Staff Thursday Cash Plays - Week 16

Merry Christmas Eve! Our present to you is…well exactly the same thing we give you every Thursday—our insight into FanDuel’s Thursday Night Cash games.

You can check the full lineups here, while we break down a few interesting things we’ve noticed.

Staff Trends

David Johnson…again

Once again the staff is all in on Arizona rookie David Johnson. Well, all but Mark Wimer. Still, it’s impressive that we mostly are on board with him despite a rising price tag. The Packers still have issues stopping the run, so Johnson is a good bet to match value.

Lower Tier Quarterbacks

While we have Ben Roethlisberger and Cam Newton sightings, Blake Bortles, Alex Smith, Teddy Bridgewater and Derek Carr also got nods. Interestingly, Carr, tight end Antonio Gates and Danny Woodhead are the only players from Thursday night who are getting starts, including Amari Cooper.

Carr should be a good play against a weak San Diego defense, and Blake Bortles gets the start in the hopes that the New Orleans Saints defense continues to be solid for opposing fantasy quarterbacks. 

With Allen Hurns and Allen Robinson catching balls for Bortles, we think it will be. Alex Smith sees a weak Cleveland defense and is generally underrated by fantasy GMs this year. Finally, Teddy Bridgewater faces a bad Giants defense, but is my least favorite of the starts as his value can depend on what Norv Turner does with the gameplan. I don’t expect four passing touchdowns like last week and no more than perhaps 250 yards at most. The price is OK though, and he has upside.

What can (Antonio) Brown do for you?

Brown is in all the lineups but mine. For me it wasn’t so much about avoiding him as it was chasing value elsewhere. And I really like DeAndre Hopkins this week. It’s hard to do both players.

The Steelers offense is on fire, and if Brown’s $9300 price tag seems high, consider that he has been over 30 points in four of the last six games on FanDuel, as pointed out by Chad Parsons in the FanDuel Value article.

Diamonds in the Rough

Aside from the quarternack values, we have a few interesting other plays to look at. Danny Woodhead ($5900) is coming off a huge game and should be a big factor Thursday night, though prior to last week he hadn’t been doing much lately.

Christine Michael ($5500) had a great game last week against the Cleveland Browns, but faces a tougher match against the St. Louis Rams. He’s a long shot play but he might be owned by a very low percentage of people as well.

Mike Gillislee ($5300) could share Karlos Williams’ carries if Williams is still banged up Sunday. The problem is how uninspiring Gillislee has been since he hit the NFL. He has had two touchdowns in the last two weeks and broke a super-long run last week, but there’s risk if he can’t find the end zone.

A couple of staff members are chasing Rueben Randle ($5700) as Odell Beckham Jr is suspended for the game against Minnesota. Randle is underwhelming though he has had two straight games where he scored a touchdown. You’re dependent on that though as he has just five games over 54 yards and none over 70, plus just six touchdowns. He’ll have chances this weekend, but he may do his usual thing and drop them.