Hittin' The Nuts - SquirrelPatrol's NFL DFS Lineup Advice for Monday Night Football (Giants vs. Steelers)
Want to hit the nuts and take down 1st place in these massive contests posted by FanDuel and DraftKings? Who better to walk you through their favorite NFL DFS picks than SquirrelPatrol! Undoubtedly one of the best DFS players in the game, SquirrelPatrol has accumulated 100+ Live Final seats, took 2nd place in the 2023 DraftKings Fantasy Baseball World Championship for a $600,000 prize, and most recently, took down the NFL Milly Maker in Week 2 of last season.
Week 8 concludes with an interconference showdown between the Giants and Steelers in Pittsburgh, with the Steelers favored by 6 points in a game with a low 36.5-point total. The Steelers come into the game in 1st place in their division despite averaging the 11th-fewest yards per game on offense, on the back of a defense allowing the 2nd-fewest points per game. The Giants are losing pace in the NFC East coming into the game at 2-5, and they are averaging the 2nd-fewest points per game this season. A matchup between the team scoring the 2nd-fewest points per game and a team allowing the 2nd-fewest points per game explains the low total.
This is the rare contest where the injury report on both sides is clean for fantasy purposes, but you’ll want to be sure to follow the RotoGrinders NFL starting lineups page as inactives hit for the latest details. Also, don’t forget to use our NFL DFS optimizer, LineupHQ. Whether you’re a hand builder or an MME player, it’s the perfect tool to utilize.
Let’s sort through the slate and figure out what to do with our DFS lineups.
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Giants vs. Steelers NFL DFS Lineup Advice
Primetime Game History
This is third primetime game this season for the Steelers. They last week on Sunday Night Football against the Jets, and despite being just 2.5-point underdogs, the top four most popular CPT choices were all Jets, with Najee Harris (8.9%) and George Pickens (7.3%) the most popular Pittsburgh players in the CPT spot. The Steelers picked up a surprisingly high-scoring 37-15 win. Breece Hall was the winning CPT at 18.1% CPT ownership, but he was the only Jets player in the winning lineup, as Russell Wilson, Harris, Pickens, Chris Boswell, and Van Jefferson all appeared in the FLEX spots.
The Steelers also played Dallas on Sunday Night Football in Week 5. With Pittsburgh coming into that game as 2.5-point favorites, the most popular CPT choices were Justin Fields (24.1%) and Harris (17.5%). Fields and Harris appeared in the winning lineup in the FLEX spots, but it was the Steelers D/ST that was the winning CPT, despite Pittsburgh dropping the game 20-17 to the Cowboys.
This is also the third primetime game for the Giants, with New York losing both of their previous night games this season. Most recently in Week 6, the Giants faced the Bengals on Sunday Night Football, losing 17-7. In a game that Malik Nabers and Devin Singletary both missed, Daniel Jones (14.8%) was the most popular Giants CPT choice in the DraftKings large-field contest, followed closely by Tyrone Tracy (10.9%) and Darius Slayton (10.8%). Despite the loss, Tracy was the CPT in the winning lineup, paired with Slayton and the Giants D/ST in FLEX spots.
Looking back at these past Showdown contests, there are some things we can take away for tonight’s contest. It’s interesting to note that the CPT in each contest came from the losing side, so particularly in games that could be lower scoring, we don’t want to write off any player from consideration for the top spot in our lineups who can reliably put up points. Pass catchers (including RBs) often end up in the CPT spot ahead of their QBs, and we also see lineups that contain at least one low-owned player. Often, we don’t want to avoid chalk entirely, but it can be critical to find at least one lower-owned — but still viable — option, even if it is at the CPT spot.
How I Plan to Beat the Field
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