Hittin' The Nuts - Squirrelpatrol's NFL DFS Lineup Advice: Conference Championships
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 today, Squirrelpatrol has accumulated 90+ 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.
The NFL playoffs continue this Sunday with the Conference Championships, as we’re down to the final four teams who could be NFL champion this season. Kansas City and Baltimore kick things off at 3:00 PM ET in Baltimore, where the Ravens are favored by 3.5 points in a game with a 44.5 total and an over/under of 14.5 television shots of Taylor Swift in the suite. The Sunday night game sees the Lions travel to San Francisco as 7-point underdogs in a game with a 51.5 total. With only two games on the schedule, we thankfully have the same slate structure on both FanDuel and DraftKings, with some very large prize pools for both the Classic slate and the single-game contests.
It’s the second-to-last weekend of NFL football (but our last Classic slate), and after this, we have two weeks to get ready for the biggest game of the year. Let’s dig into the slate and figure out what to do with our DFS lineups.
NFL DFS Lineup Advice: Squirrelpatrol’s ‘Hittin’ The Nuts’ for the Conference Championships
Four Good Teams, Four Top Quarterbacks, Four Discount Prices
We have four of the best teams in the NFL left, and all four teams feature a QB who has put up good-to-great numbers this season. We’re also getting all four QBs at a bit of a discount, as DraftKings in particular continues their softer pricing in the postseason. Lamar Jackson tops the list at $7,700. After two straight performances of 39+ DK points, Jackson’s price is only $100 more expensive than his lowest price of the season. Patrick Mahomes is $6,900, a full $600 cheaper than he was at any point during the regular season. Brock Purdy is the cheapest that he’s been since Week 13, and Jared Goff is only $100 more than cheapest price of the season, when he was $6,000 back in Week 1. On FanDuel both Mahomes and Goff are at their cheapest price all season, while Jackson and Purdy are just above their average price for the season.
You can’t go wrong at these discount prices, and I’ll be looking to use all of these QBs in my multi-entry set. If I’m picking one QB, however, my first choice would be different between FanDuel and DraftKings.
On FanDuel, where rushing yards and touchdowns carry a greater relative weight with only a half point per reception and no yardage milestone bonuses, I’m picking Jackson. Jackson showed what he can do in his past two games, with 100 rushing yards and 2 rushing touchdowns against Houston last week and 5 passing touchdowns and 321 passing yards against the Dolphins in Week 17. The price list on FanDuel just doesn’t drop down far enough (Goff is the cheapest QB at $7,200) to justify passing on Jackson’s rushing upside at $8,800.
On DraftKings, my choice would be Purdy, who is inexplicably just $100 more expensive than the cheapest QB on the list (also Goff). Purdy’s 49ers have the highest implied team total (29.5), the Lions have allowed more passing yards per game than any other team this postseason, and the Lions have also allowed the 6th-most passing yards per game during the regular season. The player prop market agrees, as Purdy holds the highest lines for passing yards and passing touchdowns over the other three QBs. There is a much stronger argument for Purdy to be the most expensive QB on DraftKings than nearly the cheapest, and I plan to take advantage.
As always on a smaller slate, after I select the QB for my roster, the rest of my lineup will depend heavily on the QB that I select. To capture the potential for either game to blow far past its total, I’ll make sure to pair my QB with 4 or 5 RB/WR/TEs from the same game, and I’ll also likely pair my QB with at least 2 of his own pass catchers. This is particularly true for QBs like Purdy and Goff, who are more reliant on their passing game than their rushing ability to put up a high score.
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