NFL DFS Picks: Sunday Wild Card Round Showdown Strategy

Wild Card Sunday Night Football features three games that DraftKings has posted solid Showdown NFL DFS prize pools for. 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.

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Daily Fantasy Football Picks: Sunday Wild Card Showdown Strategy

Baltimore Ravens at Tennessee Titans (+3.5), 54 total

NFL Daily Fantasy Football Picks: Captain

The main options at Captain for this game are going to be the quarterbacks and Derrick Henry. Lamar Jackson is going to be exceedingly popular and is the only Raven worth considering as the top overall scorer from Baltimore. Marquise Brown, J.K. Dobbins and Mark Andrews have each out-scored Jackson just once this year. Their best path to being the optimal Captain is by allowing you to jam in more studs. Ryan Tannehill and Henry are solid pivots off Jackson. Henry’s splits in wins and losses this year are comical.

  • Losses: 19 carries, 89.6 rushing yards, 0.4 touchdowns
  • Wins: 25.7 carries 143.5 rushing yards, 1.4 touchdowns

If the Titans win, that means likely Jackson failed to pay off his sky-high cost, while Henry ran wild. 

NFL DFS Picks: Flex

Baltimore and Tennessee are two of the three teams who run the ball more than they pass. When looking for value, neither defense ranks highly. Jonnu Smith is only $1,000 less than Mark Andrews despite peaking at five catches in a game this year. Dobbins dropped 31 points last week but only out-carried Gus Edwards 13-to-12. Mark Ingram also saw nine rush attempts. At their prices, Edwards is the best value in this backfield. 

A.J. Brown and Corey Davis’ prices have nearly converged, but Brown’s upside is undeniable. He has seven games over 20 DraftKings while Davis has just four. At $1,400 Anthony Firkser is likely one of the best values on the slate. He may only need a handful of points to make the optimal lineup and has four games over 7 DraftKings points.

Chicago Bears at New Orleans Saints (-10.5), 48 total

NFL Daily Fantasy Football Picks: Captain

There seem to be two viable options at Captain for the second game: Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara. The latter will likely lead the slate in ownership because the last time we saw him he scored six times. However, Kamara’s numbers this year mainly came with Thomas out. Now that Thomas is back, his projection takes a hit, but his ownership may not. Allen Robinson and David Montgomery can be taken as contrarian Captains, but their usage is for large-field tournaments only because of their 18.5-point implied team total. 

NFL DFS Picks: Flex

Given the 10.5-point spread on this game, a Saints onslaught looks like the best approach to roster construction. Fitting Kamara, Thomas and Drew Brees into the same lineup isn’t hard when you have no intentions of spending big on the Bears. Marquez Callaway will run as the No. 3 receiver for New Orleans, is only $2,000 and has seen four targets in consecutive weeks. Latavius Murray could also get more run with Kamara missing practice all week. He has four games with over 80 total yards and two games with multiple scores this year. Kamara started in all of those contests.

With Darnell Mooney out, the tight ends and Javon Wims could all see extra reps. Wims is only $200. Kmet set a career-high in snap share in Week 10. Dating back to that week, he has averaged 5.1 targets per game.

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Cleveland Brown at Pittsburgh Steelers (-6), 47.5 total

NFL Daily Fantasy Football Picks: Captain

With the Browns coming into his game as six-point dogs, the final contest of Wild Card weekend looks like another spot to target stacks of a single team. The Steelers have passed on 64.2% of their plays. That mark trails only the Jaguars this year. One of the three Pittsburgh receivers will likely be the optimal captain choice. From Week 7 to Week 16 (when Diontae Johnson stopped leaving games early to the final meaningful game of the regular season), this has been the breakdown:

  • Johnson: 25.1% target share, 17.3% air yards share
  • Chase Claypool: 17.3% target share, 28.5% air yards share
  • JuJu Smith-Schuster: 20.8% target share, 17% air yards share

Johnson and Claypool look like the easy receivers to target but JuJu is in the mix as a unique pivot in tournaments.

NFL DFS Picks: Flex

Roethlisberger’s aDOT of 7.7 makes it easy for his receivers to rack up reception points without him benefiting greatly from the same plays. That makes it more likely that one of his pass catchers ends up as the optimal Captain choice than most quarterbacks. The Steelers backfield is another place to look for value on the Pittsburgh side of this game. Although he’s only disappointed in the second half of the season, James Conner is the starting running back on a home team favored by nearly a touchdown. Since returning from the reserve/COVID-19 list two weeks ago, Conner has seen 14 of the team’s 22 running back carries. 

The Browns have committed to the run to a fault this year but that may make it easy to predict who we want to target. Kareem Hunt has peaked at 14 carries since Nick Chubb returned from IR but he’s also posting 3.3 targets and 10.4 carries per game over that span. The Browns have lost two games dating back to Week 10. Hunt posted a 9-118-1 receiving line in those two games combined. Jarvis Landry accounts for such a high share of his team’s targets that he’s the clear passing-game player to chase but Rashard Higgins has some value as well. He has operated in the Odell Beckham role ever since the start receiver went down for the year with a torn ACL. Dating back to Week 7, he has accounted for 30.9% of his team’s air yards.


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Author
If you like fantasy football and care about data, there's a 50/50 chance I've written for your favorite site. In a few short years I've covered, season-long, dynasty, best ball, and DFS for football. I used to be watching games and pretend to know what I was talking about but now I just spew numbers that forecast outcomes better than any scout. Come for the numbers, stay for the bad jokes and Zach Zenner references. RIP XFL.

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