NFL PrizePicks Predictions Week 9: Kamara, Olave, Lamb, Prescott, Gibbs Make Top Plays

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In this space, we’ll look at exciting offers on the PrizePicks board for Week 9 of the NFL season and try to make some predictions based on projections, trends, and the market.

PrizePicks, one of the best DFS sites for NFL 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 line 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!

For Week 9, we’ll look at the board and see what usage, game flow, oddsmakers, and — of course — our projections can tell us about how players are likely to produce. We’ll look at passing, rushing, and receiving categories most weeks. For the best ways to attack standard projections as the base for our tickets, use our fantasy pick’em tool to get more PrizePicks picks today. We’ll also look at DEMON projections to boost our payouts.

This is an awesome week for PrizePicks. The ball should be flying around pretty freely, and the projections are really soft on aerial attacks. It’s the rushing projections that I generally hate attacking this week outside of our primary target pictured above. We should really be zeroing in on the soft projections PrizePicks is giving us on the Saints, Cowboys, Falcons, Eagles, Ravens, Lions, Dolphins, and Bills to be precise. We should be playing a high volume of cheap contests this week.

PrizePicks Top Plays for NFL Week 9

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Saints vs. Panthers PrizePicks Predictions

Alvin Kamara MORE/LESS 79.5 Rush Yards (DEMON)

These Panthers, man. What can you do? With Bryce Young playing QB for them, they can’t even possess the ball. And now they’re without Diontae Johnson?

The Panthers aren’t the worst run defense in the league on a yards-per-carry level, but they can’t control the ball, let alone compete in games. The Saints should get up big. Get up big early and hand this game to Alvin Kamara for a ton of volume. The Saints are coming off of 5 straight losses, so we haven’t seen this type of blowout game script since Week 2 when Kamara ran it 20 times.

RotoGrinders has Kamara projected for 86.5 rush yards, so we’re getting a bit of a steal here with 100-yard upside.

Chris Olave MORE/LESS 79.5 Receiving Yards (DEMON)

Speaking of upside, hoe-lee-crap. Carolina’s giving up an NFL-high 7.5 net yards per attempt on an 8.2 aDOT. Chris Olave is showing himself to have a perennial double-digit aDOT no matter who’s throwing balls to him, and the Saints are more than willing to feed this man deep balls. It’s hard to project Olave for double-digit targets in a blowout game script, but he should be the first read quite often, and the Panthers should do very little to prevent Derek Carr from going with that read. Olave is in for an efficient, high-aDOT game against this terrible team.

Frankly, if New Orleans had the ball for 45 minutes of this game, it would shock no one. Olave is projected by RotoGrinders for 75.8 receiving yards for the week.

Cowboys vs. Falcons PrizePicks Predictions

Ceedee Lamb MORE/LESS 99.5 Receiving Yards (DEMON)

All Ceedee Lamb needs is the football thrown his way, and that’s actually been happening recently. He’s had 10, 7, 7, and 8 targets in each of his first 4 games of the season, but he’s had 9, 14, and 17 in each of the last 3. This latter trend is more consistent with the Lamb we saw catch 135 balls last season. This game has a total over 50 in a dome, and the Cowboys meet a weak pass rush in the Falcons, all while carrying a 24.25 implied total. Lamb isn’t just the Cowboys’ best weapon. He might be their only weapon, and they’re finally acting like it.

The Boys are also slight underdogs, so they won’t stop passing. And Jalen Tolbert isn’t gonna save the day. RotoGrinders has Lamb projected for 97.3 receiving yards, factoring in the chance for 7 targets. I’m saying that we can throw those “lower” targeted games out the window because that was just the Cowboys being stupid, and we should act as if they’re wising up a little bit.

Dak Prescott MORE/LESS 274.5 Pass Yards (DEMON)

Dak Prescott doesn’t have abundant weapons, and it wouldn’t be a shock if Lamb caught 150 of Prescott’s passing yards, but Jake Ferguson can get some yards, Tolbert can get separation, and Prescott is throwing a lot lately. He’s averaged over 37 pass attempts per game this season, throwing 38 times last game after 33 and 42 the prior 2 games, along with 51 times in Week 3. The Cowboys are completely incapable of running the football, and this game should have a ton of plays, so it stands to reason that Prescott will throw a ton while not facing a lot of pressure. RotoGrinders has Prescott projected for 273.5 pass yards on the week, and that might be conservative.

Lions vs. Packers PrizePicks Predictions

Jahmyr Gibbs MORE/LESS 24.5 Receiving Yards (DEMON)

The targets have been hit or miss with the Lions’ primary receiving back, but we should like him to hit, getting checkdowns after Jared Goff is forced to do so by the Packers’ solid downfield coverage. Jahmyr Gibbs only has 23 targets through 7 games, but he has has games of 7, 6, 5, and 4 targets this season, averaging 8.1 yards per catch over 19 receptions. This is a game script against a defense that could give him 3-4 catches for 25+ receiving yards fairly simply if the Lions just plan it out that way. This is a smart coaching staff with a smart QB, so we should play this out as if they will. RotoGrinders has Gibbs projected for 27.8 receiving yards on the week as a median.

Image Credit: Getty Images

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