NFL DFS Picks: Saturday Divisional Round Showdown Strategy

Divisional Round Saturday features two games that DraftKings has posted solid Showdown NFL DFS prize pools for. As with all of my NFL daily fantasy football advice and Showdown Strategy pieces for DraftKings and FanDuel, you can find the data that backs the takes in this article. All Showdown 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 Advice: Saturday Divisional Round Showdown Strategy

Los Angeles Rams at Green Bay Packers (-6.5), 45.5 Total

NFL DFS Picks: Captain

For the Rams, there are two or three players of note at Captain. Cam Akers has averaged 22.8 carries for 94.2 yards and 0.4 touchdowns in his previous six games. He has also added two catches for 28 yards per game over that stretch. It’s possible that even as an underdog, the Rams lean on Akers with an ailing quarterback and starting receiver. Robert Woods could be in line for a massive role this week with Cooper Kupp not practicing as of Wednesday. If Kupp can go, he saw one more target at a higher aDOT last week but will likely draw far less ownership than Woods because of the injury.

The Packers’ side is where most of the Captain ownership will go and as nearly touchdown favorites, it’s ownership that is hard to argue with. Rodgers and Adams have played in 13 healthy games together. Adams has out-scored Rodgers seven times in those games, but five of those came in his first five healthy games of the year. That means that Rodgers has come out on top in six of their previous eight games. With Adams drawing slightly higher projected ownership than Rodgers, there might be a small amount of leverage to be had by playing Rodgers at Captain with Adams and another Green Bay receiver in the Flex. Aaron Jones would be the ultimate leverage play in this game. In Week 17, Jones saw 64.7% of the Packers’ running back carries and drew all five of the Packers’ running back targets. If he scores twice, it’s nearly guaranteed that neither Adams nor Rodgers will be the optimal Captain.

NFL DFS Picks: Flex

The Packers will also make up most of our Flex interest. At $5,200, Allen Lazard likely comes in more popular than Marquez Valdes-Scantling. However, Lazard has one game above 63 yards receiving and two games over four receptions this season. Valdes-Scantling has four games over 80 yards and an aDOT over 20. Robert Tonyan‘s ability to find the end zone — he has 11 touchdowns this season — makes him the ideal pairing with Rodgers at Captain because of his ability to reduce Adams’ ceiling. Both kickers project well and Mason Crosby‘s team is projected to score 6.5 more points than Matt Gay, who is only $200 less.

Even if Kupp is able to play, it’s unlikely that he is at full health. That means we could see a heavy dose of the ancillary receiving weapons in Los Angeles. Gerald Everett recorded all of zero yards last week but is only $1,400 and ran a route on 48.3% of the Rams’ dropbacks. Tyler Higbee‘s route rate was up at 69% but he also costs $4,200. Josh Reynolds‘ ran just as many routes, but his price is at $1,800. He looks like the best value on the Rams this week.


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Baltimore Ravens at Buffalo Bills (-2.5), 50 Total

NFL DFS Picks: Captain

There are an incredible amount of viable Captains for this game. The quarterbacks likely come in as the most popular choices. Lamar Jackson has averaged 12 carries for 94.3 yards and 0.8 touchdowns per game since returning from the reserve/COVID-19 list. Josh Allen finished top five in yards passing and touchdowns. He leads his Showdown slate with 27.7 DraftKings points per game this year. Jackson is 3.9 points behind him. Using Jackson and a Baltimore running back plus his defense to fade the Bills offense is a solid contrarian strategy. With these two players soaking up most of the ownership, Stefon Diggs could come in at low Captain ownership despite leading the league in receptions, targets and yards.

Marquise Brown posted his first and second 20-point games in his previous two weeks but has only out-scored Jackson once. His role as a Captain isn’t to score more points than Jackson. It’s to allow you to play both Jackson and Allen in the same lineup. However, both John Brown and Cole Beasley have higher projections at lower prices. Beasley has five games with over 100 yards this year and $11,700 at Captain.

NFL DFS Picks: Flex

J.K. Dobbins is going to draw some ownership in the Flex, but he is essentially splitting the Baltimore backfield perfectly with Gus Edwards. From Week 14 through Week 16 and the Wild Card Round, Mark Ingram played one offensive snaps. He was active for a Week 17 blowout but doesn’t seem to be in Baltimore’s playoff plans. So, in those games, Dobbins has out-carried Edwards 47-39 but Edwards is shockingly winning the target battle 3-to-5. Given the tight spread of volume between the two, Edwards seems like the better play at his $6,000 discount on DraftKings.

John Brown saw four targets last week but failed to convert on any of them. The volume was there, and as long as that holds, we can expect him to bounce back at low ownership. Devin Singletary will be playing without Zack Moss for the first time since a three-week span at the beginning of the season. In that span, he averaged 14 carries and four targets per game. Dawson Knox has posted 4.4 targets per game since retaking the field in Week 10. If he finds the end zone even once, he’ll likely make the optimal lineup.

Since Week 15, Miles Boykin is third on the Ravens in routes run, but Willie Snead did miss one game in that span. Both players are solid pivots off Mark Andrews and Brown. If Jackson only throws one touchdown and it doesn’t go to the obvious targets, whoever catches that score will be in the winning lineup, likely alongside Jackson.


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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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