NFL DFS: 49ers vs. Rams Showdown Fantasy Picks DraftKings & FanDuel

Welcome to the NFL Showdown Matchups for Divisional Round Sunday Night Football. This column will provide a quick overview of the game’s key storylines and highlight some of the key insights from Awesemo’s world-class suite of tools to find the best NFL DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel showdown lineups. Let us dive into the NFL DFS picks today for the Divisional Round Bills vs. Chiefs Sunday Night Football matchup.

NFL DFS Showdown Preview & Projections: 49ers vs. Rams NFC Conference Championship Game

The San Francisco 49ers pulled off the upset against the top-seeded Packers in the divisional round, and now fly back to sunny California to take on the Rams at SoFi Stadium. The Rams, who won a thriller of their own last Sunday against the Buccaneers, are looking to become the second team in two years to earn the right to play the Super Bowl in their home stadium. These two teams know each other extremely well, but interestingly enough, San Francisco has a 2-0 record against Los Angeles this season. In Week 10, arguably the Rams’ worst performance of the season, Los Angeles was trounced on the road 31-10. The Week 18 contest was much closer, but San Francisco still pulled off the upset, winning 27-24 and securing a playoff spot in the process. Despite recent history, the Rams are still favored by 3.5 points at home, and this game features more than enough offensive firepower on both sides of the ball to propel this game’s scoring well above it’s middling 45.5 point Vegas total. While a defensive slog is always a possibility, especially when teams meet for a third time, this game has a significantly higher probability of shooting well over it’s projected total compared to the AFC championship game, and fantasy gamers should build their lineups accordingly.

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The 49ers offensive attack, at least as of late, has been centered-around the stellar play of Deebo Samuel ($10,000 DraftKings/$14,000 FanDuel). The do-it-all superstar not only played his traditional wideout position last Saturday, but also contributed as rusher and most surprisingly, a kick-returner, as Samuel began the second-half of last week’s game with a huge return that sparked the team’s comeback at Lambeu. Samuel added a total of 59 yards in the return game, saw just seven less carries than Eli Mitchell ($8,200 DraftKings/$12,000 FanDuel), finishing with a higher average yards per attempt, and earned over 14 yards per reception on his three catches asell. Samuel will almost certainly be the focal-point of star corneberback Jalen Ramsey’s attention, but there’s little doubt coach Kyle Shanahan will do everything in his power to get Samuel away from Ramsey, and continue to create opportunities to get Samuel the ball in the open field. Mitchell hasn’t been quite as effective as he was earlier in the season as a rusher, but he continues to accumulate the most total opportunities on the team, and hasn’t had less than 70 total yards in a game since his return to the field late in the regular season.

The passing attack, while certainly playing second-fiddle to the tandem rushing attack of Mitchell and Samuel, quietly has some upside in this contest. Jimmy Garoppolo ($9,000 DraftKings/$12,500 FanDuel) hasn’t topped ten fantasy points yet during these playoffs, but threw for 316 yards when these two teams met less than a month ago. Garoppolo has been asked to do very little this postseason, but is playing highly mediocre football of late, averaging 6.9 yards per attempt, and throwing two interceptions compared to zero touchdown passes since these playoffs began. This is a far-cry from earlier in the year, as Garoppolo had a ten week stretch where he averaged over 8.0 yards per attempt in all but one contest. He also adds absolutely nothing with his legs, averaging 2.0 yards per game over his last six starts. Instead, Garoppolo must rely on superstar George Kittle ($7,400 DraftKings/$10,000 FanDuel) whose four receptions for 63 yards last week was his best statistical game in four weeks. Kittle had a three game stretch from weeks 13 to 15 where he averaged 141 receiving yards per game, but has been held to below 30 total yards in three of his last four games. Kittle, limited by the 49ers’ run-first approach, has only seen more than seven targets in a game three times since returning from injured reserve in Week 9. He’ll most likely need to rely on his incredible after-the-catch abilities, rather than immense volume, in order to hit a tournament-winning score. The same goes for Brandon Aiyuk ($6,200 DraftKings/$9,500 FanDuel), who saw just one total target in the game against the Packers last weekend. Prior to that, Aiyuk had been ascending within the 49ers passing game, earning six or more targets in three straight games, averaging 89 yards per game during that span. He’s still playing on over 90% team snaps, meaning a turnaround in production is far from out of the question.

