NFL DFS Picks: Wild Card Sunday Studs & Busts I DraftKings + FanDuel

The NFL playoffs are here, and we have a pair of exciting looking three game NFL DFS contests each day this weekend. The Sunday slate is our focus for this column. I’ll also have optimizer groups posted for the Sunday slate sometime around sunrise, well ahead of lock, but after we collect any pending news. The slate of games on Wild Card Sunday should present us with a litany of value picks and stars from which to make our NFL DFS picks. There are some serious opportunities up and down the salary spectrum. Playoff action and three-game slates get very tight and one key decision could make all the difference in constructing a GPP winning lineup. To help find the best building blocks, I took a look through our NFL DFS Boom/Bust tool, one of my favorite products on the site for DraftKings NFL and FanDuel NFL contests. Our goal here is to review the tool and identify a few of the less popular options that could be in play.

If you aren’t familiar, the tool utilizes Awesemo’s player projections and standard deviations to calculate the probability of a player hitting a specific “boom” score, which represents a 75th-percentile performance. We can weaponize this data alongside the player’s point projection and ownership projection to help determine which players are over- or under-owned and which players could be valuable pivots in those situations. With just three games on the slate, key decisions like this could prove GPP-winning, although there are limited options.

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NFL DFS Picks: Sunday Slate Boom/Bust Leaders

Quarterback

The quarterback spot does a lot to determine our overall constructions. Given the nature of NFL DFS, we are always looking to pair our chosen quarterback with at least one of his skill players, and frequently with a player from the opposing team as a run-back option. The purpose of this is to capture the direct correlation between a quarterback’s scoring potential and that of his pass catchers. When the quarterback throws a touchdown pass, someone catches it, there are valuable NFL DFS points on both sides of that equation. We take a player from the opposite team following the theory that a blowout in the NFL will eventually turn into a ground-based affair, with the leading team grinding out the game and keeping the clock running rather than taking chances through the air. A competitive game is almost always required for a true ceiling score, which naturally leads us to additional skill player to quarterback correlations. This makes quarterback selection a major inflection point for short-slate NFL contests, as that decision will drive at least four positions on your roster when we account for the unlikely situation of rostering a defense against your quarterback.

For our short Wild Card Weekend Sunday slate, we have just three games and six quarterbacks from which to choose. This is naturally going to push significant ownership shares toward the highest raw projection options on the slate, once again those are the three who double as the name-brand quarterbacks.

There is a clear standout option on both sites, Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens checks in with a significantly higher boom score than the competition. In FanDuel NFL contests, the reigning NFL MVP costs $9,300 while carrying a 14.3% boom rate. The next-highest quarterback is Ben Roethlisberger with a 2.7% boom rate. On DraftKings, he comes in with a $7,800 salary and a 14.9% boom score, with Roethlisberger second to him at 3.8%. This is a stark difference, although if we are following stacking protocols, we need to consider the options that come alongside Jackson, or whether to run him “naked” (without associated pass catchers).

The quarterback completed 64.4% of his passes this season for 7.3 yards per passing attempt and 26 touchdowns, with a 2.4% interception rate. Jackson has two clear-cut favored targets in the passing game, tight end Mark Andrews and wide receiver Marquise Brown. By boom score, Andrews is the far better play on the Sunday slate, though he comes with a significant amount of ownership. The tight end hauled in 58 of 88 targets with seven touchdowns, while Brown matched the 58 catches, though he needed 100 targets to get there and only scored one additional touchdown. Brown serves as the deep threat, with an average depth of target of 12.9 yards, while Andrews is the safety valve and valuable red zone target. Both are in play along with Jackson on tomorrow’s slate.

Of course, the Jackson story doesn’t end anywhere near his passing. The superstar makes amazing things happen on the field with his legs, and tomorrow’s game should be no different. Jackson put up the rushing numbers of a quality mid-range back, racking up 1,005 yards and seven touchdowns on his 159 rushing attempts, a 6.3 yards per attempt average. This is what sets Jackson apart from other players at the position. The individual touchdown upside alone is far different from that of other quarterbacks. This is why we can consider playing Jackson without pass-catchers, there is a significant chance he does all (enough for our purposes) of the scoring on his own.

Not wanting to roster Jackson exclusively will eventually lead you back to the drawing board on the boom/bust tool. I mentioned Roethlisberger as the next-best option by boom score, but the Pittsburgh quarterback will be popular on the slate. He has possibly the best set of pass catchers out of any available quarterback, though the Saints would have something to say about that as they return to health. The issue with Roethlisberger is ownership. Not only is the quarterback carrying a miniscule boom score, he also has essentially no separation from the next two names on this list, who will be less popular. A departure from the top two most widely owned quarterbacks is a quick way to start your build on a different foot than 53% of the field on the DraftKings NFL slate and more than 55% of it in FanDuel NFL contests.

