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Fantasy Football: Best Week 12 DraftKings Cash-Game Plays (DFS)

Fantasy Football: Best Week 12 DraftKings Cash-Game Plays (DFS)

As we near the end of the regular season for season-long leagues, there may be some stragglers coming into the DFS articles looking for a way to still have some action and something to play for. Don’t blame yourself, injuries harmed a lot of teams and there weren’t many clear-cut options to pick up off the waiver wire this year. We’re here for you.

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If this is your first time visiting the cash-game article, you need to understand what it is and what it isn’t. It isn’t an article designed to win you a million dollars. Ok, let’s be clear, if it does, I believe you’d owe me some. But in all seriousness, this article isn’t aimed to take down a tournament, but rather to participate in double-ups, 50/50’s, and head-to-head matchups. These are known as “cash games” in the DFS world. You aren’t always going to play the players with the highest projections, because the players with the highest ceilings may also come with some of the lowest floors. In cash games, you want high-floor players who offer very little risk, though they ideally come with a high ceiling as well. I’ll attempt to give values at each price-point, which will allow you to create a combination that you like.

Quarterbacks

Tom Brady (vs. MIA) $7,700
There will be a lot of cash-game players with Russell Wilson in their lineups this week, and while he’s not a bad play, I’d rather pay the extra $700 to get Brady. Quantifying that with saying Wilson has played three games against the 49ers in the last two years and he’s averaged just 233 passing yards, 1.0 touchdowns, and 13.7 rushing yards. He’s playing the best football of his life, but Brady may be as well. There’s been just one game this year he’s scored less than 15.6 DraftKings points and that game was way back in Week 1. He played the Dolphins just once last year and hit them up for 276 yards and three touchdowns. The Dolphins have allowed 12 passing touchdowns in their last five games to the combination of Josh McCown, Joe Flacco, Derek Carr, Cam Newton, and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Brady is as safe as it gets.

Matt Ryan (vs. TB) $6,400
There are a lot of potential cash-game quarterback options in divisional matchups this weekend, and Ryan is not different. Divisional games are often closer than expected because the teams know each other so well. Despite the Bucs playing better defense last year, they surrendered Ryan 334 yards and two touchdowns in their first meeting, and then 344 yards and four touchdowns in their second meeting. Look, I know Ryan had an MVP season in 2016, so you hate to compare it, but he’s running the same offense and the Bucs are running the same defense. Ryan is also on a bit of a hot streak, throwing eight touchdowns on his last 123 pass attempts (6.5 percent) and it appears that Devonta Freeman will miss another week. There’ve been just two quarterbacks who’ve failed to score at least 15 DraftKings points against the Bucs.

Bonus: If you’re looking for a really cheap option because you want to fit in high-priced studs at RB, WR, and TE, Mitch Trubisky would only need to score 11.0 points in order to hit value on his $4,400 salary.

Running Backs

Kareem Hunt (vs. BUF) $8,000
I promise I’m not a glutton for punishment. After all, I want you to come back and read this next week. Despite Hunt tanking last week, our cash team still did very well. But we aren’t living in Week 11, we’re living in a world where the Bills defense has allowed 11 rushing touchdowns in the last three weeks. In the last four weeks, they have allowed four top-6 performances, and then another five running backs to finish in the top-30. Think about that for a minute… Nine running backs have finished as top-30 options against them over the last four weeks. If Hunt can’t get it done here in a home game against a struggling Bills defense, I’m officially worried. By me putting him here, I don’t see that being the case.

Carlos Hyde (vs. SEA) $5,500
Most are going to see Seattle and think, “No, you don’t want to play running backs against the Seahawks stout defense.” Then you consider the fact that this isn’t your typical Seahawks defense without Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, and Cliff Avril. They had all those players on the team back in Week 1 when Hyde racked up 124 yards on 15 carries and another 19 yards on three receptions. That was back before Hyde became the focal point of the passing game. Yep, you read correctly. His 60 targets rank fourth among all running backs, behind only Christian McCaffrey, Le’Veon Bell, and Alvin Kamara. Even better, 37 of them have come in the last five games with C.J. Beathard under center. When playing a running back in cash, he needs to be locked into volume, and Hyde’s been getting it both on the ground and through the air. His price doesn’t reflect that.