The Rams offense, unlike San Francisco’s, is built to win through the air, which is the only logical choice when you have Cooper Kupp ($12,200 DraftKings/$16,000 FanDuel), in the midst of one of the greatest season’s we’ve ever seen from a wide receiver, on your squad. Kupp had a monster game last weekend, catching nine passes for 183 receiving yards, including the long bomb from quarterback Matthew Stafford ($10,800 DraftKings/$16,500 FanDuel) with less than a minute to go in regulation that set up the game-winning field goal. Kupp, a legitimate MVP candidate, ranks first among wideouts in nearly every notable statistical category there is this season, and regardless of the game plan used to slow him down, Kupp will still see the most targets on the team, and have a coinflip’s chance to score 25-plus fantasy points. Stafford, with the help of Kupp, has been extremely efficient as a passer all season, and has averaged over 10.3 yards per attempt during the postseason, completing over 74% of his passes. He’s even gotten Odell Beckham Jr. ($8,600 DraftKings/$10,500 FanDuel) more opportunities than during the regular season, as Beckham has seen 10 targets in the first two rounds of the playoffs. 20% of those looks have come from within the red zone, as well. Tight end Tyler Higbee ($5,200 DraftKings/$8,500 FanDuel) has seen nearly identical usage to Bechkham, but this is a slight shift from the regular season, as Higbee had been seeing the second-most looks on the team. The secondary-option in the passing game appears to be shifting towards Beckham, and our projections currently agree. Higbee still has a decent-enough ceiling and offers a salary discount to be worth playing, but Beckham is the preferred option in a vacuum. Van Jefferson ($5,000 DraftKings/$7,500 FanDuel) is far from 100% healthy, but will most likely suit-up for the Rams as he played 90% of snaps last week, and should see between two and five targets, including a few deep shots. If Stafford and Jefferson connect on one or two, Jefferson could easily pop-into the optimal lineup, but Jefferson is a much lower-probability play than both Beckham and Higbee.

The Rams’ backfield belongs to Cam Akers ($7,000 DraftKings/$11,000 FanDuel), who saw 27 total opportunities while playing on over 80% of team snaps. His 24 rushes were by far the most of the season, and he saw a team-high six red zone carries as well. Though he lost two crucial fumbles last week, arguably paving the way for Tampa Bay to come back in the divisional round, it’s clear that the Rams believe-in Akers, and want him to be the workhorse back for this playoff run. Akers should continue to see 20-plus opportunities, especially if the Rams find themselves playing with the lead in the second half.

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Though it’s not very likely, if Akers struggles mightily out of the gate this Sunday, we could see the Rams move to a committee-approach in the backfield, especially since Week 1 starter Darrell Henderson ($2,800 DraftKings/$8,000 FanDuel) looks set to return from injured reserve for this Sunday’s game. Sony Michel ($4,800 DraftKings/$8,000 FanDuel) began the playoffs with a massive 45 yard run on the first play from scrimmage in the wild card round, but essentially hasn’t been heard from again this postseason. The most likely game flow involves this tandem combining for eight to 12 touches. Akers, in the games he’s been healthy this season, has dominated the touches in the red zone, lowering the ceiling probability of both players. In the passing game, Ben Skowronek ($200 DraftKings/$6,000 FanDuel) and Kendall Blanton ($1,000 DraftKings/$6,000 FanDuel) are the only players not in the Rams’ big-three receiving corps with an outside chance of scoring a touchdown. Blanton did just that last weekend, making the most of his first two-plus target game in five weeks.

The 49ers’ pass so infrequently that it’s hard to recommend any auxiliary weapon, though Jauan Jennings ($2,200 DraftKings/$7,000 FanDuel) at least continues to run on a high percentage of team routes, and has seen 14 targets over his last three games. No other 49ers’ receiver even caught a pass in last week’s game. The only other offensive weapon of note for San Francisco is Kyle Juszczyk ($1,600 DraftKings/$5,500 FanDuel), who averaged 7.0 yards per carry on his two touches last week, but will likely touch the ball no more than three times in Sunday’s contest. Reserve these players for the largest of large field tournaments, as they each have less than 1% chance of being in the optimal lineup. Kicker Robbie Gould ($3,800 DraftKings/$9,000 FanDuel) is the safest 49ers play below $4,000 on DraftKings.

The Bottom Line (FanDuel New York Betting Offer)

With a plethora of elite talent on both sides of the ball for both teams, and two wildly different offensive schemes, this should be a phenomenal NFC title game. San Francisco will do everything in their power to play slow, methodical football, shortening the game, while Los Angeles will seek explosive plays every chance they get, looking to blow the game wide open. Both teams know this about their opponent. In fact, the knowledge each team has about each other only increases the variance in this game, as this contest has a near equal probability of turning into a defense-oriented slugfest or an aerial-shootout. Ultimately, as most playoff games do, this one will come down to which superstar (or superstars) make the biggest plays at the biggest times. And while San Francisco certainly has their share of pro bowl talent, no star has shone brighter than Cooper Kupp’s this season. I suspect he saves one of his best performances of the year for this Sunday’s showdown.

Divisional Sunday Night Football Prediction: Rams 27, 49ers 26

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Author

Matt Savoca

A middling athlete who was offered his first sports analytics position at age 14, I've been working on NFL and fantasy football data science since 2017. With a particular passion for data visualization and dashboard building, I love to make data accessible by using graphs and charts to communicate ideas that are difficult to explain with words alone. You can contact me by e-mailing [email protected].