Michael Cohen's Articles

I view this as the last true week of NFL DFS. I’ll play the Conference Championship Round next week and the Super Bowl showdown slates, but I’ll have a lot less money in play those weeks compared to this week.   With four games, you are still unable to get very low-used potential studs (like […]

I have very mixed feelings toward playoff NFL DFS. On the one hand, everyone out there thinks they are some football genius and overreacts the same way to the games they see. On the other hand, there is such a limited number of games that you can only get so contrarian without choosing players who […]

The final week of the NFL regular season is a pain in the ass to play for DFS. We have to make sure the players won’t get pulled, and we don’t want to overlook some potential value plays if a backup might get a ton of opportunities.   I’ve done really well lately, and I […]

We’re near the end of the NFL season, where playoff scenarios start to matter. Teams don’t generally rest starters in Week 17, but I tend to prefer rostering players who definitely have something to play for. Either their team needs to win to make the postseason, or they are younger players on teams that aren’t […]

There’s nothing better than going to family functions and completely ignoring everyone and checking your phone. With an injury-riddled but decent enough NFL DFS slate for Christmas Day, I can almost guarantee the major GPPs will fill early.    I’ll have a few lineups myself, but I won’t go crazy. With just three games, there […]

I sincerely hope all my readers have had a good season so far, or at the very least, have enjoyed my articles. I had a great showing last week at the DraftKings FFWC, placing second. My second- place lineup was a game stack of Dallas-Jacksonville combined with a couple core plays netting me my fourth […]

It’s championship week in DFS. My main focus will be on the DraftKings FFWC, where I’ll have six entries in a field of 200. Even though the payouts are still relatively top heavy, people get very cautious, and the contest gets very chalky. I don’t need to be as contrarian as usual to be different, […]

The first word that comes to mind when thinking about this week’s NFL DFS slate is “gross.” Yes, theoretically there could be some fun, high-scoring fantasy games. But the only one that looks like it is the Detroit-Minnesota game, which will be chalk city.   We have a few games with one team expected to […]

I think last week is a great example of how sometimes my process may be great, but the actual outcomes and touts can be terrible. Jeff Wilson was the mega chalk, especially in high stakes. I was heavily underweight on him and instead had a higher-priced, 4-5%-owned running back. If that player was named Josh […]

This feels like a “back to the future” kind of week in NFL DFS. Once again, we have a lot of running back chalk on DraftKings in the $5,100-$6,900 department.  In general, I like some of the chalkier players more than others. I don’t think I’ll be completely fading any of them, but if I’m […]

Without a doubt, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s all about eating and football; it doesn’t get any better than that for your favorite slightly overweight, slightly degenerate DFS tout.   I think we have one of the better DFS slates this year. There’s a mix of over-under games and quite a few fantasy relevant […]

Last week was certainly the tale of two touts in DFS. On the one hand, I was heavy on sub-5% Christian Watson, who basically 10X’d his salary. On the other hand, I had a lot of Chase Claypool, who didn’t even 1X it.   As we get into the end of the year, the chalk […]

Between byes, the primetime games and the Germany game, let’s just say I’ve seen many better-looking slates in my life. The lack of value will likely lead to some really chalky players, because they’re the only players that don’t look like bad plays.   That’s generally not the type of chalk I like to play […]

Last week was quite the week. It was one of the highest-scoring NFL DFS weeks in recent memory, and once again, the mega-chalk running back absolutely smashed.   I don’t think we’ll see 65% (or higher) chalk back like we had with Tony Pollard this week, but we will see a mix of popular players […]

Another week, another mega-chalk running back. With Ezekiel Elliott out, Tony Pollard is obviously an incredible value on DraftKings and especially FanDuel for Week 8 in DFS.   I wish I could start this article saying how the chalk running backs have been good so far (especially last week), so now is the great setup […]

We have a third of the NFL season now in the books. Now that we’re in the middle of the season, it’s easy for people to overreact thinking that DFS trends and players in the first third who performed well or poorly will continue throughout the course of the season.  I tend to start looking […]

