Friday Staff Cash Plays

I hope that this week has less injuries than we saw last week - top DFS players went down like flies during the eighth round of regular season games. Knock on wood... Check on the latest status of guys on the borderline of playing/sitting by reading up on Dr. Jene Bramel's injury coverage HERE.

This week the Footballguys.com Staff has selected nine Sunday lineups as of this writing - you can see all of the selections here, which may include other lineups added since this post went live.

The Oakland/Pittsburgh matchup is creating interest on the staff - seven of the nine lineups have at least one wide receiver from that game included for Sunday, with three staffers investing two of their three wide receiver picks in players from that one game. Most selected: Michael Crabtree (five times @ $5,800); Antonio Brown (three times at $8,700). Crabtree and Brown were paired up by two of the staffers.

Despite the wide interest in the receivers playing in the game, only two of the nine lineups have a quarterback from that contest - Derek Carr ($7,000) and Ben Roethlisberger ($8,300) appear once each. 

The Freeman/Ingram axis - the staff loves Devonta Freeman against the shattered Santa Clara 49ers - eight of the nine teams have him in despite Freeman's $8,900 price tag. Mark Ingram appears three times at $7,700, popular now that short-yardage/goal-line vulture Khiry Robinson is out for the season, and is paired with Freeman in each case.

The heavy concentration of Freeman has led to several teams rostering "bargain" receivers who appear under-priced - prominent are Michael Crabtree ($5,800) and Stevie Johnson ($5,400) as my colleague Andrew Garda pointed out in his Thursday Cash Plays blog post, but we also see Martavis Bryant ($6,900) and Mike Evans ($7,500) as some mid-priced plays to balance out the high cost of owning Freeman this week.

Do the Lambo - Josh Lambo is favored as a "bargain" kicker this week, appearing on two Sunday lineups at $4,700, while four teams opted to go "premium" at place kicker and sprang for Stephen Gostkowski at $5,200 when he faces the visitors from Washington at Gillette Stadium. 

Good Luck this weekend, all Y'all!