NFL DFS Expert Survey: Thursday Night Football - Vikings vs. Eagles

Our panel of experts is here to give you their NFL DFS picks for the upcoming Showdown slate by answering a handful of questions to help you make crucial lineup-building decisions. Want to know headChopper’s three favorite Captains? Or squirrelpatrol’s favorite correlation? Find out below!

NFL DFS Showdown Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Expert Survey

DraftKings

Who are your three favorite Captains, ranked in order?

squirrelpatrol: Jalen Hurts, Justin Jefferson, Kirk Cousins
headChopper: Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, Justin Jefferson
kmurray03: Jalen Hurts, Justin Jefferson, Kirk Cousins
TJ Zwarych: Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, Justin Jefferson

Who is your favorite player to correlate with your favorite Captain?

squirrelpatrol: A.J. Brown
headChopper: A.J. Brown
kmurray03: Dallas Goedert
TJ Zwarych: A.J. Brown

Who are your three highest exposure players in your FLEX position, ranked in order?

squirrelpatrol: D’Andre Swift, Rashaad Penny, Dallas Goedert
headChopper: DeVonta Smith, Jordan Addison, Kirk Cousins
kmurray03: Rashaad Penny, D’Andre Swift, T.J. Hockenson
TJ Zwarych: D’Andre Swift, Boston Scott, Rashaad Penny

Who is your favorite contrarian Captain?

squirrelpatrol: DeVonta Smith
headChopper: D’Andre Swift
kmurray03: DeVonta Smith
TJ Zwarych: DeVonta Smith

Who is your favorite contrarian FLEX option?

squirrelpatrol: Boston Scott
headChopper: Rashaad Penny
kmurray03: KJ Osborn
TJ Zwarych: Boston Scott

What player do you plan on being most overweight on compared to the field?

squirrelpatrol: DeVonta Smith
headChopper: D’Andre Swift
kmurray03: Rashaad Penny
TJ Zwarych: D’Andre Swift

What player do you plan on being most underweight on compared to the field?

squirrelpatrol: Jordan Addison
headChopper: Alexander Mattison
kmurray03: Jordan Addison
TJ Zwarych: Alexander Mattison

FanDuel

Who are your three favorite MVPs, ranked in order?

squirrelpatrol: Jalen Hurts, Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson
headChopper: Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, Justin Jefferson
kmurray03: Jalen Hurts, Justin Jefferson, Kirk Cousins
TJ Zwarych: Jalen Hurts, Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown

Who is your favorite player to correlate with your favorite MVP?

squirrelpatrol: A.J. Brown
headChopper: A.J. Brown
kmurray03: Dallas Goedert
TJ Zwarych: A.J. Brown

Who are your three highest exposure players in your AnyFLEX position, ranked in order?

squirrelpatrol: D’Andrew Swift, Jake Elliott, Alexander Mattison
headChopper: Kirk Cousins, DeVonta Smith, D’Andre Swift
kmurray03: Dallas Goedert, Rashaad Penny, DeVonta Smith
TJ Zwarych: D’Andre Swift, Justin Jefferson, Rashaad Penny

Who is your favorite contrarian MVP?

squirrelpatrol: Alexander Mattison
headChopper: D’Andre Swift
kmurray03: DeVonta Smith
TJ Zwarych: D’Andre Swift

Who is your favorite contrarian AnyFLEX option?

squirrelpatrol: Jake Elliott
headChopper: Rashaad Penny
kmurray03: KJ Osborn
TJ Zwarych: Rashaad Penny

What player do you plan on being most overweight on compared to the field?

squirrelpatrol: Rashaad Penny
headChopper: D’Andre Swift
kmurray03: Rashaad Penny
TJ Zwarych: D’Andre Swift

What player do you plan on being most underweight on compared to the field?

squirrelpatrol: Jordan Addison
headChopper: Vikings
kmurray03: A.J. Brown
TJ Zwarych: Alexander Mattison

What is your favorite game-script build and why?

squirrelpatrol: I think Minnesota is good enough on offense to keep this game competitive, but people may actually underestimate the Eagles offense because of how often they took the foot off the pedal last season in blowouts. Minnesota may score better for fantasy than they do in real football, and the Eagles should win this one convincingly.

headChopper: Similar to last season between these two teams, the Eagles just do what they want on offense and the Vikings can’t slow them down. The Eagles build a nice lead, and maybe the Vikings get some garbage time stats. And that is often the decider in Showdowns.

kmurray03: As you can probably tell by my above picks, I like a lot of the Eagles. I think the Eagles win this game and control the tempo with their rushing attack, so my favorite build is a 4-2 or 5-1 build centered around the Eagles offense.

TJ Zwarych: I think the Eagles come out ahead early and maintain their lead throughout the game. I like using one of Justin Jefferson, T.J. Hockenson, or K.J. Osborn as a run-back and having the rest of my team be a Philly domination stack.

