NFL Sunday Night Football DFS Picks: Texans and Chiefs (Week 14)

Similar to Thursday Night Football, both Houston (7-5) and Kansas City (6-6) are essentially in must-win spots to make the playoffs. The Texans have two paths, trailing Jacksonville and Indianapolis (8-4) by one game in the AFC South, though those in turn are two close competitors in the Wild Card race. The Chiefs are in real trouble of missing the postseason, having lost three of their last four games, and it is unlikely they will catch Denver (10-2) for the AFC West title. That leaves Kansas City with a 14% probability of getting the final Wild Card berth, while the Texans have a 26% chance of punching their ticket through a Divisional title or as a wild card.

Tonight Kansas City favored by a field goal against the visiting Texans, with a frigid forecast for feels0like temperatures in the mid-20s at Arrowhead Stadium. In this edition of the Stokastic’s NFL DFS picks series, we’ll provide our Texans-Chiefs Week 14 SNF DFS plays for the NFL Showdown action.

NFL Sunday Night Football Week 14 DFS Picks: Texans-Chiefs

NFL DFS Picks for Sunday Night Football Week 14: CJ Stroud

It is hard to call the K.C. passing defense a tough matchup, which we saw for the first half of the season, but the team is trying to regroup and regain its focus. Stroud also slipped from a rookie season where everything went right to few breaks in his favor over the last two seasons. Joe Mixon getting hurt, musical chairs with his pass-catchers and a dreadful offensive line have all conspired to create a less-than-thriving environment for the last season and a half.

The OddsShopper Live Odds have Stroud at -114 for over 228.5 passing yards, -114 for more than 11.5 rushing yards and +175 for more than 1.5 passing scores. Though Stroud was more tentative in his return with no rushing yards, he did have 25-plus in five of the eight games prior to his brain bruise and another with 22 yards. It has been 30 games since his last regular-season rushing score.

Houston Texans Positional Preview

Running Back | Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14

While rookie Woodie Marks consolidated the backfield over veteran Nick Chubb, he saw his snap share slide over the last month from 80% to 66% to 69% and all the way down to 54% last week. It was a little wonky without Stroud for three of the four games. In this stretch, Marks had six targets, while Chubb had four — though Dare Ogunbowale had just one, and fullback Jakob Johnson is only a blocker averaging a dozen snaps per game over the last three matchups, with no offensive opportunities this season on 74 plays.

Currently, the Stokastic NFL projections have Marks for 12.9 carries and 51.96 yards, plus 2.3 targets for 1.7 receptions and 12.4 yards, along with a subpar 32% probability of scoring a touchdown. Chubb is earmarked for 5.4 carries for 21.7 yards and a 70% probability of a reception for around 6.5 yards.

For the season, Marks has 134 carries for 486 yards, two carries of 20-plus yards and a pair of touchdowns. Chubb essentially mirrored this with 114 totes for 469 yards, two “big” carries and three touchdowns. Marks has the edge receiving with three receptions for more than 20 yards on 27 targets. Salaries, of course, can be the great equalizer in DFS, which is why Marks is still only projecting for approximately 25% combined tournament representation on DraftKings ($8,400) and FanDuel ($8,800), despite having the “lead” role. Chubb is in single digits on both sites, needing his fourth score of the season to have relevance, even with the dramatic discount.

Kansas City allowed one 100-yard rushing game this season and two more over 65 yards. Twelve running backs tallied 50-plus combined yards, though the Chiefs allowed just two receiving touchdowns and six rushing scores to opposing running backs.

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Wide Receiver | Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14

In the five games since Nico Collins returned from injury, he saw 10-plus targets in four games, earning a 26.8% target share. Rookie Jayden Higgins was at 15.9%, Christian Kirk at 13.9% and Xavier Hutchinson rounded things out with a 10.8% target share. The overall results with Davis Mills under center were not much different than with Stroud, keeping in mind that Mills was the starter for two years prior to Stroud being drafted. Some would argue that Mills was slightly better, but for our purposes the results are mostly interchangeable.

Collins has the third-highest median fantasy point projection on DraftKings and the third-highest salary. On FanDuel he also has the third-highest salary, though Stroud passes him under the half-PPR scoring format. The fifth-year wideout is not as productive as last year when he earned Pro Bowl accolades, but he is not that far off, and in his last five games, he had at least 75 receiving yards four times, scoring twice.

