Wild Card Saturday Night Football features three games that DraftKings has posted solid Showdown NFL DFS prize pools. As with all of my NFL DFS Showdown Strategy and daily fantasy football pieces for DraftKings and FanDuel, you can find the data that backs the takes in this article. All Showdown daily fantasy football picks and trend data can be found in this sheet that will be updated after each full NFL week concludes.
[2021-New-Year-Promo]
[SportsbookAffiliates]
Daily Fantasy Football Picks: Saturday Wild Card Showdown Strategy
Indianapolis Colts at Buffalo Bills (-6), 51 total
NFL Daily Fantasy Picks: Captain
Josh Allen is going to be the most popular Captain choice in this game, and he likely deserves that honor — he is averaging 27.3 DraftKings points per game. That’s 5.4 more points than the second player on this slate, Stefon Diggs. However, he’s also projected to be owned by at least a quarter of the field at Captain. In large-field tournaments, swapping him into the Flex and playing Diggs at Captain is a great way to get different. Diggs led the NFL in targets, receptions and yards receiving. Lastly, Jonathan Taylor acts as an interesting leverage play off Allen. If the Colts come out and upset the Bills, it will be on the back of Taylor, who has averaged 19.8 carries for 12.5 yards rushing over his past six games.
NFL DFS Picks: Flex
Taylor is going to be the most popular Colts players. He’s even projected to be more popular than his quarterback. Using Rivers and a receiver lineups Captained by Allen or Diggs is the optimal approach to getting unique. At $4,200, Michael Pittman Jr. is one of the two best values above $200 on the slate. Using him or T.Y. Hilton, who is averaging 7.6 targets per game over his previous five contests, along with Rivers is a solid play if the Bills win in a high-scoring affair. Nyheim Hines is most involved in the types of games Taylor does not perform well in. That makes him a great leverage point off Taylor as well.
The best way to get lineups with Allen at Captain unique is by fading Diggs. Although Diggs is the leading receiver for Buffalo, he only has eight receiving touchdowns this year. The Bills have 40 touchdowns passing and 13 different players have snagged at least one of them. If Dawson Knox and John Brown or any other combination of Buffalo pass catchers account for three scores, Diggs is very unlikely to be in the optimal lineup.
Latest NFL DFS Content
- Want to Learn How to Win a DraftKings Milly Maker With Stokastic Sims? Steve Buzzard Will Tell You How
- PrizePicks, Sleeper & Underdog Cheat Sheet: Best More/Less Picks Today for NFL (February 11)
- DraftKings NFL Cheat Sheet: Super Bowl Sims Picks | George Kittle
- NFL Super Bowl 58 DFS Picks: 49ers vs. Chiefs (February 11)
- NFL DFS Captain Picks for Super Bowl 58: Rashee Rice, George Kittle & More
- Stokastic DFS on Youtube
Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks (-3.5), 42.5 total
NFL Daily Fantasy Picks: Captain
Like nearly every Showdown slate, the favored Captain is going to be popular, and the battle will be finding unique lineups that still have some semblance of leverage. Because of that, D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett both look like solid contrarian option at Captain. Metcalf is more expensive and coming off a game where he scored 5.1 DraftKings points compared to Lockett’s 27. That should keep his ownership in check despite the NFL Boom Bust Tool seeing him as three times more likely to have a big game. If John Wolford gets the start, he’ll make for a particularly interesting play at Captain. He’s only $14,100 and has some rushing upside. In his first NFL start, he went for 56 yards on six carries. He also gets a defense that is 32nd in yards passing allowed.
NFL DFS Picks: Flex
Cam Akers is worth considering at Captain but may be best deployed in the Flex given his team’s 19.5-point total on the road as an underdog. Even though he came in less than 100% healthy in Week 17, the Rams gave him 21 carries and four targets. Opting for the Seattle passing attack instead of Chris Carson combined with Akers from the Rams’ side is a solid but not incredibly popular way to attack this game. Gerald Everett comes in as the best value over $1,000. He saw seven targets last week and has a higher target share than Tyler Higbee dating back to Week 7, when he finally began getting fully in the team’s offensive rotation.
David Moore ($1,800) and Jacob Hollister ($2,600) are the best cheap touchdown bets on the Seahawks in this game. Moore has run a route on 44.5% of Seattle’s passing plays this year and has six touchdowns. Since his first start of the season in Week 9, Hollister’s route rate is at 42.2%. Because of the low passing output projected for Los Angeles, even with Goff under center, neither Cooper Kupp nor Robert Woods projects as a better value than Metcalf or either kicker in this game.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Washington Football Team (+8), 44.5 total
NFL Daily Fantasy Picks: Captain
Terry McLaurin leads all players (minimum eight games) with a 47% air yards share. That mark is 5% higher than the No. 2 receiver. He is the most notable Captain from Washington. On the other side, Chris Godwin and Antonio Brown are going to be the popular choices from Tampa Bay’s receiving room despite Mike Evans clearly being the team’s top option with Brown in the fold. From Week 9 to Week 16:
- Evans – 22% target share, 28.9% air yards share
- Godwin – 17.6% target share, 19.9% air yards share
- Brown – 17.7% target share, 16.9% air yards share
Evans is dealing with a hamstring injury that could limit him but will drop his ownership for sure. Tom Brady is an obvious choice at Captain and will require a unique build around him to avoid duplicated lineups.
NFL DFS Picks: Flex
Logan Thomas and J.D. McKissic round out the bet Flex options from Washington. With Washington rumored to be playing both Alex Smith and backup Taylor Heinicke, the quarterback situation for them is too low value to touch. McKissic and Thomas both rack up receptions, so they don’t need to positively correlate with their quarterback, whoever that may be, to find success. McKissic is also likely to be negatively correlated with Antonio Gibson, who will be far more popular. Stacks that are 5-1 Buccaneers favored with McKissic or Thomas are the best way to capitalize on the massive spread.
Ronald Jones looks like the contrarian staple of any Bucs stack. He is even viable at Captain. Jones has played in three wins since Week 10, and in those games he has averaged 17.7 carries for 116.7 yards. He may not directly correlate with Brady on any individual play given his lack of a pass-catching role, but he does correlate with the success s of his overall offense. If the Buccaneers offense puts them two scores ahead of Washington, Jones could push for 20 carries. Rob Gronkowski‘s aDOT is up to 12.2 since Brown joined Tampa, and he is second on the team in red zone targets on the year.
Follow us on all of our social channels! Check out our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for more great Awesemo content.
Looking for more daily fantasy football and NFL DFS picks content? We have loads of daily fantasy football picks articles, data, DraftKings and FanDuel cheat sheets and more on the Awesemo NFL home page. Just click HERE.
