The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Selections – Week 2

Week 1 is in the books and hopefully, you found a way to be profitable. If not, please do not get discouraged as this was something that I talked about at length in my column. The first week of the NFL season is probably the trickiest week for DFS purposes. With the salaries being released at the beginning of August, it gives everyone an enormous amount of time to prepare their cash game rosters for the week. This will not be the case during the season where more people will be a little bit rushed and remembering at the last minute to throw in some teams.

The other hindrance to us the first week is that the pricing is done in a promotional manner to make it easier for novice players to build teams to start the season so that they are not getting too frustrated initially and giving up. We want these types of player to stay not just because they are less of a challenge to beat, but to grow the game overall. We want DFS to be accessible to as wide of an audience as possible so if the major site providers can help ease them into playing so that they do not feel overwhelmed putting together their roster, it is victory for all of us over the long haul.

For me, personally, it was a week of second guessing myself that proved costly. I was debating between two lineups:

QB	Wentz
RB	Chubb
	Cook
WR	Samuel
	Boyd
	Godwin
TE	Henry
FLEX	CMC
D	Chargers

 

QB	Winston
RB	Chubb
	Cook
WR	Boyd
	Golladay
	Godwin
TE	Henry
FLEX	Carson
D	Seattle

 

As you can see, the big questions for me came down to whether or not I was going to pay up to get Christian McCaffrey for the week. I felt like Jameis Winston had a better script for him against a 49ers defense with a suspect pass defense. Under the tutelage of Bruce Arians, I expected to see improvement in Winston’s game and with the lack of a solid run game option and a high expected point total, it looked like a great high floor/high ceiling situation for me.

When I looked at Wentz, I loved the price of 5700 which felt way too low. He felt like the obvious play initially against a Redskins squad that looks like it will struggle throughout the season. Wentz has also had success against them so I thought he was a really good option as well. The only problem, in my head, was that the game could get out of hand and the Eagles could blow the Redskins out of the stadium the same way they did to the Vikings the last time Case Keenum was at the healm.

In hindsight, the decision to go with Jameis was a mistake on my part. I overthought the play and rather than just going with the better player, I got greedy thinking about chasing upside. I do not think Jameis is finished as a player quite yet and we are going to see signs of life from him in flashes throughout the year. However, this is still the same guy that struggled to hold off Ryan Fitzpatrick for the starting job a year. I let myself get carried away by the hype rather than what we know based on the eye test of what we have seen on the field over the last three years.

I said it in my column and it ended up being true, one or two decisions were going to be the difference between winning and losing last week. Another part of my rationale for being comfortable paying up was that I felt like Chris Carson in the flex spot in the late game was a lock. I figured both would have big games. I just was not counting on CMC to go for 45 points.

I also liked the option of not having to pay down to heavily at wide receiver for the week. I had heard great things about both Dede Westbrook and Curtis Samuel and each were cheap and did not need to do a lot to earn their salary for the week, but I liked Kenny Golladay’s matchup against a Cardinals secondary down its top two corners for the week and playing against another offense that would utilize an up tempo style. As it turned out, all the chalk at WR was pretty much a wash for the week as none of the higher owned plays from top to bottom had much of a day on Sunday.

Unfortunately, losing out on Wentz and CMC kept me out of win column for the week. I did not really feel like any of the other decisions beyond Jameis/Wentz were all that questionable. Henry was a cheap, chalky TE and in the end managed to hit 10 points, although I was high on Delanie Walker and Evan Engram, both of which had big games. Dalvin Cook was an automatic play and Nick Chubb looked like he was in a great spot to open the year. At WR, it looked like Tyler Boyd would have a big game after catching 7 passes for 55 yards by halftime against the Seahawks, but did nothing in the second half. Chris Godwin was massive chalk and grabbed a TD, but did not really help or hurt us.

In moving on to Week 2, our focus shifts towards not just what we know from last season, but what we learned from Week 1. We have a full slate this week and the pricing is set up the way we would normally expect, with one slight difference. Week 2 is unique each year in that the players from Week 1 on Sunday night and Monday get priced out before we actually get to see them in action for the first time this season. If you watched the games on Monday night, you already know where I am going with this. With teams like New England, Pittsburgh or New Orleans, the star players on those teams are well established. It is not too tough to guess on the price of a Michael Thomas or Tom Brady.

What is tough, is when you get a couple of teams on the slate with a lot of new pieces in its offense, like a rookie or newly signed free agent. If they are being elevated to a big role with their new team, it is tough to know how they will fit in immediately. If players like that have a big breakout game after salaries have dropped for Week 2, it can force our hand in a couple of spots.