Cracking FanDuel Week 20

Saturday/Sunday Morning Update

Saturday Update:

Mark Andrews looks like he is going to miss this week. This vaults Isaiah Likely into the top overall tight end spot and opens up some nice salary relief. The problem is that there is not much to do with it without a drastic overhaul of the lineup. Currently, I've upgraded James Cook to Aaron Jones while downgrading Mark Andrews to Isaiah Likely. You could build a Christian McCaffrey lineup by dropping Amon-Ra St. Brown down to Chris Godwin and dropping Baltimore down to Green Bay, but forcing him into the lineup is likely giving up too much as the decrease is likely a 10-15 points decrease between St. Brown to Godwin and Baltimore to Green Bay.

• QB Jared Goff, DET, $7,600
• RB Devin Singletary, HOU, $6,400
• RB Rachaad White, TB, $6,700
• WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, DET, $9,200
• WR Mike Evans, TB, $7,600
• WR Jameson Williams, DET, $5,300
• TE Isaiah Likely, BAL, $5,500
• Flex RB Aaron Jones, GB, $7,400
• TD Baltimore, $4,300

Injuries Create Opportunity:

• Mark Andrews looks like he may return this week. He’s logged two consecutive full practices. If he is back this week, he becomes one of the top tight ends on the slate. If not, Isaiah Likely becomes the top tight end on this slate in a favorable matchup against Houston.
• Stefon Diggs was a late add to the injury report as he did not practice on Thursday. This is in addition to Gabe Davis who looks like he will miss this week once again. If Diggs were to miss, it would be a surprise, but Khalil Shakir and Deonte Harty would both see increases as would Dalton Kincaid.
• A.J. Dillon remains questionable with a thumb and neck injury. Even if he returns, it’s likely that this is Aaron Jones’ backfield as the Packers will continue to ride the hot hand.
• Marlon Humphrey is out for Baltimore. While Baltimore is a very deep defense with players such as Rock Ya-Sin or Ronald Darby who can fill in, this will still have a significant impact to the Ravens defense. Nico Collins should receive an upgrade because of this.

Week 20- Be Smart With Bankroll On Short Slates

If you’ve been following this article this season, it has been a very good year. Do not let these small slates give back some of the bankroll that you should have built up. On these shorter slates, the edge that you’ll have over your competition inherently is smaller, as there is going to be more overlap between teams, and making one wrong decision makes it very difficult to make up the point differential. If you want to play for entertainment or play at a low stakes by all means continue to do so, but the last thing you should do is play at a high stakes or high percentage of your bankroll this week.

Take a player like Lamar Jackson this week, he has a 50% probability of reaching value this season, and is in a difficult rushing matchup this week against Houston who he had his worst game of the year against back in Week 1. I’m making the choice to fade him because of the price, but realize that even if there is a 30% chance that Jackson has a big game, there just are not enough value plays or elite plays to make up the points like there are in other weeks.

Cash Game Rankings

Lineups

Overview

One thing to call out here as some people have been asking about what the lineups mean. This article is a cash game article, and we evaluate the article’s success or failure each week based on the Primary Cash Lineup. The other lineups are more just fun lineups to give an idea of lineup construction and my current thinking but have a significantly less amount of time put into them than the Primary Cash Lineup does, as that has in most cases 10-15 hours of tinkering, research, and thought put into just building that one lineup.

ROSTER 1 ($60K) – PRIMARY CASH Lineup- (FBG PROJECTED POINTS = 114.0)

• QB Jared Goff, DET, $7,600
• RB Devin Singletary, HOU, $6,400
• RB Rachaad White, TB, $6,700
• WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, DET, $9,200
• WR Mike Evans, TB, $7,600
• WR Jameson Williams, DET, $5,300
• TE Mark Andrews, BAL, $6,000
• Flex RB James Cook, BUF, $6,800
• TD Baltimore, $4,300

ROSTER 2 ($60K) –Cash Plus - (FBG PROJECTED POINTS = 114.0)

A cash-plus lineup is designed to be used in something like a 100-player or less contest where 20-30% of the prize pool cashes. These can also be used for 3-person or 5-person contests where the top person wins. Often these will have a heavier emphasis on stacking built into them, but not factoring in roster percentages compared to a true GPP lineup which may avoid some of the higher projected rostered players.

No cash plush this week. Honestly, I couldn’t find a lineup that I liked more than the primary cash lineup.

ROSTER 3 ($60K) – GPP Lineup (FBG PROJECTED POINTS = 114.4)

A GPP lineup is often going to avoid some of the higher-rostered players and try to create stacks or game stacks that could pay off. This often is a riskier approach and is more designed to help you understand the philosophy rather than a direct copy of the lineup. We have a GPP article written by Dan Hindery that I highly recommend if you’re looking for GPP guidance.

• QB Jared Goff, DET, $7,600
• RB Devin Singletary, HOU, $6,400
• RB Rachaad White, TB, $6,700
• WR Stefon Diggs, BUF, $7,500
• WR Mike Evans, TB, $7,600
• WR Jameson Williams, DET, $5,300
• TE Travis Kelce, KC, $7,100
• Flex RB Aaron Jones, GB, $7,400
• TD Baltimore, $4,300

Player Chart