Photo: USA Today Sports

SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE:

Sunday Morning Update: 9:30 AM EST

Mark Andrews has been ruled out, which will push Isaiah Likely into a great spot, filling in for the All-Pro tight end. At just $4,700, Likely jumps up with Higbee as the top cash game play of the day. This also solidifies J.K. Dobbins as a fantastic cash game play as his touchdown percentage increases as well as his projected touches should also increase.

Jerry Jeudy also appears he is not going to be playing this week, which solidifies Courtland Sutton as a top value play this week.

The problem comes when trying to figure out what to do with the extra $600 by going down from Higbee to Likely. I'm unable to upgrade defenses to the Commanders, as that's $900, unable to upgrade Tyreek Hill to Justin Jefferson as that is $700, so the only thing to do is restart the lineup. I really like the lineup of Hill and Jefferson. I would rather have Derrick Henry than Bijan Robinson, but sacrifices sometimes have to be made.

Current Updated Lineup: FBG Projected Points 120.0

• QB Anthony Richardson- IND $6,700
• RB J.K. Dobbins, BAL, $6,500
• RB Raheem Mostert, MIA, $5,900
• WR Tyreek Hill, MIA, $8,800
• WR Justin Jefferson, MIN $9,500
• WR Courtland Sutton, DEN, $5,900
• TE Isaiah Likely, BAL, $4,700
• Flex RB Bijan Robinson, ATL, $7,800
• TD Denver Broncos, $4,000

Previous Lineup: FBG Projected Points 115.7 Points

• QB Anthony Richardson- IND $6,700
• RB J.K. Dobbins, BAL, $6,500
• RB Raheem Mostert, MIA, $5,900
• WR Tyreek Hill, MIA, $8,800
• WR Chris Olave, NO, $7,300
• WR Calvin Ridley, JAC, $7,000
• TE Tyler Higbee, LAR, $5,300
• Flex RB Derrick Henry, TEN, $8,500
• TD Denver Broncos, $4,000

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

• Baltimore (vs HOU) – 27.0 points
• LA Chargers (vs MIA) – 27.0 points
• Seattle (vs LAR) – 26.0 points
• Minnesota (vs TB) – 25.5 points

Cash Game Strategy- Week 1 Tip

I absolutely hate re-using content as it seems lazy, but this one is so incredibly important especially for new people that I need to continue to use it as the Week 1 tip. So apologies if you’ve read this before, but it is a good reminder of how we are going to approach this season. We have been doing this article now for 8 years back when it was just on a blog and would start the season the exact same way.

2023 Update

While the argument of head-to-head still remains my preferred game style, and I believe it can be extremely profitable, it has become much harder. This is due to a couple of factors. First and foremost, the amount of “new” or “inexperienced” DFS players has died off, as DFS is now a good 6+ years away from its peak. While the game is certainly healthy and not going anywhere, we no longer have as many casual fans consistently playing cash games as we did back then. Those players have either mostly left, finding an inability to win, or they are just taking their lottery ticket every week in large field GPP’s. So, the margins have gotten tighter.

There are still diehards that just have bad processes that are out there, and diversifying amongst them in head-to-head contests is still very much doable. However, it does take a lot of work to find those games consistently checking at weird times to find a name that you don’t recognize.

With all of that said, if you want to play 50/50’s, make sure you’re playing the single entry 50/50’s, but this can be a way to simplify your life and if you are smart about it, even make it somewhat easier to win. The head-to-head strategy can backfire if not done properly as you could actually find yourself facing off against some of the best sharks in the DFS industry, and they’re reading a lot of this article as well as other sources to come up with their lineup. That’s certainly not what we want. In the 50/50’s the hope is that there are a couple of people who try to get cute, or accidentally put their GPP lineup into a 50/50. This can give you a slightly greater than 50% chance of cashing in a given week. However, I can not repeat this enough, do not play any 50/50 or double up that you can enter multiple times as these will be heavily skewed towards the sharks.

Prior writing

Game Selection- Head to Head over 50/50’s?

If you’ve been a reader of this article for the last several years, you know how this tip goes, but it is an important one to touch on each and every Week 1, as far too often we see multi-entry 50/50 cut lines are higher than even the minimum cash lines for GPP’s. The real benefit of head to heads is bankroll management. Most 50/50 or double up contests especially the big one’s are going to have a similar cash line across the board. What this ultimately means is that your lineup is either going to win everything or lose everything, so if you are in the 49^th percentile of lineups you will lose 100% of your entries for those contests. Conversely if you have a large enough sample size on head to heads you will only lose maybe 5-10% of your bankroll. From a sample size standpoint, my recommendation is to have at least 10-20 head to heads even if that means you’re playing $1 games.

If you are going to do anything to help your ROI this year, start tracking your opponents. Create a spreadsheet or a piece of paper and really evaluate the rosters of the people that you are facing. The one piece of advice is that people do not spend enough time evaluating who they are facing, but instead just blindly enter contests. The one thing is that don’t just look at the amount of points your opponent scores, but instead look at the roster construction. If it is a solid construction you may not want to play that opponent each week and have to rely on a coin flip. Instead, try to find people who build fundamentally different rosters than you, maybe someone who makes mistakes and doesn’t play the top owned players.

If you blindly enter head to heads, or do not want to have a large enough sample size, the next best contest is to find the biggest single entry 50/50.

Single Entry GPP’s

An underutilized contest that does not get talked about nearly enough are the Single Entry GPP’s. These typically have a lower cash line than even 50/50’s, so if you are against playing Head-to-Heads, take a look at these contests. There are far too many people who treat them similarly to a big GPP, and have lineups that have crazy stacks and off the wall plays that in a Single Entry contest there is simply no need to do. We will be continuing to monitor these contests this year to see if there is an edge and see how they compare to the 50/50’s and double ups as we look to help build your bankroll.

Injuries Create Opportunity: