against them, whether it be a star or a complete plug and play like Higbee. Doyle was not far behind so it was a great week for value at the TE position.

Defense was a throwaway last week. There were no great plays that stood out for cash purposes. The Ravens were a nice value at $2800 so that was who I settled on and it did not really help or hurt me, which was pretty much the case across the board for the most part.

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