Higgins scored three times in the last six games. In the other three games he had 55 and 65 yards, with a rookie dud of one catch for 4 yards against Denver. Hutchinson has a similar snap share to Higgins in these game, though he also had two games with no targets. Kirk dealt with a variety of maladies all season, impacting his on-field performance, but prior to being blanked last week, he saw eight, three, four and six targets in the preceding four games.

Noel is the main punt and kick returner, and the team usually tries to get him a couple of offensive opportunities each week as the third-round selection from Iowa State hones his craft.

Tight End | Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14

Dalton Schultz is second on the team with a 21.9% target share over the last five games, ranking second on the team at 80 targets this season. He is usually in the mix for a 70% to 80% snap share, and though he has only one touchdown this season, he had 50 or more yards in six of the last eight games.

The rest of the tight ends combine for 16 targets this season; however, Cade Stover had two in each of the last two tilts, missing Week 2 through Week 10 with an injury. He had four snaps at quarterback last week with four red zone rushing attempts.

Kicker | Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14

Ka’imi Fairbairn is in his ninth season with Houston, and while he never earned Pro Bowl honors, he has an excellent 91% conversion rate on field goals over the last three-plus seasons, missing only three of his 98 point-after-touchdown tries. He is capable from 50-plus yards, though keep in mind this is not the cozy confines of NRG Stadium but outdoors in extremely cold weather. There is a very light breeze in the 2 to 5 mph range, which will bring the mid-20s temperatures down another couple of ticks for the wind chill.

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NFL DFS Picks for Sunday Night Football Week 14: Rashee Rice

Xavier Worthy got hurt in the opener, though he was solid in his Week 4 return, getting 21 targets before Rice joined him in the lineup. Since then, Worthy averaged around six targets per game. His lone touchdown catch was back in Week 6, which resulted in a lot of mediocre fantasy totals.

Worthy and Rice averaged around 75% to 80% of the snaps over the last five games, with Juju Smith-Schuster and Marquise “Hollywood” Brown in the 30% to 40% range. Tyquan Thornton was the only other wideout to get action in this timeframe, seeing snap counts in the mid-teens and just four total targets.

Brown is good for a couple to three targets per game, and Smith-Schuster is at half that rate. Everyone on the field is live for a touchdown with Mahomes throwing passes, but this is clearly well beyond the highflying heyday of three, four and five seasons ago.

In summary, since Rice returned in Week 7, he leads the team with a 27.7% target share, while Worthy is at 17.4% and Travis Kelce is chugging along at a 19.4% target share. Across the last five games, Kelce had his five highest snap counts as the Chiefs are desperately clinging to their playoff hopes. He had at least five looks in four of these games, with Week 11 being the outlier at 13 targets. Three of his team-high five touchdowns (tied with Rice) came during this period.

Noah Gray (concussion) was out last week, though he is expected to play tonight, which will make Jared Wiley invisible once again, with the second-year player getting nine snaps last week. Veteran Robert Tonyan will continue to serve as the TE3, and while we will probably catch sight of him once or twice on the telecast, he has only one target for the season.

Kansas City Chiefs Positional Preview

Quarterback | Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14

No quarterback threw for more than 254 yards against Houston, with five failing to log more than 194 passing yards. Patrick Mahomes is second in the league among quarterbacks who have at least 10 starts, averaging 269.8 passing yards per game, trailing only Prescott (279.8). Of course, that is still well below his 287.0 career mark but better than the last two campaigns. Passing yards are down across the league at an absurd rate since Mahomes led the league with 308.8 per game in 2022. Ending that season his 303.0 yards per game across 80 starts was the best in the league, and it took just 44 games to dramatically bring down that average.

Mahomes had 352 passing yards against Indianapolis in the Week 13 23-20 overtime win, though no touchdowns. On Thanksgiving he had four touchdowns against Dallas, giving him his fifth game with a least three passing touchdowns and showing that he is still a fantasy fixture. He has eight games of 28 or more rushing yards, and we know he is not afraid to run when the season is on the line — which usually is in the playoffs, but this is a kitchen sink game for KC.

