Tonight Week 4 gets underway with a fun NFC West matchup for Thursday Night Football. In this edition of the Stokastic’s NFL DFS picks series, we’ll be providing our Seahawks-Cardinals Week 4 Thursday Night Football DFS plays for the NFL Showdown action from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
NFL Thursday Night Football Week 4 DFS Picks: Seahawks-Cardinals
These teams have had two common opponents so far, with each dispatching the New Orleans Saints but losing the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco also beat the Saints and sits atop the standings with a 3-0 record, compared to the 2-1 mark each of the participants in tonight’s iteration of Thursday Night Football earned.
NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4: Jaxon Smith-Njigba
Jaxon Smith-Njigba
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $11,000
FanDuel: $13,000
Fantasy Points
DraftKings: 21.09
FanDuel: 16.26
The Seattle passing game had a major overhaul this offseason, with the team trading away quarterback Geno Smith and more surprisingly fan favorite DK Metcalf. Tyler Lockett, one of the most tenured Seahawks, was released as was tight end Noah Fant, who had come over to the franchise as part of the Russell Wilson trade.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba had a few nice moments as a rookie, though the 20th overall selection in the 2023 NFL Draft disappointed his fantasy backers. The former Ohio State Buckeye took a major step forward last year, which resulted in Pro Bowl honors. Now without two savvy veterans rounding out the room, he has looked good as the lead receiving option for the Seahawks.
Smith-Njigba leads the league with 14.7 yards per touch, well ahead of Zay Flowers (12.8), Puka Nacua (12.0) and Ja’Marr Chase (11.4). The third-year wideout is also second in the league with 107.7 receiving yards per game, trailing only Nacua (111.0), and he is third with 14 first-down receptions, behind Nacua (18) and Amon-Ra St. Brown. While it is only three games, that is definitely some lofty company to be keeping already, and these figures are well ahead of his sophomore campaign.
Former Los Angeles Ram Cooper Kupp is second on the team with 15 targets, barely half of what Njigba-Smith (29) has seen. While he is clearly getting older and injuries have robbed him of the explosiveness that saw the now 32-year-old author arguably the greatest receiving season in history back in 2021, Kupp is still a steady outlet option and always where he should be for his quarterback.
Rookie Tory Horton played on just over half the snaps in Week 1, though he did not get a target. He had four in each of the last two games and likely would have had more last week if things were competitive against New Orleans. Horton did get the 44-13 rout jumpstarted with a 95-yard punt return for a touchdown in the middle of the first quarter while also catching a 14-yard score early in the second.
The Seahawks were up comfortably 38-6 at halftime, so it should not be a surprise that Kupp and Smith-Njigba were on the field around half the total Week 3 offensive plays. However, it also means we should not infer too much about Jake Bobo and Dareke Young each doubling their presence from Week 2, particularly since neither stepped between the lines on offense in the opener.
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Seattle Seahawks Positional Preview
Quarterback | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and, of course, quarterback Sam Darnold are new contributors after Geno Smith was traded to Las Vegas, reuniting with longtime Seattle head coach Pete Carroll. Kubiak came in after one season in the offensive coordinator role with New Orleans, though he has held various coaching roles over the last decade-plus in the NFL. Ryan Grubb lasted only one season after replacing the disappointing Shane Waldron.
Grubb joined once he was not tabbed to replace Kalen DeBoer as the new head coach for the University of Washington. Sadly, after helping get the Huskies to the National Championship in 2023, the magic did not follow him to the NFL. He is now back in the college ranks, serving as the offensive coordinator for Alabama under DeBoer.
Back to tonight’s action, Darnold had a tremendous breakthrough last year, helping the Minnesota Vikings to a 14-3 record, seemingly out of nowhere. To be fair, while Darnold was the third overall selection in the 2018 NFL Draft, his three seasons with the New York Jets were under the usual cloud of chaos that has surrounded that team for the last two decades. Darnold was far from a disaster in his 17 starts across two seasons in Carolina, with the team actually going 8-9 in those games. Cam Newton (0-5), P.J. Walker (3-3) and now two-time Pro Bowler Baker Mayfield (1-5) were not any better with the same supporting cast.
