The NFL DFS prime time and afternoon slates are small but have massive guaranteed prize pools. This week, here are the games offered in the ‘Afternoon Only’ slate:
That snippet is from our free NFL Vegas dashboard and is current as of Sunday morning. Keep tabs on the dashboard for updates on the lines.
Quarterback
Adjusted Yards per Pass Attempt: 9.02, Matt Ryan
Week 17 is perhaps the most difficult NFL DFS week of the year, as certain teams are more motivated than others. Check out Matthew Freedman’s in-depth look at the Week 17 Playoff Picture, but here’s a quick cheat sheet of the teams in this specific slate:
Need to win to make playoffs: Redskins
Playing for playoff seeding: Chiefs, Seahawks, Raiders, Falcons
Playoff-bound but locked into seed: Giants
Nothing to play for: Cardinals, Rams, Chargers, 49ers, Broncos, Saints
The Falcons control their own destiny in Week 17: If they win, they lock up the No. 2 seed and get a coveted first-round bye. Ryan is in a great spot to make that happen, as he’ll face a Saints defense ranked 29th in both overall and pass Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA), per Football Outsiders. This game easily has the slate’s highest Vegas total of 58 points, and the Falcons are currently implied for a whopping 32.75 points. Getting up to 30 is fairly rare, and QBs have done well in those games historically:
Ryan will likely be very chalky — he’s projected for position-high 17-20 percent ownership on DK in the main slate — but it’s for good reason: Ryan has been elite this season, he has an excellent matchup, and the Falcons are highly motivated to win.
Projected Plus/Minus (FD): +4.93, Russell Wilson
The Russell Wilson 2016-17 Experience:
Wilson had a great Week 16, finishing with 33.6 FD points thanks to a stellar 29-350-4 line against a Cardinals team that ranks 10th overall and seventh versus the pass. This week, he gets perhaps the best matchup on the board going against a 49ers team that ranks 30th and 28th in overall and pass DVOA and is expected to dismiss head coach Chip Kelly and general manager Trent Baalke after the game.
The Seahawks have quite a bit to play for this week: If they win, they can jump up to the No. 2 seed with a Falcons loss. If they lose, they’ll drop to the No. 4 seed. Wilson is currently the No. 1 QB in the Bales Model for FD, where he comes with a position-high +4.93 Projected Plus/Minus and a 78 percent Bargain Rating.
Running Back
Projected Plus/Minus (DK): +5.35, Rob Kelley
Kelley could be a bit contrarian in a slate that features this guy . . .
. . . and other backs like Devonta Freeman, Mark Ingram, and Thomas Rawls in elite matchups. According to DVOA, Kelley has a very difficult matchup this week: The Giants rank third overall and fourth against the run. That said, the Giants are locked into the No. 5 seed and could likely rest a lot of their starters on both sides of the ball. Per our NFL News feed, Kelley owns 71 percent of the Redskins’ carries inside the red-zone during the last six weeks. The Redskins are currently 7.5-point home favorites implied for 27 points; those numbers have historically been very positive for lead RBs.
Pro Trends (FD): 14, Devonta Freeman
Per the Week 17 RB Breakdown, Freeman has been an incredibly valuable DFS asset as a home favorite this season:
He’ll likely be one of the chalkiest players in the slate — he’s currently projected for 13-16 and 17-20 percent ownership on DK and FD in the main slate (which should skyrocket in this smaller slate) — but there are other ways to be contrarian without implementing a full Devonta fade. Freeman faces a Saints defense that ranks 29th overall and 20th against the run, and they’ve been the second-worst team in the league at defending pass-catching backs. Devonta is no DJ as a RB receiver, but he’s been very solid lately: He ranks seventh among all RBs in the past four weeks with 15.13 percent of the Falcons’ targets. Freeman is one of the safest options at any position in the slate, and he also comes with the second-highest projected ceiling at 24.4 FD points.
Wide Receiver
Target Market Share, Last Month: 29.66%, Doug Baldwin
Over the last four games, Baldwin ranks fifth in the NFL with 29.66 percent of his team’s targets. That was certainly helped by his Week 16 explosion: He put up 30.2 FD points thanks to a 13-171-1 line on 19 targets. He’s clearly Wilson’s go-to guy currently — Jimmy Graham has only nine targets over his last three weeks — and has one of the best WR/CB matchups of the week. According to Pro Football Focus, Baldwin has the seventh-most advantageous matchup against slot corner Keith Reaser, who is ranked 93rd out of 119 eligible CBs with a poor 57.8 coverage grade. The only concern for Baldwin is that the Seahawks are slate-high 11-point favorites, but that historically hasn’t stopped Baldwin from putting up stellar fantasy days:
Opponent Plus/Minus (DK): +1.40, Larry Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald also has an elite matchup this week. Per PFF, his matchup versus Rams slot corner Blake Countess is the second-most advantageous matchup of the week; Countess has an awful 44.9 coverage grade this season. Fitz has missed salary-based expectations in each of his last three weeks, as J.J. Nelson has been the guy to excel in this offense after the dismissal of Michael Floyd. Still, Fitz has been incredibly efficient, catching 11 of his 13 targets over the last two weeks, and he will likely come with low ownership because of Nelson: Fitz is projected for only two to four percent ownership in the main slate, compared to 13-16 percent for Nelson. The Cardinals haven’t had anything to play for in a while, but that hasn’t changed the usage of the guys in the offense. The Cardinals are currently 7.5-point favorites implied for 23.75 points, and Fitz is a nice contrarian pivot off of the chalkiness of Nelson and Johnson.
Tight End
Fantasy Points per Snap, Last Month: 0.44, Travis Kelce
With Rob Gronkowski injured, Kelce has been perhaps the best TE in the NFL:
He absolutely demolished the league’s top-ranked Broncos defense in Week 16, putting up an 11-160-1 line on 12 targets. Kelce not only leads all TEs with 28.95 percent of his team’s targets over the past month, but he’s actually sixth among all pass-catchers in that time frame — ahead of WR1s like Dez Bryant, DeAndre Hopkins, Antonio Brown, and Demaryius Thomas. Despite that, Kelce is somehow only $5,000 on DK, where he comes with a massive +6.57 Projected Plus/Minus, eight Pro Trends, and a +2.2 Opponent Plus/Minus.
Opponent Plus/Minus (FD): +3.0, Coby Fleener
Fleener is definitely not a sexy play in this slate, but he does own the highest FD Opp Plus/Minus against the Falcons, who rank 24th defensively against the pass this season and have allowed 3.0 points over salary-based expectations to TEs over the past year. He’s received only three targets per game over the last three weeks, but this game has a massive 58-point total and Fleener has done much better in high-total games:
Fleener is certainly a GPP dart, but he’s definitely worth rostering as a tournament pivot off of the projected popularity of Drew Brees‘ WRs in Michael Thomas, Brandin Cooks, and Willie Snead.
Good luck!
