Patriots vs Seahawks Showdown DFS: The Opener's Captain Question

Updated Wednesday, September 9, from the NFL DFS Showdown Live Before Lock show, which aired that afternoon and ran up to the DraftKings lock ahead of the 8:20 p.m. ET kickoff in Seattle. Eric Lindquist and Chris Spags walked the Patriots-Seahawks slate position by position, and this page now carries their reads in place of Monday's preview. Every number in the board and the builds below is the Stokastic Sims' DraftKings showdown feed as it stood at lock; the exposure figures in the prose are the hosts' own. The slate: one captain at 1.5 times salary and points, five flex spots, $50,000, at least one player from each team. Nothing here is a result. The game had not kicked off when any of it was said.

Monday's version of this page asked one question, who you pay 1.5 times for, and answered it with the Sims' preview run: Jadarian Price. Then TreVeyon Henderson (NE) was ruled out, and the show answered it differently. When the team that lost the Super Bowl loses its other lead back the day before the rematch, the captain question stops being about leverage and starts being about volume, and the player with the volume is Rhamondre Stevenson (NE). That is the thread of this slate: one back with a bell-cow role in a game the market prices as a field-goal game, a total of 44.5 with Seattle favored by three to three and a half depending on the book, and a field that had already found him. The interesting work is deciding how far past the field to go, and where the tournament captain lives once Stevenson is the cash answer. The kicker, of all people, comes up below.

The Quick Answer

Rhamondre Stevenson is the play of the day and the captain for cash and smaller fields on both DraftKings and FanDuel. Drake Maye (NE) goes in about two-thirds of your builds. The tournament captains are Jadarian Price (SEA), who reads better at 1.5x than as a flex, and Jason Myers (SEA), the contrarian captain the show kept coming back to in a game both coaches would happily win 17-15. Sam Darnold (SEA) is the quarterback to leave out when you leave one out. The full Sims board, the position-by-position reads and two legal builds are below.

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Watch: NFL DFS Showdown Live Before Lock

The full show, with both hosts building the slate live in the Sims and taking chat questions through lock, is the video on this page. Watch on YouTube if the player does not load.

The Board: Every Player Who Matters, With Sims Ownership

Flex salary shown. Captain costs 1.5 times the salary column and scores 1.5 times the points. Ownership is the Sims' projected field ownership; captain ownership is the share of the field expected to put that player in the 1.5x slot. Both are at lock.

The row that explains the slate is Darnold's. He is the fourth-highest projection on the board and half the field has him somewhere, yet only 7.6% of lineups put him at captain, less than half of Stevenson's 16.9% and a third of Smith-Njigba's 23.0%. The field has decided the home quarterback is a flex, not a captain, and the show agreed. Hold that thought, because it is the reason the quarterback section is short and the running back section is not.

Quarterbacks: Maye In Two-Thirds, Darnold Is The One To Leave Out

Drake Maye should be in about two-thirds of your lineups, at least 60%, whatever you think of him after the Super Bowl. The case is not the film, it is the numbers underneath it: 0.27 EPA per dropback last season, positive whether he was running, scrambling or dropping back clean, and the public that turned on him after one game against a very good defense is the biggest positive on the slate. He also has the rushing floor, which is what a showdown captain needs and what a quarterback who lives in the pocket does not. The show opened on the Seattle secondary: Nick Emmanwori (SEA) and Ty Okada (SEA) are inactive and Bud Clark (SEA) went to injured reserve on Tuesday, three safeties down for a first game, and the opening read was a road spot where Maye throws a lot. The counter on air is the better argument and worth keeping all season: scheme outweighs personnel, a Mike Macdonald defense keeps the ball in front of it whoever is back there, and the old football-analytics rule of thumb is that only a quarterback absence moves a grade much. Anything that helps Maye is a positive; the safeties are a small one, the public's opinion of him is the big one. Maye's captain ownership is 17.3% against a captain optimal rate of 14.4%, so the field is slightly over him in the 1.5x slot and roughly right on him as a flex.

Darnold is the easier quarterback to get away from, and the show's reason is worth keeping for the whole season. The 2025 correlation data the show pulled found the quarterback correlating more strongly with the second receiver and the tight end than with the top receiver, because the top receiver hits his range of outcomes on his own and does not drag the quarterback with him. A quarterback whose ceiling depends on a receiver who is already 44% owned is a quarterback with a lower ceiling than his projection suggests. Darnold at captain is the same bet at 1.5 times the price. In a competitive, field-goal-heavy Seattle win, which is the game both hosts expect, the cheaper 1.5x bet on that script is a kicker: $8,100 for Myers at captain against $14,100 for Darnold. Which is not a joke; it is the tournament captain section.

