Hittin' The Nuts - SquirrelPatrol's NFL DFS Lineup Advice for Sunday Night Football (Rams vs. Lions)
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 100+ 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 of last season.
Our first Sunday Night game of the NFL season features the highest total on the week, with the Rams traveling to Detroit to take on the Lions in a game with a 52.5-point total. The Lions ranked 5th in points per game and 3rd in yards per game last season, while the Rams ranked 8th in points per game and 7th in yards per game, so the offenses should be here. We’ve been treated to an initial slate of primetime games that should be relevant to the playoff picture, with the ScoresandOdds Futures market showing the Lions with the 2nd best odds to win the NFC at +500 and the Rams with the 7th best odds at +1500. The Lions are favored by 4.5 points, giving them an implied point total of 28.5, the highest of any team this week, while the Rams have a 24.0 implied point total.
Both of these teams had relatively little turnover on the offensive side of the ball, with the biggest change possibly being the improved health for Cooper Kupp on the Rams’ side. There are no major injury situations for this game, with the usage of the Rams RBs the biggest question marks after the team drafted Blake Corum in the 3rd round and caused major questions in the best ball world, but be sure to follow the RotoGrinders’ NFL starting lineups page for updated depth chart information as injury news and inactives hit in case there are any surprises.
Let’s sort through the slate and figure out what to do with our DFS lineups.
Rams vs. Lions Showdown DFS Lineup Advice
Primetime Game History
The Lions had their most successful season in decades last season, making it to the NFC Championship game where they lost to San Francisco by a field goal. The 49ers were 7.5-point favorites in that game and that was reflected in the ownership in the large field DraftKings showdown contest, where Christian McCaffrey (19.3%), George Kittle (12.7%), and Brandon Aiyuk (12.3%) were the highest owned CPTs. The winning lineup in that contest reflected the closer score, however, with Jameson Williams the CPT in the winning lineup at just 2.5% ownership, joined by McCaffrey, Aiyuk, Brock Purdy, Sam LaPorta, and David Montgomery in the FLEX spots.
The Rams are returning to the city where their season ended, when they lost to these Lions in Detroit in the Wild Card round in January by just a point. Similar to this game, the total for that game was 53.5 points with Detroit favored by 3.5 points. Amon-Ra St. Brown was the most popular CPT choice for the DraftKings large field at 15.% ownership, followed by Cooper Kupp (12.3%), Puka Nacua (10.8%), and Kyren Williams (10.4%). The winning lineup featured Nacua at the CPT spot with his 9 receptions, 181 yards, and a touchdown.
As we can see looking at past lineups, we don’t want to avoid chalk entirely, but we want to use some sensible lineup construction and find at least one lower owned but viable, high upside option.
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How I Plan to Beat the Field
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