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.
- Alvin Kamara ($10,400) has amassed 52 rushing attempts and 25 targets in just three games this season. Kamara will take on a Jaguars defense ranked sixth in run DVOA and 10th in pass DVOA, and he has around a 55% chance of being optimal, according to Stokastic’s Top NFL DFS Showdown Plays Tool.
- Trevor Lawrence ($9,600) is questionable to play. If he can go, Lawrence will face a Saints defense ranked seventh in pass DVOA, and he’ll have around a 55% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- Derek Carr ($8,800) has around a 60% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- Travis Etienne ($10,200) has run routes on more than 50% of Jaguars dropbacks, and he has 113 carries on the season. The result is that Etienne has the third-most fantasy points of any running back in the league. Etienne will face a Saints defense ranked 13th in run DVOA, and he has a greater-than-40% chance of being optimal.
- Chris Olave ($9,000) has 793 air yards this season, second in the entire NFL behind A.J. Brown‘s 873. Olave has the highest route participation on the Saints at 88.9% and the highest target share at 24.1%. Olave has a nearly 50% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- Christian Kirk ($8,000) has the highest route participation (81.4%) and target share (22.1%) on the Jaguars. Kirk has a nearly 50% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- Calvin Ridley ($8,400) is second on the Jaguars in route participation and target share, but he leads the team in air yards with 540, 147 more than Kirk. Ridley has a greater-than-40% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- Michael Thomas ($7,000) is second on the Saints in route participation and third in target share at 83.5% and 20.5%, respectively. Thomas has a nearly 50% chance of making the optimal lineup.
Top Point-Per-Dollar Saints-Jaguars 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.
- Jamal Agnew ($400) has run routes on 52.5% of dropbacks in the two games he has been active and Zay Jones has been out, but he has just a 6.9% target share in those games.
- Evan Engram ($5,800) is third on the Jaguars in route participation and target share at 79.4% and 19.7%, respectively.
- Rashid Shaheed ($5,000) is third on the Saints in route participation and target share at 72.4% and 12.3%, respectively.
- Foster Moreau ($3,200) has played more than 50% of snaps for the Saints over the past two games with Juwan Johnson out, but Moreau has run routes on just 27.7% of dropbacks and has just a 6.5% target share over that span.
- As usual, kickers and defenses are among the top value options.
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 Saints-Jaguars Game-Specific Thoughts for Thursday Night Football Showdown:
- If you play Lawrence: Lawrence generally provides moderate rushing upside, but with his knee injury, it is probably best to treat him like a statute quarterback tonight. As such, Lawrence should always be paired with at least one pass catcher and preferably multiple if used in the captain spot.
- If you play Carr: Carr averages less than 6 rushing yards per game in his career. He should always be paired with at least one pass catcher or multiple if captained.
- Etienne and Kamara 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 Etienne 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 Etienne in the captain spot, you’ve essentially reduced the field of lineups you’re competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Etienne 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:
- Kendre Miller ($1,800) has played 29.1% of snaps, run routes on 24.1% of dropbacks, and handled 20.9% of the Saints carries over the past two games. Tonight will be the first time Kamara, Miller and Jamaal Williams have all been active in the same game, however, and there is a real chance that Miller will be relegated to the bench.
- Taysom Hill ($6,200) played 60% of snaps in Week 6, his highest snap count of the season, and his eight targets were more than he saw in Weeks 1 through 5 combined (six). Notably, Hill was the team’s first-read target 21.9% of the time, tied with Thomas and behind only Olave.
- Brenton Strange ($1,000) ran routes on 20% of dropbacks in Week 6, saw three targets, including two as the team’s first read, and received one of the team’s two targets in the end zone, which he caught for a touchdown. Strange could pay off his price tag with a touchdown.
- Tank Bigsby ($2,200) played 27.4% of snaps and ran routes on 20% of dropbacks in Week 6 but ultimately had just three carries and one target. Bigsby has both standalone and contingent value.
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.
