Cracking FanDuel Week 6

Photo: Imagn Images

Sunday Morning Update:

Update #1: 9:47AM

As of now, there doesn't appear to be any news that could change the primary cash lineup. One piece of news that we did get was that the Jets will be without both of their starting corners, which should elevate Jalen Hurts, Devonta Smith, and A.J. Brown, but the reality here is that there's just not a way to fit them into what I'm trying to do from a cash game build perspective. I would have to come off of Cooper Kupp and down to Brown, but there's just not a great way to spend those remaining savings as the high 6k, low-mid 7k wide receivers just are not any better than the guys we already have.

SITUATIONS THAT STAND OUT TO THIS WEEK ON THE MAIN SLATE.

I believe this is the first time since doing this article that only two games have been projected to score more than 25 points in a given slate.

• Miami (vs CAR) – 31.0 points
• LA Rams (vs ARI) – 27.75 points
• Jacksonville (vs IND) – 24.75points

Week 5 Recap

Week 5 was a great bounce-back week to get to 4-1 on the season with the Primary Cash Lineup. This was one of those weeks in which there was zero stress from the start of the week. To be 4-1 on the season is a great start, but every week is a new week.

Total points scored- 138.58

• QB Matthew Stafford, LAR, $6,800- 16.88
• RB Alvin Kamara, NO, $7,100- 17.2
• RB Joe Mixon, CIN, $7,000- 11.4
• WR Justin Jefferson, MIN, $9,200- 4.3
• WR Jaylen Waddle, MIA, $6,800- 12.0
• WR Michael Pittman Jr/a>, IND, $6,600- 7.7
• TE Sam LaPorta, DET, $6,000- 18.2
• Flex RB Breece Hall, NYJ, $6,500- 26.9
• TD New Orleans Saints, $4,000- 24.0

What went right:

• Getting 24 points from your defense is simply lucky, while taking defenses against bad offenses is always a great strategy, to expect anything close to that was just lucky.
• Breece Hall was excellent as he had 177 rushing yards and a touchdown against Denver. Hall is a guy who we’re going to have to monitor each week as his price grows, but should be someone that is considered each week now that the volume seems to have solidified.
• Alvin Kamara continued his great start to the season as he had 80 yards and a touchdown this past week. Kamara now has put together a 14.9 and a 17.2 game in back-to-back weeks and has 25 touches in each of those two games.

What went wrong:

• Justin Jefferson was the wrong play this week as injuries are always tough to manage. Thankfully this week, Jefferson was 75% rostered which made the poor game hurt much less than it otherwise would if he was lower rostered.

Injuries Create Opportunity:

Week 6 is a big one for injuries.

• Justin Jefferson was placed on IR this week with a hamstring injury. This will completely change the offense of the Vikings, and the overall impact remains to be seen. It’s likely that we will see both T.J. Hockenson and Jordan Addison see an increased workload, but the reality is that we need to just re-baseline expectations for this offense. There’s no replacing Jefferson, so this offense likely just takes a hit overall.
• Miles Sanders is out for the Panthers with a shoulder injury. Chuba Hubbard will get the start, and Hubbard has seen 23 carries over the last two weeks, although he has not been able to do much with them amassing just 3.3 yards-per-carry.
• Sam LaPorta is questionable with a calf injury. It sounds like he will play, which at $6,800, is too high of a price for a rookie tight end even for as great as LaPorta has been this season.
• Khalil Herbert was placed on IR while Roschon Johnson will miss this week with a concussion. This leaves the Bears with just D’Onta Foreman as their starting running back. While he’s intriguing simply based on the volume of carries he should get, the price is not good enough at $6,000.
• The Eagles defense is pretty banged up. Jalen Carter, Darius Slay, will both miss, while Fletcher Cox was cleared although is less than 100%. This could create an opportunity for Breece Hall as a GPP play, but the matchup is not good enough this week to take him in cash.
• De’Von Achane and Jeff Wilson will both miss this week leaving Raheem Mostert as the primary running back for the Dolphins in a tremendous matchup this week. While Salvon Ahmed may see some action, this backfield is likely to be as much of Mostert as he can carry.
• Deshaun Watson will miss this week with a shoulder injury. P.J. Walker will get the start for the Browns. This is only relevant if you want to start the 49ers defense, as they become one of the top plays this week.
• James Conner is out this week as he was placed on IR. This should be a split backfield between Keontay Ingram and Emari Demercado, although neither is priced low enough to take this week.
• Demario Douglas, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Tyquan Thornton all look like they’re going to miss this week for the Patriots. This could make Kendrick Bourne at least somewhat interesting in GPP’s although this entire team is likely just a stay away spot.
• Anthony Richardson is out this week, as he was placed on IR. Gardner Minshew will get the start for the Colts, which could give a very slight increase to Michael Pittman and possibly even Jonathan Taylor as a GPP play. Last week, the Colts primarily used Zack Moss, but we have to think that with Taylor’s new contract, they’re going to work him in sooner rather than later.

General Strategy- Bankroll Management

If you’ve been playing this article, it’s very likely that you’re up in cash games so far this season. The key thing to do this week is to continue to use bankroll management each week. While most will give you the guidance that you should play the same amount every single week, I approach it a little bit differently. I take a slightly different approach. My approach to bankroll management is a % basis of my overall bankroll.

Let’s just use even numbers, so if you start with a $100 bankroll and are playing 15% of your bankroll per week, you start with $15, then as your bankroll grows, you increase your play per week. Then if you do have a losing week, to scale the amount that you play a little bit to stick with that %. Your % that you play each week can vary, although I personally would not go above 25% of your bankroll each week.

Week 6 Thoughts- Be Careful This Week- Lineup Overlap

A little background into my process. Having done this now for 13 years, I’m a little bit old school, in that I build my initial lineup completely by hand without the use of any one else’s projections, props, or any other tools. I then go and use Footballguys tools, to refine my process, but very rarely look at any outside information or projections until after my lineup process is built.

The reason for this is pretty simple. In cash games, group think can be a killer. Far too often, a vast majority of the lineups/projections/content are based off of some of the early week content pieces that various sites including Footballguys put together. The reality is that so much can change throughout the week and people get these early week analyses stuck in their head as they build their lineups. If you’ve followed this article long enough, you’ll know by now that this is not an article that is just going to regurgitate the same plays that every other article is spitting out there as top plays.

So, this week, the lineup that I built by hand, is almost identical to optimals from Footballguys, and other sites, meaning we can expect that this is going to be a week in which there is going to be significant overlap between roster builds this week. This is a problem, as it can make it so that your win or loss is going to be determined by a couple of key positions or decisions this week.

So, how do we approach it this week? With a somewhat narrow player pool that the collective industry is all going to be building from, we need to be super critical of every player that goes into our lineup.

The biggest question you’ll need to ask yourself is what to do with Chuba Hubbard. Hubbard at $5,500 is filling in for the injured Miles Sanders, which will make him extremely popular simply based on value which is difficult to come by this week. However, by going with Hubbard, you lose out on the opportunity to have one of Travis Etienne, Alvin Kamara, Raheem Mostert, or Bijan Robinson all of which are in opportunities to have significantly more upside than Hubbard. However, if you go with Hubbard, you can afford a solid defense, or upgrade your wide receiver/tight end position. The suggested approach is to build lineups with both Hubbard in them and out of them, and determine which you like better, as personally, I’m just not comfortable playing a running back as a 14 point underdog.

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