The Lineup Lowdown: NFL Week 6 Edition

He is perhaps the most recognizable voice in DFS, whose famous tagline “both the salary and the matchup are just too good. If you are not playing him in your head-to-head games you are just going to lose” can be heard as the intro to his award winning podcast The Daily Fantasy Fix. He’s none other than Dan Back, aka db730 and when he’s not busy as the head of media for RotoGrinders, he’s crushing DFS as a top ranked Grinder.

Mr. Back is a top 200 ranked Grinder and is also top 250 in the current TPOY race including being currently ranked #141 in NFL. Dan plays exclusively head-to-head for his cash games and he broke down his two DraftKings lineups for us on the Week 6 NFL main slate.

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Drew Brees / Jameis Winston

I nearly used Brees in both lineups, but I liked the savings Winston got me and felt like both were a lock for 300 yards (I love me some bonus points on DraftKings). QB isn’t usually a make or break spot and I really wanted exposure to Hunt on one of the teams. I didn’t like the build of the Hunt/Brees team which is why I split my exposure here.

Jerick McKinnon (x2) / Todd Gurley (x2) / Mark Ingram / Kareem Hunt

I felt strongly that McKinnon was the way to go in cash on DK, especially with Diggs out as I figured he would see a little bit more in the passing game and Latavius Murray is just terrible. Ingram seemed like a super safe play at his price with Peterson gone to Arizona. I was definitely in the minority on Gurley over Leonard Fournette, but I don’t think their Head Coach was going to make the same error that Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley made in going pass heavy against the staunch Jaguars secondary last week. Fournette has had a ton of positive touchdown variance to this point and I was willing to give it a fade on both my teams. I loved both Hunt and Bell, but it didn’t make any sense to pay the price Bell commanded on DraftKings in cash games.

Adam Thielen (x2) / Davante Adams / Julio Jones / Jamison Crowder / Amari Cooper

I probably spread out WRs between my two teams more than I should have, but the Crowder/Cooper combo carried a bit more risk than I usually like for cash games. I felt, however, both those guys were VERY underpriced and I bought into a bit of the “Crowder Squeaky Wheel” coach speak we heard earlier in the week. With Amari… playing a guy who had under three DK fpts in three consecutive games in cash is not normally something I recommend but the game came in as one of the highest on the entire slate and he had previously been dealing with a backup QB in EJ Manuel and a tough CB matchup the week before that. I felt like this was a breakout week for Cooper. Julio had my highest overall WR projection on the week and my only worry was it becoming a blowout and the team not risking him to injury late in the game. Adams had a nut matchup with Jordy having to deal with Xavier Rhodes shadow coverage and felt WAAAY too cheap.

Zach Miller / Jordan Reed

The more I looked at the WInston team, I realized I probably should have reserved it for GPPs but Reed appeared to be finally healthy and at $5K felt too cheap for a team projected to score the highest amount of points on the slate. If Marcedes Lewis can score three TD’s against Baltimore, I figured why can’t Miller? I loved that he was under $3K and felt like a pretty safe price per dollar option.

Atlanta Falcons DST / Baltimore Ravens DST

I liked the Falcons coming off a bye, Vic Beasley returning, and facing a abysmal Dolphins offense that was without one of their top weapons. It felt like a no-brainer, especially with the Broncos prime matchup not available on the main slate. The Ravens against Chicago was the other option on DK that I felt pretty good about as rookie QBs on the road are usually a recipe for DST fantasy goodness.

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Dan was right in his analysis that his second team was probably best reserved for GPPs and he received a bit of misfortune when Winston went down early to injury. The risky Cooper/Crowder combo did not pay off either as it put up only 13.4 points on the way to that lineup putting up a 120.14 total. His main lineup fared much better even with Brees only putting up 13.54 fpts. He was dead on with his call of McKinnon as a cash game staple as the Vikings RB put up a solid 25.9 points and Ingram was a monster with a 34 fpt outing. The only roster spot that didn’t put up double digit points was the Falcons DST as the lineup finished with 151.24 – a good, but not great, score on this high-scoring day.

Bonus Lineup Review

I’m not a cash game player typically as I love the chase of the big prize in GPPs. I follow the 80-20 rule… 80% of my weekly volume in GPPs and 20% in cash games and most of my cash games are in single entry and three-max 50/50’s and double ups. Here’s a quick look at what was one of my highest scoring cash game lineups ever (it was indeed my highest DK score of the day – thankfully I did enter it into a few single and three-max GPPs).

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I knew Hogan would be popular and his price allowed me to get to Gronk who I really wanted in cash as I felt he was far and away the best TE out there and I felt like with him I was going to get elite WR1 type numbers for just $6,800. I decided to roll with the two chalk backs in Ingram and McKinnon – their prices were too low to ignore in cash games (and their 70%+ ownership reflected that) and went with another relatively cheap RB in Buck Allen who I thought was in a great spot (and I didn’t foresee Alex Collins getting so much run as the team had seemed to fall out of favor with him due to his fumble problems of late). It was also a strong correlation with my DST of the Ravens who I thought were in a great spot for the reasons Dan mentioned above. I despise Carson Palmer but looking at Fitzgerald’s matchup and the volume he was going to receive, he was the first WR I locked in. I didn’t like Hopkins as much but felt his volume made him a safe cash game play and by going cheap at QB it allowed me to get some exposure to the Deshaun Watson hype train against a bad Cleveland pass defense. Thielen was an easy play for me with the Packers secondary banged up and the Diggs injury making him the clear #1 option there.

About the Author

thehazyone
Aaron Hendrix (thehazyone)

Aaron Hendrix is a former professional poker player who made the transition from season long fantasy sports to DFS in October of 2014. He used to cover poker tournaments for a living until stepping into his current role at RotoGrinders. He can be found on Twitter at @aaronhendrix