The OddsShopper Live Odds have the three-time Super Bowl MVP at -113 for over 232.5 passing yards, -110 for more than 23.5 rushing yards and +115 for more than 1.5 passing scores.

Running Back | Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14

The two highest running back rushing yard totals against Houston occurred in the last two games, with Jonathan Taylor getting a pedestrian 85 yards and no touchdowns on 21 totes last Sunday, which was a far cry from the 116 yards James Cook III posted the preceding game, accompanied by a touchdown on a semi-light 17 rushing attempts. There is no shame in either of these totals since this duo comprises the top of the rushing leaderboard.

In three games without Isiah Pacheco, Kareem Hunt was solid getting the consolidated workload, averaging 18 carries for 70.7 yards and scoring three times. He also had seven targets resulting in five receptions for 35 yards. In Pacheco’s return last week, each back had two targets, with Hunt getting 14 totes for 58 yards on a 68% snap share, while Pacheco had three carries for 16 yards and a 30% snap share.

Rookie Brashard Smith is mostly an afterthought, stepping between the lines on offense just 13 times in the two most recent games with Pacheco and Hunt both available. Even when Pacheco was out, Smith was averaging a tick over 13 snaps per game, earning seven targets and four carries. Smith projects for 1.7 total offensive opportunities and would need something to happen to one of the other backs to be of relevance, outside of a random touchdown.

The Stokastic NFL projections have Hunt for 11.2 carries for 44.3 yards, accompanied by 1.6 targets for 1.3 receptions, 9.2 yards and a 40% probability of scoring a touchdown. Pacheco is earmarked for 8.4 rushing attempts for 33.2 yards and 1.6 targets for 1.4 receptions and 8.9 yards, with a 25% likelihood of finding pay dirt.

Even given the $3,000 savings for Pacheco on DraftKings and $2,600 discount on FanDuel, he is projected to be on just over 12% of all rosters. Of course, that is a little less than half of where Hunt is trending, creating some strategy opportunities. Be sure to tune into the Stokastic Live Before Lock Show at 7:30 p.m. ET, where we break down all the action with the up-to-date DFS analysis and information.

Kicker | Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14

Harrison Butker is in his ninth season as the Kansas City kicker, and he is dependable and very familiar with cold-weather games at Arrowhead Stadium. He does not have the same leg as the current wave of kickers entering the league over the last three years, though the team is conservative and he has just 15 attempts with a 67% success rate from beyond 50 yards over his last 42 games.

Defense | Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14

As mentioned in the section on Stroud, the Kansas City defense is struggling, with only two sacks in the last three games and one interception. Through the first 10 games of the year, the Chiefs averaged two sacks, getting six interceptions, two fumble recoveries and one blocked kick. Stroud improved his sack rate to 6.42% this year, though that is only truly good in the context of his 7.08% and 8.90% rates in his first two years. He was sacked just over two times per game in his nine starts this season.

NFL DFS Picks for Texans-Chiefs NFL DFS Picks for SNF Week 14: Rankings

Top 10 NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Texans-Chiefs

1. Patrick Mahomes: Mahomies Unite!
2. Rashee Rice: Strong multiplier option across the DFS sites.
3. Nico Collins: Core building block on DraftKings; takes a hit on FanDuel with the half-PPR scoring.
4. CJ Stroud: Lost out to Stover in the “tush push” last week; still a steady click in the flex/utility slot and as a differentiation multiplier play.
5. Travis Kelce: It is crunch time, and defenses have been playing him soft with the overall lack of downfield speed.
6. Dalton Schultz: Considering the mediocrity of both teams’ rushing games, Schultz has a favorable floor and fantasy point-per-dollar ratio.
7. Jayden Higgins: One broken coverage play or a missed tackle and he is off to the races.
8. Woody Marks: Rookie looks promising going forward.
9. Kareem Hunt: Just when you think he is done, he continues to churn out yards.
10. Xavier Worthy: Similar sentiment as Higgins, though Worthy is a little more expensive.

Secondary Options

1. Harrison Butker: Extreme cold knocks the kickers out of the top 10 tonight, but both are definitely in play.
2. Ka’imi Fairbairn: Would be ahead of Butker if this game was indoors.
3. Isiah Pacheco: Theoretically, would consolidate the backfield if something happens to Hunt.