NFL DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Expert Survey for Week 13 (Thanksgiving Slate)

by Andy Means (meansy53) Last Updated 2025-11-26 21:19:47 Premium Content Part of the product NFL DFS

Our panel of experts is here to give you their insights on NFL DFS today for the Week 13 Thanksgiving slate on DraftKings and FanDuel. They’re ready to answer key questions that will assist you in making those crucial lineup-building decisions. Curious about Noto’s favorite correlation? Or perhaps you’re wondering about Davis Mattek’s favorite contrarian play? Read their thoughts below!

NFL DFS DraftKings & FanDuel Expert Survey: Week 13 Thanksgiving Slate Picks

Rank your three favorite players for cash games, in order:

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Give a specific example of how you might utilize late swap depending on how the GB/DET and/or KC/DAL games play out.

Notorious: Most DFS players aren’t going to see the advantage of targeting lower-pOWN% players in the first game of the slate. In fact, most DFS players won’t even utilize the late-swap feature on Thanksgiving. The key advantage of doing this is being able to know where you stand with your contrarian plays BEFORE the other games have started. If your lower-owned plays hit, you have so many choices and ways to go about your roster construction. And if things don’t go as planned, you can always pivot away from the chalk in the later games in order to try to min-cash with your lineup. I like Jordan Love and Christian Watson as plays from the first game who are projecting for lower ownership. If they play well, I’ll keep my lineup the same for the later games. If they end up struggling, I’ll pivot away from Ja’Marr Chase and/or Derrick Henry, who are projecting as two of the highest-owned players on the slate.

stevietpfl: This is the best slate of the season to utilize late swap. The casual DFS player is going to set it and forget it. As I mentioned above, Christian Watson + Amon-Ra St. Brown is going to be one of my highest-owned stacks. If one or both underperform, I’ll look to pivot in the late games. Some examples include 1) going from Patrick Mahomes to Joe Burrow, 2) going from Derrick Henry or Chase Brown to Javonte Williams, and 3) going from a Chiefs stack to a Bengals or Ravens stack. I’ll be making most of my swaps right after the GB/DET game.

Krayton: Two players I like building around to start the first game are Jahmyr Gibbs and Christian Watson. I always like to see how my early players perform, which will then dictate if I need to make adjustments. If Gibbs and Watson put up elite numbers, I won’t need to make any adjustments. However, if they don’t perform well, I will lock both players in our NFL DFS sims tool (SimLabs) to see what the optimals give me using our large-field tournament setting in order to find some high-upside pivot options to swap to. That’s when I will make changes to move from the chalkier Travis Kelce over to Jake Ferguson, for example, to give myself a chance.

ebeimfohr: Derrick Henry and Chase Brown will be pillars of the RB spots this week, so getting away from one to something like two Ravens RBs (e.g. Henry + Keaton Mitchell) or swapping onto Samaje Perine as the passing-down specialist in his likely return.

ncorfield8k: I will have heavy exposure to the last game and particularly the Ravens side. But in lineups where my earlier players fail, I’ll switch some of my Ravens stacks to lower-pOWN% Bengals stacks. If I have a lineup with Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, Zay Flowers, and Mark Andrews, for example – and I don’t think I will be able to cash by leaving them in – I may be able to catch up by switching to Joe Burrow, Mitchell Tinsley, Ja’Marr Chase, and Mike Gesicki.

Davis Mattek: I think a hidden one here is what happens with Jameson Williams. If he gets a nuke score (think 18+), then Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, and Xavier Worthy become WAY worse plays. In that scenario, I will make an attempt in my hand-built lineups that do not have Jamo to swap a lot of that to something like Mitchell Tinsley and/or Zay Flowers.

Jordan Vanek: The first game will likely draw heavy ownership on Amon-Ra St. Brown, and I won’t be in that camp. It’ll be interesting to see how he performs alongside my Ja’Marr Chase lineups. If St. Brown drops a 30-spot while the RBs are duds, I’m more likely to pivot toward a balanced build with cheap WRs (e.g. Xavier Worthy) and the premium RBs (e.g. Javonte Williams, Derrick Henry, Chase Brown). In that scenario, the optimal lineup probably comes from jamming in the right running backs that people couldn’t afford after paying up for St. Brown.

What is your hot take of the slate?

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