We have a pretty unique NFL DFS slate this week. There’s a massive amount of running back value, especially on DraftKings. The low prices there actually make DraftKings salaries softer than FanDuel this week, which is pretty rare.   On DraftKings especially, you’re going to have a chalk build of stud quarterback and star receiver, […]

Last week, a Seattle-Detroit game stack was the stone-cold nuts in DFS. A lot of mid-tier value really paid off since a popular game ended up scoring over 90 points in a generally fantasy efficient fashion.   This will surely make people look to game stack this week and also focus on the mid-tier type […]

We’re getting into the meat of the NFL season, so I think we can start identifying players who are showing potential but just haven’t gotten that big game yet. We’re also starting to see the public get FOMO and chase trends that can occasionally make good fades.   Last week, I had a clear “cheap […]

With the NFL season progressing, we can see the public latching on to some trends and feeling FOMO about which players to take in DFS.   Last week, I had Davante Adams listed in my core since he was in 25-30% of my lineups, with the caveat that I may be underusing him. Sure enough, […]

With Week 1 in the books, we can now officially let the overreactions begin. Is Cam Akers relegated to the bench forever? Is Zero RB and expensive wide receiver destined to win every week? Will TwoGun never win another Milly since the Packers offense is terrible?    There are some overreactions to Week 1 that […]

Hooray for football! If you read my DFS article last year, I’d like to sincerely thank you for sticking with us and continuing to read my analysis.    If you’re new to FTN Daily or new to reading my article, I tend to play a contrarian style. I generally avoid the chalk and focus on […]

I’m a DFS guy first and foremost, so maybe I’m not a top-of-the-heap best ball expert, but I do know building fantasy rosters. DFS isn’t best ball (unless of course I win the million this year, in which case this intro will look very different next year). Still, knowing what to look for is a […]

We’re all gearing up for some great DFS and gambling action in Sunday’s Super Bowl. And I said it last year, and I’ll say it again (literally I’m copying/pasting some of this from last year’s article):  I’ll be honest. As a full-slate NFL GPP specialist, I don’t exactly look forward to the Super Bowl. While […]

We’re in the final week of non-showdown NFL DFS. There’s some good prize pools out there, so DFS should be fun this week.    Given it’s just two games, there’s only so much strategy and contrarian angles you can go for with your lineups. There’s a monumental difference in the amount of roster constructions between […]

This is the last real DFS week of the season, so I wish everyone the best of luck. DraftKings is doing four games for their main slate, so I am going to focus on them for this article. There is just so much more strategy and contrarian plays possible when you’re working with four games […]

I’ve had some success with four-game NFL playoff DFS slates in the past. My first milly maker win was actually the Divisional Round weekend in 2015, and I’ve generally had one big hit every few years. While the rostership percentages go up during the playoffs, concentrating my rosters on a few players or fading a […]

It’s the last week of the regular season. Between some teams resting players, late season injuries, a few players that finally caught COVID-19, and even weather issues, it’s easy to just skip this week.  I think that would be a mistake. For whatever reason, I’ve had some of my best successes in the final week […]

Happy New Year, everyone. This is the first year with a Week 18 and two weeks of regular-season action in January. Unfortunately, this year is going to be rife with a lot of injury news or COVID-19-related benchings affecting the slates. Next week, in addition to coronavirus and regular injuries, we have to factor in […]

It’s our second week of COVID-19 whack-a-mole creating a flurry of inactives across the NFL league. We’re used to injuries late in the season, but I’ve never prepared for anything like this in the nine years I’ve been playing NFL DFS. Between news coming out seemingly hourly, my own case of omicron running through my […]

We’re nearing the tail end of my second season of writing DFS for FTN Daily, and I can say without hesitation this is the week I am least excited about writing. It seems like a quarter of the NFL is out, and it also feels like another game may get postponed or a star player […]

We had high fantasy scores last week, which often makes people have unrealistic expectations for the following week. With pretty much anything remotely chalk working, everyone expects to have to score 200+ next week to win and gets scared to fade any players who have decent value. This week there’s a lot of 20%ish type […]