49ers-Seahawks DFS Picks: Spend Up for Christian McCaffrey

For nearly a year now, I’ve 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 Showdown. For the single game slates, there are many factors to consider. Let’s dive into what Showdown contests are, and some 49ers-Seahawks DFS picks for TNF.

Lots 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. However, since such a large portion of the new players are casual, the increase in difficulty pales in comparison to the increase in prize pools. It’s a tradeoff DFS pros gladly make.

My goal with these Showdown articles — which I’ll be writing for each Thursday Night Football and Monday Night Football 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 that I’ll break down accordingly: Projection, Correlation and Differentiation.

Before reading this article, you may find it helpful to read my evergreen piece about how to attack NFL Showdown GPPs more generally.

NFL DFS Showdown Picks: 49ers-Seahawks DFS Picks

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. Some pros run simulations or create their own projections to achieve this. Many others, like myself, rely on the Stokastic projections and tools to determine which players should be core pieces of our lineups. I primarily look at the base projections and the “Top Showdown Plays” Tool, which publishes results of 10,000 advanced simulations run by the Stokastic team.

Studs

These are simply the top projected players on the slate according to the Stokastic projections. I’d recommend having at least three of these players in almost every lineup you build tonight, either as captain or in a flex spot.

Christian McCaffrey ($11,400) is the highest projected player on the slate by a wide margin, against a Seahawks defense that is 18th in Pass DVOA and 26th in Rush DVOA, per Football Outsiders.
Geno Smith ($10,600) is the second highest projected player on the slate, despite a tough matchup with a 49ers defense that is fifth in Pass DVOA.
Brock Purdy ($9,600) is the third highest projected player on the slate.
Tyler Lockett ($10,200) leads a trio of Seahawks in the fourth projection tier.
DK Metcalf ($10,000) joins Lockett in the fourth tier.
Kenneth Walker ($7,600) also joins Lockett and Metcalf, at a nice price discount. Walker has a tough matchup with a 49ers defense that is 2nd in Rush DVOA.
Brandon Aiyuk ($8,800) is the seventh best projected player on the slate, as the top receiver for the 49ers with Deebo Samuel out.
George Kittle ($8,000) could also benefit from Samuel being out.

Top Point-Per-Dollar Seahawks-49ers Picks

These are just a few players who will be featured throughout my lineups due to their high projected points per dollar. At the same time, because I’ll typically have at least three studs in each lineup, the top points-per-dollar plays are often players I’ll be pivoting away from in some spots in favor of players who project a bit worse but will also garner lower ownership. I’m also excluding any player with a projection below three fantasy points from this list.

Ray-Ray McCloud ($1,200) saw a large uptick in minutes after Samuel’s injury in week 14, and should continue to play a larger role.
Jauan Jennings ($3,600) is the presumptive wide receiver two for the 49ers while Samuel is sidelined.
Will Dissly ($2,400) has seen eight targets in three games since the Seahawks bye week, and may be able to pay off his salary with a single touchdown.
Noah Fant ($4,400) has played at least 56% of snaps in each of the past three games for the Seahawks, seeing nine targets in that span.
As usual, all kickers and defenses are among the top value plays. Robbie Gould ($4,000) leads the group both in projection and value. Smith has thrown just eight interceptions this season, but four of them have come in the past three games and now he faces one of the toughest defenses in the league.

Correlation

In NFL DFS, correlations are endless, both positive and negative ones. Most are minor enough that they don’t necessarily need to be factored into lineups. If you want to give a boost to your running back’s defense, for example, that’s great; but running backs will frequently be optimal without the defense also being optimal, even in Showdown.

The only correlations that are almost mandatory to consider on Showdown slates involve quarterbacks. Particularly, non-rushing quarterbacks. That’s 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’ll 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, often he will need to be his team’s highest fantasy point scorer to be the optimal captain. Outside of extremely 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’ll need to have multiple pass catchers in the flex.
If you play a quarterback at captain, and he has major rushing upside, you don’t 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 don’t 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 49ers-Seahawks game-specific thoughts:

IF you play Smith: Smith has rushed for 20 yards per game and one touchdown this season. A spike rushing week is possible, but generally it is best to play him with at least one pass catcher, and multiple if he’s in the captain spot. Seahawks running backs do not make for great pairing option with Smith.
IF you play Purdy: Purdy showed some rushing upside in college, including a sophomore season in which he rushed for 30 yards per game and eight rushing touchdowns. Still, it is generally best to pair him with at least one pass catcher. McCaffrey can be considered a pass catcher to pair with Purdy.

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 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 Stevenson 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 Jacobs in the captain spot, you’ve essentially reduced the field of lineups you’re competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Stevenson at captain, now we’re talking.

On NFL 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 last year:

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.

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Some Easy Tricks

Low-owned players. Yup, even if you’re using other tricks to get unique, it’s still a good idea to play a few players in your set of lineups who won’t be getting much ownership. Some low-owned players to consider:

Colby Parkinson ($1,000) has played more than 30% of snaps in each of the past two games for the Seahawks, and been targeted three total times in that span. On a slate with limited options among low-owned plays, he makes for a fine touchdown-or-bust option.
Jordan Mason ($4,800) is clearly too expensive for his role in the offense. But he also played 30% of snaps in the 49ers’ most recent game, which is enough to potentially score a touchdown and pay off his salary in a nice matchup. He would also likely be next in line if McCaffrey is hurt, and would play in garbage time.
Kyle Juszczyk ($3,000) has seen 22 targets and carried the ball five times this season. He also played 65% of snaps in week 14, a season high. He makes for a solid boom-bust option.

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. If you want to read my reasoning, check out the evergreen piece I linked near the top of this page. In some of my lineups, I like to see the following:

Quarterback against opposing Defense.
Pass Catcher at Captain without including the QB at Flex.
Multiple Running Backs from the same team in a lineup.

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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’s up to you. If it’s less than $600 on this slate and you haven’t gotten extremely unique with player selections and weird correlations, it’s likely you’ll have to split any winnings with many other entries.

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Author

Neil Orfield

Neil Orfield has been playing DFS regularly since 2013, but his success really started taking off in 2019 when he had a six figure payday with a hand built NFL lineup. The next day, he signed up for a Stokastic+ subscription with FantasyCruncher. Since then he has won an NFL milly and added six figure wins in XFL, MLB, and NBA. He has recently excelled at NFL Showdown, with many five- and six-figure wins since 2021.