Welcome to the Paydirt NFL DFS main slate breakdown! This article will go over some of the most important aspects of the NFL DFS main slate. It’ll typically include things like team totals, popular plays, and important stacks. The content of this is mostly geared towards Draftkings but is plenty applicable to Fanduel as well. Likewise, this article goes over the slate based on the range of outcomes models for NFL found here at Paydirt, so if you are interested in the same data we use, grab a subscription today!
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NFL DFS Turkey Day slate breakdown:
The Thanksgiving breakdown I do is a bit different than I do for normal main slates. I am going to go through each game and give some thoughts and notes in regards to both the full slate and the showdown slate for each game. This won’t be quite as in depth as the regular breakdowns, but I hope it helps everyone make some good decisions!
Game 1: Detroit Lions vs. Green Bay Packers
It’s hard to get a good grasp of Jordan Love and this Packers squad. The highs are pretty nice but the lows make him look like Zach Wilson with an accent. The last time these teams faced the Lions just ravaged the Packers o-line and Love couldn’t get anything going whatsoever. I think Lafluer is a good gameplanner and can make adjustments to mitigate that this time around, so I would expect it to be much more competitive this time around.
Packers things:
- Last week we saw Jayden Reed have a mini-breakout game, and he’s been the Packers best WR for the majority of the season anyway.
- Musgrave is on IR and Degura doubtful (or out, I don’t remember) so it’s going to be a heavy dose of KRAFT MAC AND CHEESE for the Packers. He should play basically every snap and makes for a strong punt.
- The Packers RBs aren’t in much better shape. It’ll be a majority AJ Dillon assuming his groin holds up, but we should expect Patrick Taylor to get quite a bit of run here. His props are kind of wild and you can get o25 rushing yards for like +350, so if you can find that you should hit that!
- The best combo you can run is Love/Reed/Doubs and I’m not sure you need to consider anything other than that. Watson is a fine flyer if you are playing the really large field stuff but he kind of sucks at football.
Lions things:
- Amon-Ra St.Brown is the lynchpin of this offense and the obvious priority in this game. If you are building either a DET stack or a GB stack he’s going to be in it.
- Jahmyr Gibbs has taken over the “lead” back for the Lionts over the last two weeks with 50%+ of the snaps, but more importantly he has his 17%+ targets in those games. He makes for an awesome pairing as a stack piece which should help you be more unique than the traditional pairings in this game.
- The best pairing you can make here is Goff/ARSB/LaPorta but you do get a significant ownership discount dropping from LaPorta to Reynolds.
- My favorite combo for a DET stack is actually Goff/ARSB/Gibbs, and that’s the route I will go with a stack today if I end up playing a DET one.
Showdown things:
- Patrick Taylor is a priority on the GB side as a value piece while ARSB is a priority on the Lions side.
- Kraft makes for a strong value as well, though I’m sure people will be on him with Musgrave on IR.
- The highest duped FLEX combo is going to be ARSB/Goff/Gibbs/Reed, so if you have that I would consider finding some ways to be more unique.
- Lions should win this one but I do expect it to be much more competitive. Building with a 4-2 DET lean with Gibbs at captain makes the most sense to me.
Game 1: Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Commanders
Dallas is going to be the highest owned stack by a longshot today and I guess? It’s justified? But man does this feel like a typical Cowboys let down spot to me. They just finished beating up on some really low quality opponents and while I don’t think that WAS is a good team I think they have more upside than either of the last two. I think my main thought here is if DAL covers the spread (they are like 14 point favorites) it feels like they do it through their defense and not necessarily through their offense. As far as WAS goes, so long as Howell doesn’t throw for 3 interceptions I think he will throw for 2+ TDs. This game is going to be competitive and I think you can kind of stack it every which way.
Cowboys things:
- Tony Pollard scored a touchdown last week! It was incredible. The correlation play between Pollard and the Cowboys DST is well in play again, as is the stack of Dak/Pollard/Lamb.
- The Cowboys WR room has been interesting and Cooks/Tolbert both make for strong value options on this slate. Especially with such a high total there should be touchdowns to go around.
Commanders things:
- The Commanders are the pass heaviest team in the league by most advanced metrics and that shouldn’t change today.
- The ball has been spread around a lot for them, but that isn’t really an issue with how cheap the receiving options are for WAS. They can pay off on relatively low volume and each have strong ceilings due to the passing volume.
- I’m pretty sure that Howell is still on pace to break the record for most sacks taken in a season, but even if he isn’t he is still taking like 5 sacks a game. Cowboys DST will be justifiably popular.
- Gibson should play today and makes for an interesting stacking piece with the receiving work on a team that projects to play with a significant trailing script most of the game.
Showdown things:
- Most people are going to be stacking 5-1 with a DAL lean and that makes sense with how large this projected spread is.
- Cowboys DST is going to have a lot of ownership at captain. I don’t think you should do that, it’ll be highly duped, but I do think they make plenty strong of an option at FLEX with a strong floor.
- The highest duped FLEX combo will be Lamb/Prescott/CowboysDST/Howell.
- My favorite route here is going to be a 4-2 DAL lean, but a 3-3 WAS captain is really spicy and I think it is viable. With the passing volume for the Commanders I could see Samuel/McLaurin/Thomas getting enough volume and a touchdown to allow the heavy hitting DAL options in the FLEX to thrive.
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