For nearly two years now, I have been hosting the High Stakes podcast for Stokastic, interviewing DFS pros on a range of topics. There have been a lot of recurring themes on the show, but the most relevant for this article: DFS pros love NFL DFS Thursday Night Football Showdown. We’ll be diving into our NFL DFS Thursday Night Football showdown picks, but first, let’s talk about why the format is so popular.
A lot of casual NFL fans enter the Showdown fray to have some action on island games. As a result, DraftKings and FanDuel offer enormous contests with generous prize pools. The contests become more difficult to win, too, when there are hundreds of thousands of entrants, but with a large portion of the new players being casual, the increase in difficulty pales in comparison to the increase in prize pools. It is a tradeoff DFS pros will gladly make.
My goal with these Thursday Night Football Showdown articles for NFL DFS slate this season — is to help you attack the largest-field DraftKings GPP like a pro. There are three main components to discuss when it comes to Showdown, and I will break them down accordingly: Projection, Correlation and Differentiation.
NFL DFS Showdown Strategy | TNF Showdown
Projection
The goal in DFS is to make the lineup that puts up the most points, so a natural starting point is looking at individual players who are likely to put up high scores or high point-per-dollar scores. I rely on Stokastic’s NFL DFS projections and tools to determine which players should be core pieces of my lineups. I primarily look at the base projections and the Top NFL DFS Showdown Plays Tool, which publishes results of thousands of advanced simulations run by the Stokastic team.
Studs
These are the top-projected players on the slate. I’d recommend having at least three of these players in just about every lineup you make tonight, either as captain or in a flex spot.
- Josh Allen ($11,800) has the most fantasy points of any quarterback in the league this season. Allen will take on a Buccaneers defense ranked 14th in pass DVOA and 11th in run DVOA, and he has a nearly 70% chance of making the optimal lineup, according to Stokastic’s Top NFL DFS Showdown Plays Tool.
- Stefon Diggs ($11,400) has the second-most fantasy points of any wide receiver in the league, behind Tyreek Hill. Diggs has around a 65% chance of optimality.
- Baker Mayfield ($9,200) will face a Bills defense ranked 13th in pass DVOA. He has a greater-than-40% chance of optimality.
- Chris Godwin ($7,800) has run more routes and been targeted more than any other player on the Bucs this season. He has been targeted in the end zone five times but hasn’t converted any yet. Godwin has around a 55% chance of optimality.
- Mike Evans ($10,000) leads the Bucs by a wide margin with 625 air yards and leads the team in end zone targets with six. Three of his four touchdowns have been on end zone targets. Evans has around a 35% chance of being optimal.
- James Cook ($8,600) has 88 carries and 21 targets through seven games, and he is the overall RB14 on the season. Cook has around a 30% chance of optimality.
- Rachaad White ($8,000) had 83 carries and 23 targets, and he is the overall RB23 on the season. White faces a Bills defense ranked 15th in run DVOA, and he has around a 30% chance of optimality.
- Dalton Kincaid ($5,000) has the fourth-highest route participation on the Bills, running routes on 55.7% of dropbacks, and he has been targeted 26 times. With Dawson Knox and Quintin Morris both out, the rookie is expected to take on a bigger role. Kincaid has a greater-than-45% chance of optimality.
- Gabriel Davis ($6,800) is second on the team in route participation at 78.4% and in target share at 13.8%. Davis has seven end zone targets, trailing Diggs by just one. He has a nearly 30% chance of optimality.
Top Point-Per-Dollar Buccaneers-Bills Picks
These are just a few players who will be featured throughout my lineups due to their high points-per-dollar projection. At the same time, because I will typically have at least three studs in each lineup, the top points-per-dollar plays are often players I will be pivoting away from in some lineups in favor of players who project a bit worse but who will also garner lower ownership. I am also excluding any player with a projection below 3 fantasy points from this list.
- Deonte Harty ($1,000) played 27% of snaps in Week 6, his most of the season. Harty is fifth on the team in targets with 15 on the year and fourth in air yards with 100. He is also one of several pass catchers on the Bills who could see a boost with Knox and Morris both out.
- Cade Otton ($3,000) is second on the Buccaneers in route participation at 79% and third in targets with 23.
- Latavius Murray ($4,800) has 35 carries and 10 targets on the season and is likely to see a bump in opportunities with Damien Harris out.
- As usual, kickers and defenses are among the top value options. Allen is tied for the third-most interceptions thrown this season with seven.
Correlation
In NFL DFS, correlations are endless, both positive and negative. Most are minor enough that they do not necessarily need to be factored into lineups. If you want to give a boost to your running back’s defense, for example, that is great; but running backs will frequently be optimal without the defense also being optimal, even in NFL DFS Showdown.
The only correlations that are almost mandatory to consider on NFL DFS Showdown slates involve quarterbacks — particularly non-rushing quarterbacks. That is because of the scoring dynamics on DraftKings. On each passing play, the pass catcher scores more fantasy points than the quarterback. For example, if a quarterback throws a pass for 5 yards, he will get 0.2 fantasy points — 1 fantasy point per 25 yards passing, divided by five. The receiver will get 1.5 fantasy points — 1 point per reception, plus half a point for 5 yards receiving. The quarterback also only gets 4 points per passing touchdown, while the receiver gets 6 points for a receiving touchdown.