This was mostly under the guidance of head coach Matt Rhule, who lost the gig through the end of Darnold’s second season and has muddled his way to a 6-13 Big Ten conference record in two-plus seasons with the University of Nebraska.
Minnesota and Seattle are competent organizations, and while Darnold does not have the same level of talent surrounding him as he did with the Vikings last year, it is the second-best situation of his pro career.
Arizona gave up three touchdowns and 328 yards to Bryce Young in Week 2, and last week Mac Jones held his own as the Brock Purdy replacement, putting up 284 passing yards and a score.
Looking at the free OddsShopper Live Odds Page, we can see that Darnold is -115 to clear 219.5 passing yards, -108 to tally at least 8 rushing yards, and he has a +165 line to throw multiple-touchdowns. We can use this information to infer that his upside is nominal at his present salary, making him a risky option for the multiplier slot, though he is perfectly fine as a flex play.
Running Back | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
Zack Charbonnet missed last week with a foot issue, though he has been a full practice participant on the short week. Expectations are that he and Kenneth Walker III will continue to split the backfield work. Walker was a little dinged up himself during the preseason, so the conventional thought from an outsider’s perspective is that the backfield will likely have a 60/40 split most games, though who has the edge in snaps and touches will be fluid and the same player may not have the lead in both categories in the same game.
Arizona has yet to face much of a rushing attack, with the Saints relying on aging Alvin Kamara and the Panthers seeing Chuba Hubbard and Rico Dowdle mostly bottled up. It was a tougher test against Christian McCaffrey, but he had only 52 yards on 17 carries, doing most of his damage with 10 receptions for 88 yards on 15 targets for the banged-up 49ers.
Tonight the Stokastic NFL DFS stat projections have Charbonnet for 13.68 carries, 56.06 yards and a 35% probability to score a touchdown. Walker is earmarked for 12.83 carries for 52.56 yards and nearly a 50% probability of reaching pay dirt. Each has been bestowed with a tick over two targets for 1.6 receptions and around 11 yards.
The combined median projected production could easily swing +/- 20% and it would not be a surprise when looking at other data sources and, of course, oddsmakers. This truly is a shared backfield, and the team used a hot hand approach last year, while letting game situations dictate roles and usage when neither player was standing out. Walker is arguably the more explosive back, while Charbonnet is better in pass protection.
For DFS purposes, Charbonnet has a whopping $5,000 (94%) discount from Walker on DraftKings and a $4,800 (70%) savings on FanDuel. This is resulting in early projections giving Charbonnet nearly a 2-to-1 representation in tournaments. Be sure to tune into the Stokastic TNF Live Before Lock Show at 7:15 p.m. ET for all of the up-to-date DFS analysis and information.
Tight End | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
Expect AJ Barner to be on the field for 80% or more of the offensive action, with Elijah Arroyo, Robbie Ouzts and Eric Saubert all rotating in the mix. Barner has six targets on the season, Arroyo five and Saubert one. It is hard to be excited about Saubert given blocking is his focus. Since joining the league in 2017, he has 70 targets in 77 games with seven different franchises.
Arroyo and Ouzts are rookies, chosen in the second and fifth rounds. Ouzts spent four years at Alabama, where he was mostly a blocker with just 11 receptions for 141 yards and a trio of tuddies over his last two seasons across 27 games. Arroyo popped in his fourth year at Miami, posting seven touchdowns and 590 yards on 35 receptions in 13 appearances. Best Ball analysts were hoping that Arroyo would be the lead tight end after the release of Fant, but he does not have the blocking chops to supplant Barner anytime soon.
Kicker | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
Jason Myers has been a full-time kicker in the NFL since 2015, his only blemish being getting cut in his third season as the Jacksonville placekicker after missing three long field goals. He made the first of two Pro Bowl teams the next year in his lone campaign with the Jets, and he has been a Seahawks mainstay since the start of the 2019 season.