Of the remaining options, the natural inclination would be to go to NFL legend Drew Brees and the New Orleans passing attack. The Saints will have Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara and are back at full strength. The public is going that route on FanDuel, less so on DraftKings. On the blue site, Brees is trending slightly behind Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky by boom score, and will be owned a fair amount more. In terms of raw point projection, Brees outstrips Trubisky, but not by a very noteworthy margin, given the $900 salary savings.

On DraftKings, the choice is less clear. Brees’ boom score climbs to 3.4%, but Trubisky is right next to him again at 3.3%, while carrying far less ownership. The price difference is only $400 in this instance however, we may not be able to buy as much upside elsewhere with the savings as on the competing site. My internal bias leans toward Brees, but the numbers are pointing us in Trubisky’s direction as at least a strong GPP option who should be rostered above the field. I will have both.

The final two options on the slate land a step behind the others on DraftKings. Baker Mayfield of the Cleveland Browns and the Titans’ Ryan Tannehill will have an uphill climb toward ceiling scores. Mayfield has just a 2.6% boom rate, while Tannehill checks in last at 0.9%. The ownership is our focus at that level. Both quarterbacks are inherently low-owned, given the popularity of the others at the position. They each also carry lower-owned viable stacking options, which creates additional lineup differentiation that I like. On FanDuel, they rank alongside Brees and Trubisky, rather than behind them.

Tannehill intrigues me. The quarterback tied with Roethlisberger’s 33 regular season touchdown passes – despite 127 fewer passes – to lead this slate of NFL DFS picks. His 7.9 yards per pass attempt also leads the slate. He is also not without upside in the rushing game. Tannehill produced 266 yards on his 43 rushing attempts and, far more interestingly, scored seven touchdowns. Does he sound like the lowest owned quarterback on a three game slate to you?

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Rashard Higgins – WR – Cleveland Browns – DraftKings – $4,100 / FanDuel – $5,500

This one is primarily for my friends on DraftKings. While Higgins is in play and makes for a “fine” option on FanDuel on this slate – coming in at a six percent boom score against his 21% ownership projection and 9.3 fantasy point projection. On DraftKings, at a much lower price relative to other options, Higgins is somehow drawing a lot less ownership. He ranks seventh by boom score on the site, third at the wide receiver position, with a 11.1% probability.

Higgins was on and off the field for the Browns this year, but he ended up grabbing 37 of 52 targets for 16.2 yards per reception and an average depth of target of 13.7 yards. The aDOT is slate-leading among realistic contributors, more than half a yard ahead of Chase Claypool and nearly a full yard over Marquise Brown. Of course, Higgins only turned four of those deep targets into touchdowns, compared to nine and eight respectively for the other two. That pair will be more popular than the sneaky Higgins on both sites, which will serve as our ultimate tie-breaker. I would look to be well over the field on the Higgins play on DraftKings NFL slates.

Additional (slightly) lower-owned considerations: Eric Ebron, Emmanuel Sanders, Kareem Hunt

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Derrick Henry / Alvin Kamara – RB – Tennessee Titans / New Orleans Saints – Expensive

These are the two spicy meatballs this week on both sites. Both Henry and Kamara will be extremely popular, justifiably so. Henry has been nothing short of NFL record setting the past two seasons, and we just saw Kamara break reality and go half-again on top of Polk High Football legend Al Bundy by scoring an absurd six touchdowns in a single game (Peg!).

Henry’s season this year could only be described as “Ruthian” in that he rushed for more yards than 23 teams in the league. His 2,027 yards were the fifth-most in NFL history. Not only has Henry led the league in rushing each of the past two seasons by a fairly wide margin, according to Elias Sports (and the Baltimore Sun article from which I took this stat), Henry’s 2,684 yards over his last 20 games (playoffs included) are the most ever in a 20-game stretch. And Alvin Kamara scored six touchdowns in one game the other day.

Ultimately, both players are fine choices on both sites. You will not be alone in rostering them, you will not be alone in rostering them both. On DraftKings, my slight preference would be toward Kamara at $8,500, a $700 savings over Henry, with everything else coming in almost exactly even. In FanDuel NFL contests, Kamara ranks atop the board by boom score with an 18.1%. Henry lands fifth at 14.3%, though he is pulling just 38.6% ownership compared to Kamara’s 49.3%. The $1,200 savings on Kamara is not insignificant, but I like the idea of paying up to get slightly different on an incredible talent like Henry. I will likely look to get over the field on Henry where I am not rostering Ryan Tannehill and stacking this team’s passing game.

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Author

Terry McBride

Terry used to do other things, now he writes words on the internet. He hopes his more than 20 years’ experience in season-long and daily fantasy sports and his custom models for MLB, NBA, and NFL don't steer you too wrong when he writes columns and makes picks on Awesemo.com. A lifetime of experience keeping odd hours make Terry ideal to cover KBO baseball overnight until the world returns to normal. Most of those late night hours have been spent on the couch watching sports, T.V., and movies; just try to shut him up about any of the above. You can find his pop-culture ramblings and more on Sideaction.