Dion Lewis (vs. MIA) $4,800
There have been a lot of shenanigans that’ve gone on in the Patriots backfield this season, but one player who has given Bill Belichick every reason to continue being used is Lewis. He’s been gradually increasing his carry total and has now averaged 12.6 carries over the last five games. On top of that, Rex Burkhead fumbled last week, leading to more passing down work as he saw a season-high four targets. On a high-scoring team, who is at home giving 16 points to their opponent, you want the guy who’s been getting goal-line carries, especially when he’s just $4,800.

Wide Receivers

Julio Jones (vs. TB) $7,700
If you’ve been reading things on the internet and not watching the games, you’d be under the assumption that Jones is done and is just a name at this point. He’s at worst the No. 2 wide receiver in this league, though it hasn’t translated to fantasy success. His floor has been as good as ever, though, totaling at least 57 yards in all the full games he’s played (left the Bills game early). The Bucs are a team who struggled to defend him last year, you know, when he only scored in five different games. He scored in each of the two meetings against them and hauled in 12 passes for 177 yards as well. He’s going to primarily see Robert McClain in coverage, a cornerback who has allowed nearly an 80 percent catch rate in his coverage this year. He typically covers the slot, but the Bucs moved him to the perimeter recently. This won’t end well for the Bucs.

Jarvis Landry (at NE) $6,700
Can you tell I’m expecting the Patriots to rack up points in this game, leading to plenty of Dolphins pass attempts? Landry has now scored in six of his last seven games and has more touchdowns in that timeframe than in any of his first three seasons. We know regression is coming, but fortunately, he doesn’t need a touchdown to hit value in PPR leagues, which DraftKings is. He’s never seen fewer than seven targets in any one game this year and is averaging a remarkable 10.8 targets per game. Because of that, he’s scored less than 10 DraftKings points just once all year. The Patriots are playing shadow coverage, which will leave Landry out of Stephon Gilmore’s and Malcolm Butler’s coverage and leave him with either Patrick Chung or Eric Rowe. When he played similar matchups against them last year, he totaled 10 catches for 135 yards and then nine catches for 76 yards and a touchdown. It’s clear that Belichick doesn’t worry about him very much.

Cooper Kupp (vs. NO) $5,000
This one comes down to paying attention to everything going on before this game even starts. The Saints are going to be without both Marshon Lattimore and Ken Crawley in their secondary this week, while slot cornerback Kenny Vaccaro has been out since getting hurt in their Week 9 game. It seems Vaccaro is likely to play, but he’s nothing to worry about in coverage, as he’s still learning the position as a converted-safety in Week 3. Kupp’s target share should be massive without Robert Woods on the field, too, as he’s been Jared Goff‘s No. 1 target recently. We know that Sammy Watkins can blow the top off the defense and is the higher upside play, but Kupp is a safe one to play at $5,000.

Bonus: If you want to save $100 from Kupp, you can look at Corey Davis, who has a phenomenal matchup. Not just that, but Rishard Matthews was a late-week addition to the injury report.

Tight Ends

Rob Gronkowski (vs. MIA) $6,900
If you want to pay up at tight end, why not go to Gronkowski, who has seen his price dip from $7,700 last week to just $6,900 this week. The Dolphins have now allowed six different tight ends to score against them this year, leading to five tight ends finishing as top-10 options. I’m one of those weird people who tend to bet on great players to do great things, even if they haven’t for a few weeks. When the Patriots have an implied team total of more than 32 points, it’s likely that we see that glorious Gronk spike.

Tyler Kroft (vs. CLE) $3,900
We’ve been hitting the cheap tight end plays for most of the year, though this one seems too easy. If you recall the game that put Kroft on everyone’s radar this year, it came against the Browns when he totaled 66 yards and two touchdowns. While everyone talks about how bad the Giants are against the tight end, the Browns are just as bad, and were also bad in 2016. They’ve now allowed seven top-12 performances to tight ends, including four top-five. Guys, if they had a solution to stop them, they would have done it by now. And let’s be honest, Kroft can’t be very high on their to-do (or to-cover) list.


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Mike Tagliere is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeTagliereNFL.

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