NFL DFS Showdown Picks Breakdown (Sunday, Nov. 6): Can Derrick Henry Keep Smashing?

NFL Week 9 features a Sunday Night Football matchup between the Tennessee Titans and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs are currently listed as 12.5-point home favorites, while the total sits at 45.5 points.

In this article, I’ll be using various FantasyLabs tools and other industry metrics to break down the slate.

Don’t forget to check out our Lineup Builder if you like to hand build your lineups or our Lineup Optimizer for those of you that like to enter multiple lineups into tournaments.

Finally, make sure to check out all the projections available for purchase within the FantasyLabs Models. Subscribers now have the option to purchase Derek Carty’s THE BLITZ from our Marketplace. Projections from One Week Season and Establish the Run are available if you’re a subscriber to those specific sites (our optimizer is a separate add-on feature).

You can also combine them to create your own aggregate projections:

NFL DFS Stud Picks

Any mention of the Chiefs has to start with Patrick Mahomes. The former league MVP has had another excellent season, leading the league in touchdown passes while racking up 308.4 passing yards per game. His touchdown rate of 7.6% also gives him a slight edge over Josh Allen for the top mark in football. Mahomes doesn’t bring the same rushing upside to the table as some of the league’s other top passers, but he still ranks third at the position with an average of 25.0 fantasy points per game.

He should be able to build on his success this week vs. the Titans. They have the top rushing defense in the league per Football Outsiders DVOA, but they’ve been mediocre against the pass. No team has a higher pass rate above expectation than the Chiefs this season, so they rarely need an excuse to air it out. They have one in this spot, so Mahomes could be even busier than usual.

Mahomes also stands out from a Vegas perspective. The Chiefs are 12.5-point favorites, and he has historically averaged 25.94 DraftKings points when favored by double-digits (per the Trends tool). That’s good for an average Plus/Minus of +2.73.

Unsurprisingly, Mahomes leads the slate in median and ceiling projection per THE BLITZ, and he stands out as one of the best pure values as well.

Derrick Henry is the Titans’ top option, and he’s carried a monster workload of late. He racked up 32 carries last week against a horrendous Texans’ defense, which he converted into 219 yards and two touchdowns. That’s far from an outlier. Henry has averaged 26.4 rushing attempts and just under three targets per game over his past five contests, so he’s averaging nearly 30 opportunities in that stretch.