Thursday Night Football marks the beginning of Week 7 with a matchup of the Jacksonville Jaguars heading into New Orleans to battle the Saints. Unfortunately, injuries are plentiful for this game, so we will need to watch reports closely up through kickoff. In this issue of Stokastic’s NFL DFS picks series, we’ll be providing our Jaguars-Saints DFS picks for the Thursday Night Football Showdown slate.
Stokastic is bringing plenty of NFL DFS tools and information for all the different slates, game formats and sites. This column will provide a free analysis of the single-slate action on DraftKings and FanDuel. It includes team capsules, player rankings, comments and NFL DFS picks. There are loads of information and NFL DFS Showdown analysis to get into for both DraftKings and FanDuel on this Thursday Night slate, so check out these Jaguars-Saints DFS picks.
NFL DFS Showdown Picks: Jaguars-Saints DFS Picks
Jacksonville Jaguars: 19.25 Points
Quarterback
The Stokastic NFL DFS projections have Trevor Lawrence as the QB17 for the Week 7 player pool, which does have six teams on a bye. Word out this morning is that Lawrence will be a game-time-decision with his sprained knee, but indications are that he expects to be under center.
Jacksonville is coming off a convincing 37-20 victory at home over the visiting Indianapolis Colts. The Jaguars had spent the previous two weeks in England, and this is the fifth time this season that they have been on the road. New Orleans has the seventh-best passing DVOA, so this is far from an easy matchup, particularly if Lawrence is not at full health. For the season, the Saints are allowing a paltry 182 aerial yards per game, surrendering just seven touchdowns.
Lawrence has thrown seven touchdowns himself, but he also has a career-best 67.1% completion rate and is on track for just nine interceptions. Though he has not run for a score yet, he is averaging 24.5 yards per game on the ground, which is also a personal best. Even if his knee is not fully healthy, he should at least have enough mobility in the pocket to help him find some downfield targets tonight.
Running Back
Travis Etienne Jr. has put the ball into the end zone twice in each of the last two games. Though he has just one game with more than 100 rushing yards, he has more than 55 in all but one outing and 100 combined yards on three occasions. To say Etienne has a bell cow role, well, it does not do things justice. On the season, Etienne has 113 of 138 (82%) of carries and 24 of 32 (75%) of the targets to the position.
Tank Bigsby is second among Jacksonville running backs in carries with 18 for 43 yards, though he has scored twice. He is also second with targets, but that figure is laughably low with just three, resulting in one 6-yard reception. D’Ernest Johnson is third on the team in snaps with only 23 and just four over the last three games. This imbalance in opportunities is basically unprecedented at this point in the season.
Wide Receivers and Tight Ends
Zay Jones is out once again, having played in one game since Week 2 while dealing with a knee injury. Calvin Ridley and Christian Kirk have been seeing 80% snap shares or better more often than not, which should continue tonight. Kirk has a slight lead with 49 targets, and he has at least half a dozen looks in each of the last five tilts., including a pair of double-digit-target games.
Ridley is not far behind with 44 targets, which is tied with tight end Evan Engram for the second most on the team. This duo has each seen at least seven looks in five of the six games this year. Lumping in the rest of the pass-catchers, aside from Jones, who has 18 targets in his three mostly healthy games, no other wideout or tight end has more than six on the season. Talk about a concentrated aerial attack.
Defense/Special Teams
New Orleans is ceding just over three sacks per game, while Jacksonville is struggling towards the bottom of the league, registering only two quarterback takedowns per tilt. The Jags lead the league with 15 takeaways, while the Saints are in the middle of the pack with eight turnovers.
New Orleans Saints: 20.25 Points
Quarterback
Three of the six quarterbacks to face the Jaguars have put up multi-touchdown passing efforts, with rookie Anthony Richardson throwing for one and running in another in the opener. Four opposing signal-callers have at least 280 passing yards, which is a little surprising considering that the Jaguars have the 10th-best passing DVOA in the league.
Derek Carr has seen his passing production swing wildly, with a pair of 300-yard outings in the first and last games and a pair of sub-200-yard games, even excluding Week 3 when he was injured and replaced by Jameis Winston. This should not be a surprise considering New Orleans has the 19th rushing and passing DVOAs while posting a putrid 18.2 points per game.
Once again, the offensive line will be running short-handed, with tackles Ryan Ramczyk (concussion), Landon Young (hip) and guard James Hurst (ankle) all sidelined by their various injuries.
Running Back
Alvin Kamara is back in a lead role, though there is a chance that Jamaal Williams (hamstring) could be activated from the injured reserve. That would not really dampen the prospects for Kamara, and it is more likely that the journeyman running back will return to action in Week 8 since he was only a limited participant in practice and his team has the luxury of waiting to put him on the active roster.
Kamara is still relatively fresh, having missed the first three games of the season while serving a suspension. In his last two appearances, he has averaged 21 carries and 74 yards and has one touchdown. He also has been the recipient of 25 targets across his three outings, which has him racking up the fantasy goodness. The touchdowns should follow, though expectations need to be set, as the team has just five passing and three rushing scores through six games.
