NFL Preseason, I honestly enjoy it — just not a ton from DFS to where you are going all in. But I enjoy watching players who’s entire dream of playing in the NFL comes down to a couple games where half the team is just hoping to not get injured. There’s no stress for most teams fans watching games and it’s also neat for anyone who played college DFS because you will recognize guys who were great in college and see them out here sometimes struggling mightily to make the jump to the pro’s.
Full transparency, I am still in MLB mode and will be through August but I still have my pulse on watching what is going on in training camps and will be dabbling in some NFL pre-season DFS along the way.
Contest selection rules and tips are kind of thrown out the window in the pre-season, especially with a measly two game slate tonight, so just play it like it’s a donkey contest and have some fun with it. The value in this is that you’ll be sharpening yourself for the regular season when it comes if anything (not really, these games honestly do not matter for week 1 DFS).
My core principals for NFL pre-season DFS
Quarterbacks
- Play guys who are going to make the team, dont bother with likely players who are going to be on the practice squad
- Heavily favor starters with a few exceptions
- Running QB1’s dont matter. In other words, dont play Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray because you think they’ll run. A QB2? Absolutely
Running Backs
- Second Team / Second Half players are fantastic plays. Teams grind out the clock in the second half many times.
Wide Receivers
- Correlation is critical with the QB you play in pre-season, go all in and don’t try to “spread it around”. One touchdown reception can win the slate or at least get you in the green.
- Just because someone is fighting for a spot doesn’t mean they will get the good targets. But a WR who is returning kicks does have a chance to return one to make a splash. There are more special teams TD in the pre-season than regular-season (on avg/per game).
Game stacking is certainly viable but keep in mind snaps are what teams want and so you are many times just getting 2 possessions for opportunity no matter how fast paced the game moves.
And of course, pricing doesn’t matter in pre-season which is nice.
Today’s Player Targets
We have a big 8 game slate tonight, so here are the teams which I think there could be some good DFS scoring potential in. To me, I am going to cover this more like a CFB DFS slate in some ways by ruling out certain games, finding a top stack and then filling in after that…
The spread/totals in ()’s are my picks where applicable.
Top overall games
- New Orleans at Baltimore
- Houston at Green Bay (Packers -3.5)
- Cleveland at Jacksonville (Jags -3.5)
Medium Interest
- Seattle at Las Vegas
- New York Jets at New York Giants (Giants ML +120)
- Cincinnati at Tampa Bay
Zero Interest In
- LA Chargers at LA Rams (Chargers -3.5)
- Kansas City at San Francisco (Over 38.5)
Parlay: Packers / Niners / Jags
TOP STACK
Green Bay: Love / A.Rodgers / Dillon(or Ky Hill)
Jordan Love is going to get his chance to play and play a lot. He’ll not only get the time to play but is doing it against the worst team in the league in starters, depth and young player upside. Along with Dillon and Amari Rodgers I like this pre-season stack in Green Bay today.
Other stacks: Tampa Bay, San Francisco
PLAYER POOL
QUARTERBACK
- Jordan Love (GB)
- Taysom Hill (NO) – Taysom should start for NO, which means he gets the benefit of their good OL. Winston obviously gets the benefit of the weaker Ravens defenders, but Taysom has always shined in pre-season, so I like him tonight. (shocker, I know)
- Trace McSorely (BAL)
- Nathan Peterman (LV)
RUNNING BACK
- Michael Carter (NYJ)
- Ke’Shawn Vaughn (TB) … Tampa will play good portion of their starters. But the RB position will go to Vaughn
- Eli Mitchell (SF) … Lets see if the Ragin Cajun can be the next darling in Shanahan’s running scheme. It’s him or Trey Sermon, but Eli Mitchell is the sleeper on the night.
- AJ Dillon / Kylin Hill (GB)
- Trayveon Williams (CIN)
- Demetric Felton (CLE)
WIDE RECEIVER
- Amari Rodgers (GB)
- Deonte Harris (NO) … Is from the Baltimore area, should shine in kick return game as well as a couple deep targets.
- Tylan Wallace (BAL)
- Freddie Swain (SEA)
- Bryan Edwards (LV)
- Denzel Mims (NYJ)
TIGHT END
- Brevin Jordan (HOU)
- Travis Kelce (KC) … You laugh, but unless you wanna play roulette on a TD here you could just take the safe floor of Kelce getting 2 catches for 18 yards and then taking a seat for the night. Honestly, TE sucks to predict in pre-season worse than anything else.
- Adam Trautman (NO) … Correlate with Taysom, not Jameis
CORE: Love, Carter, Rodgers