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.
- Kenny Pickett ($9,200) has a nice matchup with a Titans defense ranked 25th in pass DVOA, per FTN Fantasy. Pickett has around a 70% chance of making the optimal lineup, according to Stokastic’s Top NFL DFS Showdown Plays Tool.
- Derrick Henry ($11,600) faces a Steelers defense ranked 14th in run DVOA a week after taking 22 of the team’s 25 running back carries. Henry has around a 50% chance of optimality.
- Diontae Johnson ($8,400) ran routes on 96% of dropbacks and saw 14 targets in Week 7, leading the Steelers in both categories. Johnson has a nearly 65% chance of optimality.
- George Pickens ($8,800) leads the Steelers in route participation, target share and air yard share this season. Pickens has a greater-than-55% chance of optimality.
- Will Levis ($9,600) played great in his first NFL start in Week 8, completing 19 of 29 passes for 238 yards and four touchdowns. Levis has a nearly 45% chance of optimality.
- DeAndre Hopkins ($11,200) leads the Titans in route participation, target share and air yard share at 78.6%, 25.8% and 41.7%, respectively. Hopkins has a nearly 35% chance of optimality.
- Najee Harris ($7,200) and Jaylen Warren ($6,400) are working in one of the more consistent backfield splits, with neither playing more than 60% or less than 40% of snaps in any game this season. Harris leads in carries 84 to 45, while Warren leads in targets 30 to 17. Ultimately, Harris has the slight edge in expected fantasy point 70.0 to 68.4, per the Fantasy Points Data Suite.
Top Point-Per-Dollar Titans-Steelers 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.
- Kyle Philips ($800) has run routes on just over 40% of dropbacks for the Titans this season, but he has just six targets in three games played.
- Connor Heyward ($2,800) is third on the Steelers in both route participation and target share over the past two weeks with Pat Freiermuth out, at 83.3% and 13.2%, respectively.
- Allen Robinson ($2,200) has run routes on 60.3% of passing plays but has seen just two targets over the past two games.
- Chigoziem Okonkwo ($4,200) is second on the Titans with 31 targets this season. Okonkwo is a positive regression candidate, as he has just 35.9 PPR fantasy points but 53.7 expected fantasy points this season.
- Treylon Burks ($3,800) returned from a knee injury and played 51% of snaps. With an extra week of recovery, Burks could see his snap share and route participation increase this week.
- 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 Titans-Steelers Game-Specific Thoughts for Thursday Night Football Showdown:
- If you play Levis: Levis rushed for 376 yards in 13 games his junior college year, then negative-107 yards in 11 games his senior year, with sacks counting for negative yardage. Levis had seven rushing attempts for 11 yards in his first NFL game. Levis should generally be paired with at least one pass catcher and preferably multiple when used at flex.
- If you play Pickett: Pickett has 259 rushing yards and four touchdowns in 20 career games. He should generally be paired with at least one pass catcher, ideally multiple when used at flex.
- Warren (30 targets) and Tyjae Spears (24 targets) are more involved as pass catchers than Harris (17 targets) and Henry (15 targets).
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 Henry 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 Henry in the captain spot, you’ve essentially reduced the field of lineups you’re competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Henry 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:
- Nick Westbrook-Ikhine ($3,400) is third on the Titans in route participation at 65.5% for the season but saw his participation drop to 31.3% in Week 8.
- Darnell Washington ($200) has seen his snap share decrease from 70% to 53% to 15% over the past three games, but according to beat reporter Nick Farabaugh, Mike Tomlin indicated it was game-specific and not because the coaching staff was dissatisfied with his production. The 6-foot-7 rookie tight end could pay off his salary with a single touchdown.
- Chris Moore ($400) played 41% of snaps but ran routes on just 21.9% of dropbacks in Week 8.
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.