Rookie Kendre Miller has had most of the RB2 opportunities, and even when Williams returns, he should not lose out on that many opportunities. When the game is close, Kamara is going to get the volume and the high-leverage touches. Miller is likely to spell him for a handful chances each game, though at this point his most direct path to fantasy success will be in lopsided games where he can get mop-up duty.
Wide Receiver
Chris Olave has been dealing with a toe issue, but he is expected to play tonight after practicing in full on Wednesday. Jacksonville has allowed 97-plus receiving yards to five different receivers, along with seven total touchdowns to the position. Olave leads the team with 53 targets, though veteran Michael Thomas is close behind with 47 now that he is healthy for the first time in years.
Second-year receiver Rashid Shaheed had 15 targets in the last three games, with six or more in two of these appearances. The undrafted free agent out of Weber State is coming off a season-high 76% snap share, and he continues to put distance between himself and Keith Kirkwood and Lynn Bowden Jr., who are battling for scraps and have just five combined targets on the year.
Tight End
Taysom Hill is classified as a tight end, but he does have 24 carries and saw a season-high seven for 49 yards last week against Houston. Of course, in the single-game format, positional eligibility is moot, but it is always fun to see what the consummate jack of all trades is up to. Juwan Johnson is out once again with a calf injury, so Foster Moreau and long-time veteran Jimmy Graham will be splitting around 70% of the traditional tight end snaps. Hill will be the lone member of this trio on the field for around 30% of the snaps and joining one of his compatriots on around 30% more of the action. However, this includes plays where he is a running back, H-back and potentially getting the direct snap from the center.
Defense/Special Teams
Jacksonville has been decent, with just 16 sacks allowed in six games, while New Orleans is stuck in the bottom quarter of the league, with only 13 takedowns on the year. The Jags have lost only eight turnovers, and the Saints have been around average with 10 takeaways.
Thursday Night Football Single-Game NFL DFS Strategy
The rankings below are best utilized for building out single-entry and three-max lineups and for head-to-head and three-man formats. They provide a nice barometer for player value. However, those taking the MME approach should remember that correlation is key. This means matching a receiver or two with a quarterback in the Captain/MVP slot. That also works conversely, pairing a Captain/MVP pass catcher with his quarterback.
Jaguars-Saints DFS Picks Rankings
Top 10 NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Jaguars-Saints
- Alvin Kamara: Gets the slight nod over Lawrence since the do-everything back is at full strength.
- Trevor Lawrence: Tough matchup and hard to count on much of a rushing baseline due to his sore knee. This does not take it off the table but does dampen his median fantasy projection in an already-tough road matchup.
- Travis Etienne Jr.: Deserving of the multiplier slots; should see half a dozen targets in the passing game with Lawrence looking to make quick throws.
- Chris Olave: Steady option; not much wiggle room in his salary; needs a touchdown or 100-plus yards to return a profit.
- Evan Engram: Steal on DraftKings ($5,800); decent value on FanDuel ($8,500).
- Derek Carr: Seems to be recovered from his sprained throwing shoulder but not much upside, with only three double-digit fantasy performances to date.
- Jamal Agnew: DraftKings only but in play as an extreme $400 punt if Jones is indeed out. Even if he gets just two targets for no catches, it is still worth the chance to upgrade other slots, and he could always luck his way into a 15-yard reception. Main returner for punts and kickoffs.
- Christian Kirk and Calvin Ridley: Similar salary and projection; let personal preference be your deciding factor. They can be employed on the same roster.
- Rashid Shaheed: Pushing for more targets, and he also has four carries for 29 yards as the team tries to get him involved. Returns punts and kickoffs.
- New Orleans D/ST: Gets the homefield boost; needs a pick-six or scoop-and-score to be a real difference-maker.
Secondary NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Jaguars-Saints
- Blake Grupe: Rookie is 13 of 16 on field goal attempts but has converted 3 of 4 from 50-plus yards and all 10 PATs.
- Brandon McManus: Veteran is chugging along in his first season away from Denver. Perfect on 14 extra points, with a solid 12 of 14 (85.6%) on field goal attempts and his only misses coming from beyond 40 yards.
- Kendre Miller: If Williams is active, slide the rookie down to the top of the lottery section.
- Taysom Hill: We all know the drill with as many times as we have seen the super-utility player on island games.
- Jacksonville D/ST: This squad has moxie and decent results despite rarely being in front of their own fans.
Lottery Ticket NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Jaguars-Saints
- Foster Moreau and Jimmy Graham: Touchdown hunting, and they are well down the red zone pecking order.
- Tank Bigsby: Needs a lucky break or something unlucky to befall Etienne before he contributes much more than a couple points.
- D’Ernest Johnson: Similar outlook at Bigsby but lower salary and projection. Occasional kickoff returner.
- Jamal Agnew, Tim Jones, Luke Farrell, Brenton Strange and Keith Kirkwood: In play around lineup 40 on DraftKings, closer to lineup 100 on FanDuel. Over/under for combined looks is 3.5 for the group; good luck figuring out who gets them.
- JaMychal Hasty, Elijah Cooks, Adam Prentice, J.P. Holtz, C.J. Beathard and Jameis Winston: Not quite the trick or treating season. If Lawrence is inactive, Beathard will rank as the 10th-best option.
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