Which players will you restrict from appearing together often due to possible negative correlation?

squirrelpatrol: With uncertainty in the Eagles backfield, I won’t limit their RBs, but I will limit my rosters to one Minnesota RB. I’ll also pair any Kirk Cousins MVP/CPT lineups with multiple Minnesota pass-catchers in the Flex spots.

headChopper: Vikings running backs – One of them needs to get the lion’s share of the snaps and touches to pay off. There’s no reason to roster two of them.

kmurray03: I will limit my lineups to a max of two Philly pass-catchers. They don’t necessarily completely negatively correlate with each other, especially in Hurts lineups, but in my ideal game-script where the run game dominates, they have limited upside together.

TJ Zwarych: I will only have 1 Vikings RB/WR/TE in each lineup that doesn’t feature Kirk Cousins as CPT/MVP.

What is your favorite way to differentiate from the field?

squirrelpatrol: With big names like Jalen Hurts and Justin Jefferson monopolizing a big portion of the ownership at MVP/CPT, I’ll make sure to be overweight other plausible players in the top spot, like DeVonta Smith and the RBs. I’ll also aim to make any rosters with Hurts or Jefferson in the top spot different from the field in the Flex spots.

headChopper: Vikings pass-catchers – My inclination is to play Justin Jefferson because he is one of the best in the game, but I think there is an opportunity for Jordan Addison or K.J. Osborn to do well in this game.

kmurray03: Using several PHI RBs in the same lineup. Naturally, many will likely cap the amount of Eagles RBs they can have in the same lineup, but their price tags are all cheap enough to give enough flexibility for several of these guys to get there.

TJ Zwarych: I’ll be heavily overweight on all the Eagles while going underweight on the Vikings, and I have no issue playing multiple Philadelphia running backs together.

What is an example of one rule you can program into LineupHQ to capitalize on the above strategies?

squirrelpatrol: Player Groups > +New Group > Use conditional player Kirk Cousins MVP/CPT > Use 2 to 3 Minnesota WRs/TEs in the Group

headChopper: Groups > Max Position Groups > MIN RBs > Use at Most 1 Player

kmurray03: Groups > New Group > Players to use (0-2) > Dallas Goedert, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith

TJ Zwarych: Player Groups > New Group > Use Kirk Cousins CPT/MVP as conditional player > Maximum 1 of Justin Jefferson, K.J. Osborn, Jordan Addison, Alexander Mattison, T.J. Hockenson in lineups that DON’T contain Kirk Cousins CPT/MVP

What is your hottest take for this game?

squirrelpatrol: DeVonta Smith is the highest-scoring WR in the game.

headChopper: Jordan Addison with a 100+ yard game and 2 TDs.

kmurray03: Rashaad Penny finds the end zone twice.

TJ Zwarych: All three Eagles RBs score touchdowns, as Boston Scott, Rashaad Penny, and D’Andre Swift are all optimal.

Predict the final score of the game.

squirrelpatrol: PHI 27 – MIN 20

headChopper: PHI 34 – MIN 20

kmurray03: PHI 28 – MIN 21

TJ Zwarych: PHI 31 – MIN 17

Image Credit: Getty Images

Our panel of experts is here to give you their NFL DFS picks for the upcoming Showdown slate by answering a handful of questions to help you make crucial lineup-building decisions. Want to know headChopper’s three favorite Captains? Or squirrelpatrol’s favorite correlation? Find out below!

NFL DFS Showdown Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Expert Survey for Thursday Night Football

What is your favorite game-script build and why?

squirrelpatrol: I think Minnesota is good enough on offense to keep this game competitive, but people may actually underestimate the Eagles offense because of how often they took the foot off the pedal last year in blowouts. Minnesota may score better for fantasy than they do in real football, and the Eagles should win this one convincingly.

headChopper: Similar to last season between these 2 teams, the Eagles just do what they want of offense and the Vikings can’t slow them down. The Eagles build a nice lead and maybe the Vikings get some garbage time stats, and that is the decider in showdowns.

kmurray03: As you can probably tell by my above picks, I like a lot of the Eagles here. I think the Eagles win this game, and control the tempo with their rushing attack, so my favorite build is a 4-2 or 5-12 build centered around the Eagles offense.

TJ Zwarych: I think the Eagles come out ahead early and maintain their lead throughout the game. I like using one of Jefferson, Hockenson or Osborn as a runback and having the rest of my team be a Philly domination stack.

Which players will you restrict from appearing together often due to possible negative correlation?

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About the Author

  • John Britt (jmbwngfn)

  • One of the top baseball and hockey analysts in the DFS industry, John Britt is a family man hailing from St. Louis, Missouri. A proud graduate of the University of Missouri, John’s passion is hockey but he excels at multiple DFS sports. He has been nominated multiple times for awards for his written work in both baseball (best MLB series) and hockey (3x NHL Writer of the Year nominee) and is now the Lead Editor at RotoGrinders. John can be found on Twitter at the username JMBWngFn.

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