The quarterback is also generally one of the most expensive players on his team. Thus, he will often need to be his team’s highest fantasy point scorer to be the optimal captain. Outside of rare occasions where the quarterback scores fantasy points by passing to a player who is not in the DraftKings player pool or gets points as a receiver on a trick play, there are essentially just two ways for the quarterback to be the highest-scoring player on his team: adding fantasy points via rushing or spreading the ball around to multiple pass catchers.
Some General Thoughts:
- If you play a quarterback at captain, and he does not have rushing upside, and he is the most expensive player on his team, you will almost always want to have multiple of his team’s pass catchers in the flex. This is also largely true if the quarterback is only slightly less expensive than the most expensive pass catcher on his team.
- If you play a quarterback at captain, and he has moderate rushing upside, you can consider playing just one of his pass catchers in the flex — but multiple may still be preferred, depending on the extent of that rushing upside. The quarterback’s price may also come into play here; the more expensive he is, the more likely you will need to have multiple pass catchers in the flex.
- If you play a quarterback at captain, and he has major rushing upside, you do not necessarily need to play any pass catchers in the flex. This is relatively uncommon, and only applies to a few quarterbacks.
- If you play a quarterback in the flex, and he does not have rushing upside, you will generally want to have at least one of his pass catchers elsewhere in the lineup, either at captain or in another flex spot.
- If you play a quarterback in the flex, and he has moderate to high rushing upside, you do not necessarily need to include one of his pass catchers elsewhere in the lineup. But there will always be positive correlation there between a quarterback and his pass catchers.
Some Buccaneers-Bills Game-Specific Thoughts for Thursday Night Football Showdown:
- If you play Allen: Allen is averaging just over 21 rushing yards per game this season after rushing for nearly 48 yards per game in 2022, and he’s down from nearly eight rushes to just over four per game. He has a long-enough history as an elite rusher that he can still be treated as such in some lineups, but more often it’s best to pair Allen with at least one pass catcher.
- If you play Mayfield: Mayfield is averaging a career-high 16.5 rushing yards per game. The number is still low enough that it is best to pair Mayfield with at least one pass catcher and preferably multiple if used in the flex.
- Cook and White can be included as pass catchers.
Differentiation
Making highly projected lineups with smart correlations will separate you from the lowest-level Showdown players, but there are many very smart casual players as well. Differentiation is the last step to separating pros from Joes.
In just about any NFL DFS GPP, finding low-owned gems is key because lower ownership reduces the field of lineups you’re competing against when the player has a 99th-percentile outcome. Taking it to the extreme, just as a thought exercise, let’s say that Cook scores 100 fantasy points tonight. You’re not just going to need him; you’ll need him in the captain spot (150 fantasy points). If 20,000 lineups in your contest have Cook in the captain spot, you’ve essentially reduced the field of lineups you’re competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Cook at captain, now we’re talking.
On Thursday Night Football Showdown slates, there is an additional factor for large-field GPPs. We don’t just want to find seldomly used players; we want to find seldomly used LINEUPS. Why? Well, I’ll give you two examples from 2021:
- On Sept. 20, 2021, DraftKings had a Milly Maker for the Packers vs. Lions tilt, but the top lineup was duplicated 231 times. Rather than winning a million dollars, the users who entered those 231 lineups had to split the top 231 prizes, for just a bit over $6,000 each. That’s despite having everything go their way, which requires an extreme amount of luck.
- On Oct. 11, 2021, we saw the other end of the spectrum: user rcoho1984 played a unique lineup in the Ravens vs. Colts Milly Maker, taking home not just a million dollars but a ticket to the Tournament of Champions.
If you’re going to win — which takes a lot of luck, regardless of how well your lineup projects — I’d suggest making it count. I’m not necessarily concerned with making an entirely unique lineup like rcoho1984 did every single time, but I aim to be a lot closer to their unique lineup than those that were duplicated 231 times.
Some Easy Tricks for Thursday Night Football Showdown
Low-owned players. Yup, even if you are using other tricks to get unique, it is still a good idea to play a few players in some of your lineups who will not be getting much ownership. Some low-owned players to consider:
- Trent Sherfield ($400) has run routes on 22.7% of dropbacks this season, and Khalil Shakir ($3,200) has run routes on 17.2% of dropbacks. Both are likely to see a bump with Knox and Morris out.
- Ke’Shawn Vaughn ($600) played 15 snaps in Week 7, resulting in four carries and one target on seven routes run. Vaughn has both standalone and contingent value.
- Trey Palmer ($4,200) has the fourth-highest route participation on the Buccaneers this season at 57.2%, and he has 250 air yards on just 17 targets.
- Deven Thompkins ($1,600) has run routes on 34.1% of Bucs dropbacks and is averaging three targets per game. Meanwhile, Rakim Jarrett ($200) played a season-high 29% of snaps in Week 6, accumulating 53 air yards on a single target.
Embrace lineups missing some correlation pieces or even with some negative correlation. Generally, highly correlated lineups will be over-owned, whereas the field will avoid negative correlation at all costs.
- Quarterback against opposing defense.
- Pass catcher at captain without including the quarterback at flex.
- Multiple running backs from the same team in a lineup.
Leave salary on the table. This is the easiest way to lower your duplicates. Casual players assume that if they have salary left over, they should upgrade. The problem with this approach is that it almost inevitably leads to highly duplicated lineups. How much salary should you leave on the table? That is up to you. If it is less than $800 and you have not gotten extremely unique with player selections and weird correlations, it is likely you will have to split any winnings with many other entries.
