Jaguars-Jets DFS Picks: Zonovan Knight a Great Value

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 Jaguars-Jets 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.

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NFL DFS Showdown Picks: Jaguars-Jets 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 two of these players in almost every lineup you build tonight, either as captain or in a flex spot.

Travis Etienne ($9,600) is one of four players in the top projection tier, all projecting within a point and a half of each other. Etienne has a tough matchup with a Jets defense ranked seventh in run DVOA and sixth in pass DVOA, per Football Outsiders.
Zach Wilson ($9,800) has a great matchup with a Jaguars defense ranked last in the league in pass DVOA.
Trevor Lawrence ($11,400) is the most expensive player on the slate and has the third highest projection.
Zonovan Knight ($7,000) is the final player in the top tier. He provides a nice salary discount and has a fine matchup with a Jaguars defense ranked 14th in run DVOA.
Garrett Wilson ($9,000) is one of two players in the bottom tier of studs.
Christian Kirk ($10,200) joins Wilson in the bottom tier of studs.

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Top Point-Per-Dollar Jaguars-Jets 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 two studs in each lineup, the top point-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.

Tyler Conklin ($3,200) ran routes on just 44% of plays for the Jets in week 15, his lowest route participation rate since week five. It is unclear whether he is trending in the wrong direction after turning 15 targets into just 37 total yards in weeks 13 in 14, or the decreased route participation was just a fluke.
Elijah Moore ($4,800) has seen 23 targets over the past three weeks, a significant increase from the rest of the season. Most promising, this includes seven in week 15 with Wilson back in at quarterback. It is worth noting that Corey Davis was out for week 15 and most of week 14, which could impact Moore’s opportunities.
Davis ($5,600) was removed from the injury report and should play his usual role, joining Moore and Wilson in the starting lineup.
Michael Carter ($6,400) has had nine total carries over the past two games but ran routes on more than 50% of plays in each game. A word of caution: Carter has seen just 19 total targets in eight Wilson starts this season. In the five games he has played with a different starting quarterback, he has seen 24 targets.
As usual, all kickers and defenses are among the top value plays. Greg Zuerlein ($4,600) has the top raw projection of the group, while Riley Patterson ($4,000) is the best value. Lawrence has thrown just seven interceptions in 14 starts this season, but the Jets Defense ($3,600) is one of the best in the league. Wilson has thrown six interceptions in eight starts this season.

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.

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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.

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Some Jaguars-Jets Game-Specific Thoughts:

If you play Wilson: Wilson has shown moderate rushing upside in his short career. He has rushed for more than ten yards per game and has added five rushing touchdowns in 21 career starts. He should always be paired with at least one pass catcher, and preferably multiple if he is played at captain.
If you play Lawrence: Lawrence was known to be a pretty good runner in college, where he rushed for 766 yards and 17 touchdowns over 25 starts in his last two seasons. He hasn’t shown quite the same rushing upside in the NFL, with under 20 yards per game and six touchdowns over 31 career starts. Still, with his background as a runner and in a matchup where the Jaguars may have to change their game plan a bit, a spike week on the ground would not be shocking. Lawrence should be paired with at least one pass catcher if used at captain but might be feasible in some lineups in the flex without any pass catchers paired with him.

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 Knight 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 Knight in the captain spot, you’ve essentially reduced the field of lineups you’re competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Knight 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:

Jamal Agnew ($2,000) is a player who may benefit from a tough matchup and bad weather conditions, with the Jaguars potentially unable to throw downfield. Agnew has run just 34 routes over the past five games, but he has been targeted 16 times in that span.
JaMycal Hasty ($2,800) has carried the ball just five times and seen one target over the past two games, but could be more involved if the Jaguars have trouble throwing the ball and opt to run more than usual, and would be the likely beneficiary in the event of an Etienne injury or garbage time.
Braxton Berrios ($1,600) will likely see his role reduced with Davis returning from injury but did see three red zone targets over weeks 13 and 14 and could pay off his salary with a single splash play.
C.J. Uzomah ($3,000) caught two passes in week 15 for two touchdowns. Uzomah typically plays around 50% of snaps and may see increased opportunities after his big week 15.

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.

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.