Saints-Rams DFS Picks: Kyren Williams and Cooper Kupp Lead The Way! (December 21)

Thursday Night Football boasts a pair of teams that still have playoff hopes. The New Orleans Saints head into Los Angeles to face the Rams, with both teams carrying identical 7-7 records. New Orleans is also tied with Tampa Bay at the top of the NFC South, which gives them a chance at either a Wild Card berth or a Divisional crown. In this issue of Stokastic’s NFL DFS picks series, we’ll be providing our Saints-Rams DFS plays 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 Saints-Rams DFS picks.

NFL DFS TNF Showdown Picks: Saints-Rams DFS Picks

New Orleans Saints: 21.0 Points

Quarterback

Derek Carr has the Saints still working on two paths to the postseason. The team is tied with Tampa Bay for the NFC South crown, while also being live for a Wild Card ticket with a 7-7 record. The second path is mostly open due to the expansion of the playoff field, but there is no need to be picky when we actually have two teams fighting for something more than pride on Thursday Night Football.

Los Angeles has the 22nd rated passing DVOA, while Carr is his usual meandering self when it comes to fantasy production this year, DFS gamers do not give him enough credit for his actual longevity and full body of work. He is right at or just inside the top-25 all-time for career attempts, completions, yards and yards per game.

In his first season with New Orleans, he has been producing at a level similar to last year and while that has him mostly as a game-manager, he does have 16 touchdowns against seven interceptions and his 221.3 yards per game are on the low-side, that ranks 17th among quarterbacks who have played at least 11 games.

The Rams have allowed opposing field generals multiple passing touchdowns each of the last three weeks and if we count Kyler Murray’s rushing score, it extends to four. Only Lamar Jackson (316) threw for more than 256 yards, so Carr may find it difficult to compile much production beyond his typical average.

Running Back

Alvin Kamara has seen between 12 and 16 carries, while averaging a tick shy of six targets in the four games since the Week 11 bye. This is very consistent, considering Taysom Hill and Chris Olave have each missed a game in this stretch. The 28-year-old is averaging right around 100 combined yards per game, but he has to compete with Hill for red zone opportunities.

Wide Receivers

Olave was out last week with an ankle injury, but the team announced he is expected to suit up tonight. He was a full participant in practice on Wednesday, so all signs indicate he will be good to go. Michael Thomas (knee) remains on the injured reserve, which means Rashid Shaheed will be serving as the WR2. He has been dealing with his own injuries, most recently a bruised thigh, but he does have three games with long touchdowns, though the last was in Week 8. He should get a handful of targets, but likely needs to convert on a long-ball in order to reach double-digit fantasy points.

Third-year man Lynn Bowden Jr. and rookie A.T. Perry are the most likely to see the filed, spelling Olave and Shaheed, while also working in for three-wideout sets. Bowden has a slight edge in playing time and experience, but that is not enough to guarantee more production than his counterpart.

Keith Kirkwood will probably be the fifth receiver, while Marquez Callaway draws the short straw and is inactive. DraftKings did goose the salaries for the back-end of this rotation, in anticipation that Olave may be out. Ten different Saints have receiving touchdowns this season, so clearly Carr is not playing favorites, but anyone outside of Olave or Shaheed should be relegated to tournament-only status.

Tight Ends

Jimmy Graham has touchdowns each of the last three weeks, because of course he does. He has been on the field for just 20 offensive plays in this stretch, catching all five targets for 31 yards and the three aforementioned scores. If we exclude Hill, who lines up all over the place, the Saints rarely use multi-tight end sets. Former Raider, Foster Moreau has out-snapped Juwan Johnson each of the last three weeks and of course he has familiarity with Carr. That has not really manifested in much other than nine targets, because Graham is getting all the glory. Johnson has seven targets in this timeframe, while Hill has three and missed Week 14.

Hill has three pass attempts in the last two games, though no completions and for the season he is 5 of 9 (55.6) for 72 yards and a score. Last week he had just one carry, but he did have 13 for 59 and a score in Week 12 and on the year he has 71 carries for 347 yards and four scores.

Defense/Special Teams

New Orleans has 30 sacks, which is the sixth fewest in the league, but only half a sack per game off of the average pace. The Rams have ceded just 27 quarterback takedowns, which is the fourth fewest in the league. Los Angeles has the fourth-fewest turnovers, with just 14 on the season, while the Saints are generating 1.5 takeaway per game.

Los Angeles Rams: 25.0 Points

Quarterback

Matthew Stafford will be facing the eighth best passing DVOA tonight. That should not dissuade anyone from rolling with him however, as he rolled up 12 touchdowns in his last four games, including matchups against Cleveland and in Baltimore. It has been nine games since he last reached the 300-yard plateau and the Saints have allowed only Jordan Love (259) and Joshua Dobbs (268) more than 250 aerial yards.