Running Backs: Stevenson Is The Play, Price Is The Captain Shot

This show was early to Stevenson over Henderson all last season, the pass-catching back nobody wanted next to a rookie, and that rookie, now in year two, is inactive. That is the whole read. He projects for 45 to 50 snaps in a role that is game-script independent: pass-blocking and check-downs if New England trails, goal-line work if it leads, and the third-down job either way. Camp reports on Henderson were bad all summer and Stevenson's were good, so this is not a one-week rental of a role. The field's captain number on him climbed through the afternoon, from 14% earlier in the day to 17% by show time; the show's captain exposure landed at 33%, close to double the field, with Stevenson in about two-thirds of its DraftKings lineups overall and named the play of the day. Exposure discipline is the rest of the show's religion, so 20% to 25% at captain is the floor if you do not share the conviction. On FanDuel, where he is $10,000 and the MVP slot pays 1.5x points at the same salary, he was the MVP in most of the show's top lineups across cash, upside and balanced builds, and the answer for any cash format on either site.

Price is where the preview and the show part ways, and the argument is specific. The Notre Dame numbers cut both directions: Price forced a missed tackle on 30% of his rushes to Jeremiyah Love's 26%, but Love did it on 17 carries a game to Price's nine, Love earned targets and Price did not, and Price posted minus 0.2 EPA on 3.2 red-zone rushes per game. A power back profile without the goal-line results is a profile the market paid for in best ball, a top-55 pick by the end of the summer, without the receiving usage to hold it up; his receiving-yards prop sat at 8.5. The camp reporting then moved George Holani (SEA) into the third-down job and left the goal-line role open between Holani and Emanuel Wilson (SEA). None of that makes Price a fade. It makes him a captain, not a flex: the outcome in which he pays is the one where Seattle wins on the ground, and in that outcome he is the best player on the field at 1.5x while the field has him at 5.2% captain ownership against a 7.0% captain optimal rate. As a flex he is a 32% owned rookie with an eight-and-a-half-yard receiving prop. The Sims' preview loved him as leverage; the show's read is that the leverage only exists in the captain slot, paired with the Seahawks defense and a lot of salary left over.

Holani at $4,200 is the cheap back to play and the field already knows it at 20.6%. Corey Kiner (NE) at $2,400 is cheaper than every kicker and defense on the board and reads as the Patriots' second back with Henderson down, but he only matters if Stevenson gets hurt, and building for that is a 150-lineup indulgence, not a play. Holani's own 2025 sample is small and unflattering, minus 0.37 EPA per rush and minus 0.15 per target, and the read is that Seattle fell for him in camp rather than found a player. The $4,200 buys a real role anyway. Wilson at $4,000 is the structural alternative, cheaper than both kickers at $5,400 and $5,000, a straight-line runner who could take goal-line snaps. Jalen Milroe (SEA) is the emergency third quarterback and inactive; do not play players who are not playing.

Wide Receivers: Smith-Njigba Is Chalk, Doubs Is The Hinge

Jaxon Smith-Njigba (SEA) is the highest projection on the board at 19.1 and the field's most popular captain at 23.0%. The show is not off him, he and Stevenson were its two highest-exposed players, but the props are the tell: 79.5 to 81.5 receiving yards depending on the book, juiced heavily at the number, and 6.5 receptions. Those are the markets pricing a receiver who earned a 34% target-per-route-run rate and 3.7 yards per route run last season, and pricing in that the coordinator who built that offense, Klint Kubiak, is now the Raiders' head coach, with Brian Fleury calling it for the first time. Nobody sells out to stop him the way New England did in the Super Bowl, so the target inertia is still the best path to a winning lineup on the Seattle side. At 44.0% ownership he is a hold, not a fade; one host's exposure sat a touch under the field at about 41%.

A.J. Brown (NE) is a 40% player and the field has him at 39.1%, which is about right. The player who decides what Brown's day looks like is Romeo Doubs (NE), and Spags called him quietly the most important piece on the slate. If the Patriots use Doubs like the contract they gave him, he plays the X, Brown moves inside and gets moved around, and Brown's efficiency goes up. If they do not, Brown stays outside and the routes trickle down to DeMario Douglas (NE) and the second tight end, Eli Raridon (NE). Doubs' camp reports went from bad to quiet, which can mean a player found his depth or a player lost a share of the work, and the safety-blanket chemistry he had with Jordan Love does not transfer. It is exactly the unknown you take a shot on at 20.7% ownership and $6,600: a safe floor with several ways to a ceiling, and 16% exposure with room to grow.

The Seattle second receiver is a real argument. Cooper Kupp (SEA) at $5,200 and 17.0% is the box-score memory play, and Eric wanted him at 20% to 25% and was considering him for his single-entry lineup as the candidate for the second-most volume on the team. Spags' trivia question is the counter: among Seahawks still on the roster, Kupp ranked sixth of six in target per route run last season: Smith-Njigba 34%, Holani 33%, Rashid Shaheed (SEA) 20%, AJ Barner (SEA) 20%, and Kupp level with Elijah Arroyo (SEA) at 18%, sixth on the tiebreak. Target earning is the skill that ports, and when it goes, the player is usually closer to done than not. Shaheed is a tier up at $6,400, the field has him at 20.6%, and his path is one play: a schemed deep shot Fleury has been saving all summer. The split landed at Shaheed two points above Kupp; the read is that both belong in the 20% range and neither is a stand. Douglas at $3,000 projects for 15 to 20 snaps in the slot, enough for 12% exposure and not more.

