NFL PrizePicks for Monday Night Football: Lamar Jackson, Mike Evans, & Zay Flowers Make Top Plays

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In this space, we’ll look at the PrizePicks board for the Ravens vs. Buccaneers and Chargers vs. Cardinals Monday Night Football games and try to make some predictions based on projections, trends, and the market.

PrizePicks, one of the best DFS sites for NFL fantasy pick’em, lays out player projections for us, which we stack to create entries that pay real money. They prompt us with a statistical projection for a player, and we get to pick whether or not the player will get More or Less than the number offered. There are hundreds of players from whom to choose, and we only have to make at least two picks to create an entry. Use the PrizePicks promo codeGRINDERS” to get $50 on a $5 entry if you haven’t signed up already!

You can also subscribe to the RotoGrinders Props & Pick’em package to get access to our fantasy pick’em tool for more PrizePicks picks today.

RotoGrinders projections are telling us to stay away from LAC/ARI game for DEMONs, as there’s a lot more explosion potential in the BAL/TB game. And that makes a lot of sense, given their susceptibility to the aerial attack and higher Vegas total. LAC/ARI’s total is at 44.0, while BAL/TB is 50.0. In DFS contests, we’ll need to get creative and land the one or two guys from LAC/ARI who’ll pay off their prices, but we don’t need to do that in pick’em. For pick ‘em — especially tonight — don’t overthink things.

PrizePicks Predictions for Monday Night Football

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Lamar Jackson MORE/LESS 249.5 Pass Yards (DEMON) and 69.5 Rush Yards (DEMON)

The formula with Lamar Jackson is generally pretty simple. Attack his PrizePicks projection in competitive games where the Ravens will be forced into ‘Lamar Make a Play’ mode and shy back when they’re heavily favored. And if the Ravens do get up big, it’s likely because Jackson is killing them. The Vegas total doesn’t really matter for Jackson, but since this game’s total is 50.0, the Ravens have a 26.75 implied total, and the Buccaneers defense is highly porous should add to our enthusiasm to jam in Jackson’s DEMONs.

Tampa is allowing the 5th-most pass yards per game, while Jackson is passing for 254.8 per game — way higher than his career-high 240.8. Add that his standing rush yards per game is 67.2, and he’s in line to lower the shoulder right through these DEMONs. RotoGrinders has Jackson projected for 243.8 pass yards and 46.4 rush yards, and I’m saying that this is pretty conservative.

Mike Evans MORE/LESS 79.5 Receiving Yards (DEMON)

Don’t look away. The Ravens are allowing the most pass yards per game to start the 2024 NFL season. The Bucs are slight underdogs, so they won’t have the privilege of running this out. Add that Baker Mayfield is throwing the ball a lot more than we expected since their running game is struggling, then we have a recipe for a big game for Mike Evans. The future Hall of Famer is only averaging 7 targets per game and a 10.3 aDOT, but this game script should get him bumped up to 8-10 targets and in the range of 100 air yards. He’s only surpassed 62 receiving yards once this season, but he did so in the one game where he surpassed 6 targets.

RotoGrinders sees a bump too, as the RG model has Evans projected for 69.9 receiving yards on 8.9 targets. One more target up to 10, and we should have our DEMON hit. In order, I prefer the Jackson DEMONs, but if we’re playing 3+ contests, Evans should be considered.

Zay Flowers MORE/LESS 79.5 Receiving Yards (DEMON)

If Evans’ volatility is too much and we’re only playing 3-5 contests, Zay Flowers is a solid play. He correlates with Jackson’s DEMONs if we want to stack them up, but Flowers also serves as a good standalone. Flowers has 9+ targets in 4 of 6 games to start the season. His aDOT is only 7.2, as he gets a lot of short stuff, but his 6.4 YAC per reception with the Buccaneers surrendering the 2nd-most YAC per game in the league says that Flowers is in for a ceiling game with the volume that we’re expecting for Jackson. RotoGrinders has Flowers conservatively projected for 70 receiving yards on 9.3 targets. I think his 4th double-digit-target game of the season is a heavy possibility. Flowers has had 132, 111, 91, and 37 receiving yards in his 4 games with 9+ targets.

The only reason why I like Evans slightly more is that there is a higher probability that the Ravens get up big and defer to Derrick Henry on the ground than the Bucs getting up big and leaning on their rushing attack (if you wanna call it an “attack”). Vegas is saying the Ravens are only 3.5-point favorites on the road, so we’re gonna go with that. However, there is a higher probability that the Bucs never stop passing the ball compared to the Ravens.

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About the Author

AlexSonty
Alex Sonty (AlexSonty)

Alex Sonty is a professional DFS and poker player and also serves as a part-time political science professor in Chicago, IL. He’s been playing fantasy sports since 1996 and entered the DFS realm in 2014, pivoting from high-stakes cash games to mid-stakes MLB and NFL tournaments in recent years. He is a Chicago Tribune, SB Nation, and FanGraphs alum, while holding a J.D./M.A. and L.L.M. from DePaul University. Follow Sonty on Twitter – @AlexSonty