Hittin' The Nuts - SquirrelPatrol's NFL DFS Lineup Advice for Thursday Night Football (Ravens at Chiefs)
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.
The NFL is back on Thursday night, and for the second year in a row, we kick things off in Kansas City. The NFL Champion Chiefs are 3-point favorites at home against the visiting Ravens in a game with a 46-point total. These two teams met in the AFC Championship game last January when the Chiefs won 17-10. This game could have major playoff implications already, with the Chiefs and Ravens carrying the two best odds to win the AFC according to the ScoresandOdds Futures market.
This matchup will feature some new faces. Derrick Henry signed with the Ravens over the offseason, while Xavier Worthy was drafted in the 1st round by the Chiefs. In injury news, the newly acquired Marquise Brown is expected to miss this game, and so is Chiefs backup RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Edwards-Helaire going on the NFI list should open up opportunities for either undrafted rookie Carson Steele or the newly signed Samaje Perine behind starter Isiah Pacheco. This could impact our single-game contests on Thursday. Be sure to follow the RotoGrinders NFL starting lineups throughout the season for updated depth chart information as injury news hits throughout the season.
Let’s sort through the slate and figure out what to do with our DFS lineups.
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Ravens vs. Chiefs Showdown DFS Lineup Advice
Primetime Game History
One of the best ways to sort through the hype that comes with a new NFL season is to look at past results and remember how the hype played out before. The Chiefs played their last game in February, of course, against a 49ers team featuring Christian McCaffrey and Brock Purdy. San Francisco was favored by 2 points, and McCaffrey was the most popular CPT option in the DraftKings large-field contests with 21% ownership. Travis Kelce, Isiah Pacheco, and Patrick Mahomes all followed McCaffrey with between 10-12% CPT ownership. The keys to the slate ended up being pairing the much lower-owned value plays of Mecole Hardman and Jauan Jennings, who both put up 14+ DK points, with either Mahomes or McCaffrey at CPT (Mahomes was optimal; however, McCaffrey-CPT lineups won some large-field contests).
The Ravens’ last game last season is particularly relevant, as it came against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship. With Kansas City on the road in Baltimore as 4-point underdogs, Lamar Jackson dominated ownership at the CPT spot at 37%, with Mahomes, Kelce, Rice, and Pacheco all between 7-9% as the only other CPT choices with more than 5% ownership in large-field contests. Kelce was the optimal CPT, however the low-owned Zay Flowers CPT choice finished closely behind and won some contests. The Chiefs DST was a necessary FLEX option, putting up 14 DK points.
One more primetime game worth reviewing is the Week 1 Thursday night opener last season, where the Chiefs hosted the Lions as 4-point favorites in a game with a 53-point total. Mahomes saw about 30% ownership in the CPT spot and was in the optimal and winning lineups as well. Travis Kelce being declared out set off a Noah Gray TE frenzy, but as is often the case in primetime games, Blake Bell was the TE you needed with 2 receptions and a TD at minimum price. It was Bell’s only time scoring more than 2 DK points in the season.
As we can see looking at past lineups, it helps to eat some chalk, but we want to use some sensible lineup construction with lower-owned but still viable options as well.
How I Plan to Beat the Field
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