Tight Ends: Barner Over Henry On Price, Both In Range

Hunter Henry (NE) is the more popular tight end at 23.5% and Barner is the better price. The Sims have Barner 19.9% owned against a 22.1% optimal rate and Henry 23.5% owned against 21.2%, a swing of four and a half points of leverage between two players $200 apart. Barner's case is the 20% target-per-route-run rate he earned last season while Smith-Njigba was earning a target on a third of his, and the fact that he is Seattle's blocking tight end and its play-action tight end; if Fleury leans on play action in his first game calling it, Barner is the beneficiary. Henry is still the safer route share on the Patriots' side. Both belong in the 20% to 33% band, the show had Barner at 25% and Henry a little higher, and the tiebreak is the leverage. Arroyo at $1,600 is a sprinkle for a schemed touchdown with Tory Horton (SEA) inactive, not a plan.

Kickers And Defenses: Myers Is The Tournament Captain

Kickers cost about $3,000 in showdown a few years ago and now sit at or above $5,000 on DraftKings and near $6,000 on FanDuel, where Myers is $6,400, because they hit all of last season and the industry's projections caught up. It is the show's reason to be careful with them at full salary, and its reason to captain one. Jason Myers projects for 9.4 points, more than any tight end or defense, and the field puts him in the captain slot 1.3% of the time against a 1.5% captain optimal rate. In a 17-15 slog where one kicker takes four or five of the field goals, the score Eric kept describing and the shape both hosts expected, a captain who costs $8,100 gets to quarterback-level scoring for a little more than half the price, and if the field goals run through New England's drives, Borregales is the same bet $600 cheaper at $7,500 in the 1.5x slot. The hosts split on how hard to push: one stayed at the Sims' optimal rate on Myers and went to 25% on Andy Borregales (NE), who is $400 cheaper at $5,000 and 19.9% owned; the other jammed kicker and named Myers his favorite contrarian captain. Neither is a play to go past 25% on as a flex. Both are the cheapest ceiling on the board at 1.5x.

The defenses are the only way to get under the kicker price, and that is the whole case for them. The Patriots D/ST at $3,400 is the cheapest path to a Myers or Price captain, and the Sims carry it at 14.6% ownership against a 16.0% optimal rate, while the Seahawks D/ST at $4,400 and 22.3% owned sits 3.2 points under its own optimal rate. Nearly a quarter of the field is paying $1,000 up for the Seattle side, and the case is real, a Mike Macdonald defense against a Patriots line missing its center, Ben Brown (NE), on Wednesday. The show had the Patriots around 18% and the Seahawks at 24% and called neither a great play; on price, the Sims say the cheaper one is the better one, and either belongs in a build as the fifth flex that lets you pay for everything else.

Two Builds: Captain Stevenson For Cash, Captain Price For The Field

The cash build is the show's consensus in six players: the bell-cow at 1.5x, the two highest projections at flex, the Doubs unknown, the tight end with leverage and the cheap back with a role. It leaves $1,400 unspent and is three Patriots, three Seahawks. The tournament build is the Price-captain concept as it was described on air: Seattle wins on the ground, nothing much happens, the ball gets run a lot, and the defense and the kicker are the points. It is five Seahawks and Maye, and it leaves $4,600 on the table on purpose. The show's own builds were leaving $4,400 to $6,000, and the point made on air was that showdown lineups with a lot of salary left over are not mistakes; they are a uniqueness tool. This one projects nearly six points lower than the cash build and wins a tournament in a game the cash build cannot get there in.

What The Show Changed

Monday's captain was Price because the Sims saw a home favorite running the ball and a field that had not caught up. Wednesday's captain is Stevenson because Henderson's absence handed one player the volume, and volume is what the 1.5x slot pays for in a 44.5-point game. Price did not lose the argument; he moved rooms, from the flex where a 32% owned rookie with no receiving role is fully priced to the captain slot where he is 5.2% owned and the only version of him that wins. The one I keep coming back to is Myers, because the same 17-15 game script that makes Price a captain makes a $5,400 kicker the best 1.5x on the board, and the field is at 1.3%. It is a slate with one right answer for cash and several for tournaments, which is the best kind. Every number above lives in the NFL DFS projections, ownership and captain rates in the DataHub, and you can try the Sims free before the Sunday main slate, where the Week 1 DFS picks carry the full build. Thursday's Melbourne game has its own page, 49ers vs Rams showdown, and if this was your first showdown slate the showdown strategy guide covers the captain math from the top.

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