During the last three-plus seasons, Myers connected on 21 of 28 (75%) of his attempts from 50-plus yards, which is stellar considering most of his games are played outdoors.
Defense | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
Last year, the Seattle defense averaged around three sacks per game, though that is down to only two through three tilts this season. The Cardinals have allowed seven this season but only one each of the last two weeks. The Seahawks have five takeaways, all interceptions, which is the second-highest total in the league. Arizona has one turnover this year, and last year the team averaged just over one per game.
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NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4: Trey McBride
Trey McBride
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $9,800
FanDuel: $10,800
Fantasy Points
DraftKings: 18.16
FanDuel: 13.14
Trey McBride did not have a receiving touchdown through the first 14 games last year, though he finished up with one each of the last two games, and last week he nabbed his first of this season, giving him three in the last five games. He had 10 in 40 collegiate games with Colorado State, which is not prolific, but it also is far from being terrible.
If we want to cherry pick numbers, how about Antonio Gates having 116 NFL touchdowns but none in college? OK, so he played basketball only in college, but Tony Gonzalez had eight in 33 games, which is about the same as McBride, and he had just four scores in his first 32 NFL games. Touchdowns are fickle, and there is nothing in McBride’s profile that says he couldn’t easily course correct and nab 10 this season.
Elijah Higgins has played 52 snaps to McBride’s 172, yet he has two red zone targets, while McBride has only three — not too shabby considering these five are the same as the five that have gone to wideouts. Again, let talent, salary and opportunity be your guide tonight and not a silly narrative.
McBride was eighth in the league last year with 147 targets, fourth with 111 receptions, 11th with 1,146 receiving yards, and his 63 first downs were fourth. That is a strong predictor that end zone trips will be forthcoming in the future.
Arizona Cardinals Positional Preview
Quarterback | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
Kyler Murray has indicated that he will be running more this season to force defenses to deal with another wrinkle. We are just three games into the season, but his 6.7 rushing attempts per game are well above the 4.9 of the last two seasons and the highest since his second year in the league, back in 2020 when he had 8.3 carries per game. That resulted in 11 touchdowns in what was the first of his two consecutive Pro Bowl seasons.
Seattle has yet to face a rushing quarterback, outside of Brock Purdy in the opener. Aaron Rodgers and Spencer Rattler were not imposing threats, so this gives a nice advantage to Murray. It will be an uphill battle going forward without stalwart running back James Conner, but Murray has the talent to help keep the Cardinals on track for a postseason appearance.
Running Back | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
Trey Benson had already begun to carve out a strong role in the first two games, though he is now likely to be a bell cow with Emari Demercado and Zonovan Knight the only other running backs on the current roster who have seen offensive action at the NFL level.
Demercado will be the RB2, and he at least has been functional with 82 carries for 507 yards and three rushing touchdowns in his first two seasons while also getting 50 targets in the passing game.
Knight was a UDFA who signed with the New York Jets as a rookie in 2022, seeing action in seven games and making four starts for that iteration of disfunction. He was on the Detroit practice squad for 2023, though he was released after that season. The Jets added him to their practice squad around Thanksgiving last year, but he did not see any action.
To his credit, Knight did make the 53-man roster for Arizona coming out of the preseason. However, it was for a special teams role, and he has not played on offense yet. If you hear a reference to “Bam” Knight, that is his nickname, so do not think there is another knight coming to the rescue.
Wide Receiver | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
Zay Jones is out with a concussion, so we should see an uptick in playing time for DFS darling Greg Dortch, who is much more effective for real world purposes as a part-time, situational player. This also means that both Simi Fehoko and Xavier Weaver will be active, with the latter getting the nod in the opener and the former the last two weeks. Neither has appeared on offense yet.
