NFL DFS Picks: DraftKings Wide Receiver Projections & Top Plays
The opening week of the 2023 NFL season was full of surprises! Now, we’re heading into Week 2 and there is plenty to talk about before the main slate kicks off on Sunday.
Let’s dive in to explore some of the RotoGrinders NFL DFS projections to help find some DraftKings winners at wide receiver. If you want to see all of this week’s DFS projections, become a RotoGrinders Premium subscriber today!
Top Week 2 DraftKings WR Projections
Tyreek Hill (21.46 DraftKings Points) – It’s no surprise that Hill sits atop the RotoGrinders projections after a monstrous ceiling performance in Week 1. Hill saw an absurd 15 targets for 215 receiving yards and two touchdowns during a shootout with the Chargers. This week’s contest could be a bit different with a divisional matchup against a stingy New England defense at Gillette Stadium.
Hill is basically matchup-proof, supported by his Week 1 numbers of a 33% target market share and 45% air yard market share. Last year, New England was league average in yielding receiving yards per game and in the top third of the league in yards per target. Miami and New England will battle on prime time, so you won’t have to make a Tyreek decision on Sunday’s main slate.
Stefon Diggs (19.55 DraftKings Points) – The Bills are coming off a gut-wrenching loss to the Jets who didn’t have Aaron Rodgers for 99% of the game. Regardless, Diggs had arguably the toughest WR/CB matchup on paper against cornerback Sauce Gardner. However, it didn’t matter, and it was a big W for the “WR/CB matchups don’t matter” crowd.
Diggs saw elite WR volume, 13 targets, and corralled 10 of them for 102 yards and a score. He’ll dive into a much friendlier matchup against Las Vegas this week. The Bills have a projected team total north of 27, which is fantastic for someone with a volume-dominant role on the offense.
Last year, the Raiders ranked fourth-worst in receiving yards per game defensively and yielded the ninth-worst yards per target. It’s an elite bounce-back spot for Josh Alen and a tasty matchup for Diggs.
Ja’Marr Chase (19.17 DraftKingsPoints) – It was a very disappointing Week 1 for the Bengals, who were shut down against Cleveland. It’s not time to panic just yet. Perhaps Burrow and company are rusty as Joe officially made his way back from a fairly serious preseason injury.
This isn’t the 2000 Baltimore defense on the other side of the ball. They’re vulnerable, and it seems like they’re always dinged up. Last year, the Ravens gave up the seventh-most receiving yards per game. It can’t get any worse than last week for the Bengals, can it? Vegas doesn’t think so, as Cinci is still favored to win, and the game total is fairly respectable.
If you believe in Burrow and the Bengals, Chase should be the main beneficiary in a game that should score points.
Wide Receiver Sleepers
Keenan Allen (16.39 DraftKings Points) – Austin Ekeler didn’t practice on Wednesday or Thursday. The Chargers signed a running back from the practice squad, and it looks like Ekeler is in line to miss Sunday’s game against Tennessee.
Ekeler saw a whopping 128 targets last season. Here’s a quick example of the type of volume Allen received in 2020 when Ekeler missed a few games. Ekeler missed six weeks in the middle of that season. Allen was also injured in one of those games, but during the others where he played a full allotment of snaps, he saw 13, 12, 11, 7, and 19 targets. He tallied 125, 67, 103, 39, and 145 yards. And that was with Tyrod Taylor at quarterback, who is not the natural gunslinger that Justin Herbert is by any means (to say the least).
Last season, NFL teams averaged the most passing attempts per game (39.5) against the Titans. The Titans are truly an elite run-stopping unit, as they held opponents to 76.9 rushing yards per game last season and held New Orleans to 69 yards last week. Quarterbacks and receivers often put up elite numbers against the Titans on sheer volume alone. The Chargers will not be able to run with the same success they enjoyed last week against Miami and won’t give their backs (especially with Ekeler’s hypothetical absence) the same volume.
The Chargers had 40 rushing attempts last week, and Allen still saw heavy volume through the air. It would be nice if we don’t get official Ekeler news until Sunday morning to keep his projected ownership down a bit.
Zay Flowers (11.81 DraftKings Points) – The matchup with the Bengals seems a bit vanilla on paper, but Flowers has immediately turned into a volume hog for this team. Even if Mark Andrews returns Sunday, Flowers is the clear playmaker on this offense at his position.
In his NFL debut, Flowers played 82% of the team’s snaps. Odell Beckham actually played 91%, but other than OBJ, no other Baltimore receiver logged more than 40%. From a target perspective, Flowers was king of the WR group with 10, while nobody else saw more than three. Those are some impressive numbers for a rookie who has been receiving high praise all preseason.
Flowers made the most of his opportunities with a whopping nine catches for 79 yards. Again, regarding Andrews, it’s possible he’s on a pitch count, so I’m not too worried about him. Regardless, I expect Flowers to see at least 80% of the snaps again at his position. With the loss of J.K. Dobbins, he is the most explosive weapon on Baltimore not named Lamar Jackson – and he was treated like it in his first game as a pro.
Flowers was also on the field for five of the team’s six snaps inside of the 10-yard line last Sunday. If the Bengals find some life and put up points, Flowers is the perfect secondary-stack correlation with someone like Chase on the other side.