New Orleans has allowed just four passing touchdowns over the last five games, though that includes games against Dobbs, Bryce Young, Tommy Devito and Desmond Ridder. Expect the Rams to throw around 35 times tonight, which will provide plenty of “PPR” goodness for the wideouts in coach Sean McVay’s short-passing scheme.

Running Back

Kyren Williams has been stupendous in this second season and in the 10 games he has played, he already has 1,145 yards and had he not missed four games in the middle of the season while on injured reserve, based on his production trajectory, he would be trailing only Christian McCaffrey on the running back list.

Over his last three games, Williams has averaged just 243 carries and 118.0 rushing yards, with 3.7 receptions for 8.3 yards (he was tackled for a loss a few times), while running in a pair of scores.

Royce Freeman is the only other running back with an offensive snap over the three most recent games and he has been on the field for just 29 plays in this stretch. Pencil him for a couple carries, but he has just one target on the season. His best path to relevance is for something to befall Williams in-game.

Wide Receiver

Cooper Kupp is finally healthy again and he has 8, 10 and 8 targets over his last three games. Rookie DFS darling Puka Nacua has 8, 8 and 7 targets during this stretch and each player has a 100-plus yard game in the last two weeks. Nacua has a discount that should keep him with a similar popularity as Kupp and both can be employed in the same lineups

Tutu Atwell is out of the concussion protocol and expected to suit up tonight. That will likely put the kibosh on Demarcus Robinson, though the journeyman did have 10 targets in the game where Atwell left, but just three last week. He now has touchdowns in each of the last three games, so he will not completely disappear, but we all have been burned over the years by the boom/bust nature of his production.

Tight End

Tyler Higbee is in line for a handful of targets, with Davis Allen being the TE2. Allen did have five targets in Week 14 when Higbee was out, but he has just seven on the season, with all of them occurring in the last month. Bryce Hopkins or Hunter Long will likely be the third tight end, though neither player has been targeted since Week 7.

Defense/Special Teams

Just like the Saints defense, the Rams have 30 sacks and the New Orleans offense has allowed 29 sacks this year. New Orleans has ceded only 17 turnovers, while the Los Angeles defense has just 12 takeaways, which is the second-fewest in the league.

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.

Saints-Rams DFS Picks Rankings

Top 10 NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Saints-Rams

1. Kyren Williams: Quite the meteoric rise.
2. Cooper Kupp: Veteran gets a slight edge over the rookie.
3. Puka Nacua: Very slight.
4. Alvin Kamara: Contributes in all facets of the game, but in a red zone battle with Hill.
5. Chris Olave: Easily could swap ranking slots with Kamara with the full-PPR scoring on DraftKings.
6. Matthew Stafford: Better coach and homefield advantage. In play for the multiplier-slot around lineup 20.
7. Derek Carr: Underrated by fans, coaches and the fantasy world, better employed as a flex-option.
8. Bailey Grupe: Rookie has nailed all 30 PATs and the team has trusted him from long-range where he is 6 of 9 from 50-plus, with a long of 55 yards.
9. Lucas Havrisik: Questionable distance for the rookie who is 2 of 3 from 50-plus, 2 of 5 from 40-to-49 yards in his seven games.
10. Rashid Shaheed: Could be a slate-breaker, more likely a heart-breaker.

Secondary NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Saints-Rams

1. Foster Moreau: Main appeal is the $2,000 on DraftKings in a player pool without many values.
2. New Orleans D/ST: Solid unit, if this was a home game, they would replaced Havrisik in the top-10.
3. Los Angeles D/ST: Meh, not much in the way of fantasy results, but a home game against Carr could improve that outcome.

Lottery Ticket NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Saints-Rams

1. Tyler Higbee: Struggled to find his footing this season and injuries did not help.
2. Taysom Hill: Needs a touchdown to be a viable play.
3. Jamaal Williams: Should see half a dozen opportunities, including a target or two and we need some salary relief.
4. Lynn Bowden and A.T. Perry: Not much love to go around with everyone healthy, and salaries elevated on DraftKings in anticipation of Olave being inactive.
5. Demarcus Robinson and Tutu Atwell: No real salary relief and they are fighting for the same five targets.
6. Juwan Johnson: Salary knocks him down a peg, which in turn has Moreau being elevated. Over/under for this duo is 3.5 combined targets with everyone healthy.
7. Davis Allen: Could be a wild card, particularly on DraftKings, though he needs to luck into a couple targets or a Higbee injury.
8. Jimmy Graham: All he does is score touchdowns.
9. Austin Trammell: Returns punts and kickoffs for the Rams, unlikely to get any action as a wide receiver.
10. Keith Kirkwood, Tyler Johnson, Ben Skowronek, Brycen Hopkins, Adam Prentice, Zach Evans and Marquez Callaway: Sorry fellas.

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