NFL DFS Showdown Picks Breakdown (Thursday, Nov. 17): Fade Christian Watson?

NFL Week 11 gets underway with a Thursday Night Football matchup between the Tennessee Titans and Green Bay Packers at 8:15 p.m. ET. The Packers are listed as three-point home favorites, while the total sits at 41.0 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

Derrick Henry finally disappointed fantasy owners last week, snapping a streak of six straight games with a positive Plus/Minus on DraftKings. It wasn’t due to a lack of trying – Henry finished with 19 rushing attempts and three targets – but he struggled to get anything going against the Broncos.

Henry should remain extremely busy vs. the Packers. He’s averaged 24 rushing attempts and 2.9 targets over his past seven games, which is an insane workload. Only Saquon Barkley has more touches than Henry this season, and he’s far more involved in his team’s passing attack. Josh Jacobs ranks third in touches, and he’s a full 28 behind Henry; that’s more than a full-games worth through just 10 weeks.

Henry should have no problems carving up a Packers’ defense that ranks 30th in Football Outsiders rush defense DVOA. They’ve surrendered at least 153 rushing yards in four of their past five games, including 115 to Tony Pollard last week. Overall, this is the perfect spot for the Big Dog to get back on track. Henry leads all players in THE BLITZ in median and ceiling projection.

The Packers have a pretty good running back of their own in Aaron Jones. He’s racked up at least 22.7 DraftKings points in three of his past four games, and he’s capable of beating teams in multiple ways. While Henry is a pure between-the-tackles grinder, Jones is a strong pass-catcher out of the backfield. He hasn’t been super busy in that department recently, but he does have a game with nine catches for 53 yards and two touchdowns already this season. That means that Jones is always a factor regardless of the game script.

His pass-catching prowess could come in handy vs. the Titans. They rank first in the league in rush defense DVOA, so it’s going to be tough to get the run game going in this spot. Unfortunately, the Titans have also been good at defending running backs in the passing game, ranking fourth in DVOA. Add it all up, and Jones owns an Opponent Plus/Minus of -5.9.

The one saving grace for Jones is that the Packers are home favorites. That’s a split where Jones has historically dominated. He’s posted an average Plus/Minus of +5.05 in 37 games as a home favorite, averaging 19.48 DraftKings points per game (per the Trends tool).

Still, it’s hard to get too excited about Jones in this matchup. He doesn’t grade out well from a value perspective in THE BLITZ.