Gamers are very familiar with Marvin Harrison Jr. and know that he is going to be the primary WR1. He had high expectations last year, and while he did not meet those, he was not a bust by any stretch. He had six games with at least eight targets, seven with five or more catches, and games of 130, 111 and 96 receiving yards, collecting eight touchdowns on the season.
The interesting player is Michael Wilson, who has a game about as boring as his name. Wilson is more appealing on DraftKings ($3,400) than FanDuel ($5,000), both from a salary perspective and with the full-PPR scoring on DraftKings. He will need a touchdown to be a real difference maker, though in his 32 NFL games, he had nine games with four or more receptions and 11 of 50-plus receiving yards.
Kicker | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
Chad Ryland was a fourth-round selection in the 2023 NFL Draft, lasting one year with New England. Last year he stepped in for an injured Matt Prater, and he has held onto the role in Arizona since. After a dreadful 64% success rate on field goals with the Patriots, he converted at an 88% clip last year, including making all four of his attempts from 50-plus yards.
Defense | Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for Thursday Night Football Week 4
If Darnold can maintain a quick release time, he should be around league average with his sack rate, and for all of the handwringing about his results, interceptions have never been too much of an issue with a 2.9% career rate. Since the start of last year, Arizona has averaged one takeaway per game, and given it’s doesn’t have a dominant pass rush, sacks tend to trickle in without much regularity.
NFL DFS Picks for Seahawks-Cardinals NFL DFS Picks for TNF Week 4: Rankings
Top 10 NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Seahawks-Cardinals
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba: Excellent play from all angles.
- Trey Benson: Just enough of a salary discount to be in the multiplier slot. For those playing Thursday-through-Monday slates, he is right in line with Cam Skattebo and Omarion Hampton, who also saw their backfield counterparts go down with injuries.
- Trey McBride: Easily could be the top-ranked option and this trio are the foundational building blocks in all formats.
- Kyler Murray: More familiar with his offense.
- Zach Charbonnet: Fantasy point-per-dollar ratio is stellar.
- Marvin Harrison Jr.: In a battle with McBride for the touchdown equity, they can be played together or apart for maximum upside potential.
- Jason Myers: Projectable salary saver; inspires far more confidence than his counterpart.
- Sam Darnold: Only one rushing touchdown last year; does have nine in his last 35 starts, though most have been on sneaks or designed short-yardage runs.
- Cooper Kupp: Ultimate safety valve.
- Chad Ryland: Discounted median projection.
Secondary Options
- Tory Horton: Touchdown catches each of the last two weeks, and he is now the franchise leader with his 95-yard punt return. More upside than Kupp; could have a better baseline by Halloween if the improvement continues.
- Michael Wilson: On par with Horton considering the $2,400 salary savings and absence of Jones.
- Emari Demercado: Should get touches and at least has experience in the offense; splitting secondary kickoff return role with Knight.
- Greg Dortch: Might get looks; better on DraftKings with full-PPR scoring; lead kickoff and punt returner.
- Arizona D/ST: Homefield advantage and still lots of new parts trying to fit together in the Seattle offense.
Lottery Tickets
- Seattle D/ST: Unit looks improved from last year; this is the second real test, with San Francisco in the opener being the first.
- AJ Barner and Elijah Arroyo: Coinflip between on-field presence versus athletic potential.
- Tip Reiman and Elijah Higgins: TE2s who are more like TE4s on this offense. Higgins had five targets in the first two games and one last week; Reiman led the pair with three on Sunday.
- Jake Bobo and Simi Fehoko: Duo well down the pecking order for their respective teams, though both have multiple NFL seasons under their belt.
- Zonovan “Bam” Knight, Eric Saubert, George Holani, Dareke Young, Cody White, Robbie Ouzts, Brady Russell, Jacardia Wright, Josiah Deguara and Travis Vokolek: Decent chance most are active, though Holani is an afterthought with Charbonnet back and Knight is unlikely to get more than a touch or two, outside of special teams. The rest all project for well under a fantasy point. Holani, Young and White all have returned kickoffs for Seattle.
