We have an alternate build for the AMBUSH this round and throughout the playoffs.

With just a few games to break down I can go into more detail on each game and provide some more data snapshots because teams are what they are at this point and there’s only so much they will be able to hide as much as they try.

If you just want the list of plays, scroll to the end.

If you want some good insight, carry on below…

Raiders at Bengals

Over Under:  49, Bengals -5.5

My favorite game of the week is the first one.  I just wish the Raiders were not having to come in on a short week after that long OT thriller on Sunday Night.

For Vegas, they will need a big game here from Darren Waller, who finished the season with 93 targets but only 2 touchdowns.  The Bengals were very vulnerable to TE scoring down the stretch as they faced some good ones and one nice thing about the Raiders is you can project everything going through three guys in Josh Jacobs, Hunter Renfrow and Darren Waller.

But lets not sleep on Zay Jones who has quietly become the deep threat in this offense and not the DeSean Jackson late season addition.  Going vertical on the Bengals isn’t ideal but the only way the Raiders can win in my mind is getting a big game from Zay Jones.

Raiders Top DFS Plays:

• Sat Only:  Josh Jacobs, Hunter Renfrow, Zay Jones, Darren Waller
• Sat-Mon:  Josh Jacobs

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For Cincinnati, it’s Joe Burrow and JaMarr Chase bringing their big play blood to the NFL playoffs now and it’s Burrow who I am for sure locking in to a lineup this week but pairing him with Tee Higgins more so than JaMarr Chase.

On the Saturday only, it’s all three along with Darren Waller for the Raiders.  Vegas cannot win or stay in this game without Waller having 7 catches for 85 yards and a touchdown.  Sure, Josh Jacobs is going to be popular and so will Joe Mixon who should fare well and get into the end zone.

But give me Tee Higgins scoring and going over 100 yards for the Bengals.

Bengals Top DFS Plays

• Sat Only:  Joe Burrow, Joe Mixon, JaMarr Chase, Tee Higgins
• Sat-Mon:  Joe Burrow, Joe Mixon, JaMarr Chase, Tee Higgins

Ambush Play of the game

Tee Higgins anytime touchdown

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Patriots at Bills

Over Under:  44, Bills -4

One of the two divisional battles we have in the first round and like the Cards/Rams this one was split in the regular season with a memorable late MNF game.  The weather is going to be COLD, but not super windy again.  So yeah, Mac Jones is gonna have to throw the ball.

And Mac Jones has been on quite the roller coaster ride in the second half of his rookie season.  One week good, one week not so good.  Lucky for him he is on a good week this week and excluding that prior MNF game vs Buffalo he has been latching on heavily to Jakobi Meyers (DK: $4,500) who has 5 straight games with 8 or more targets and reached double digit points in each of them on DK.  On the two game slate on Saturday, he makes a lot of sense there.  On the full 6 game slate, eh, not so much.

Patriots Top DFS Plays:

• Sat Only:  Jakobi Meyers
• Sat-Mon:  None

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Buffalo is the better team.  Don’t take the Belichick bait on this one, they are going to win and might shut out the Patriots offense.  Between the Bills and Titans I have one of those teams making it to the Super Bowl out of the AFC (sorry Chiefs fans).

But that said, I really don’t want much from Buffalo’s offense this weekend.  Certainly not on the Saturday through Monday menu and even on Saturday only this isn’t a team I would go too heavy on from a skill position perspective.

So it’s the Buffalo Bills defense and not much else, but the recent run of Devin Singletary finally taking over as RB1 for Buffalo makes him a viable option on both slates as a third RB.

Bills Top DFS Plays

• Sat Only:  Devin Singletary, Buffalo D/ST
• Sat-Mon:  Devin Singletary, Buffalo D/ST

Ambush Play of the game

Devin Singletary over 100 yards rushing and a touchdown

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Eagles at Buccaneers

Over/Under:  46, Bucs -8.5

Tampa will get that dreaded Sunday 1pm Wild Card home game.  It’s just a flat spot for home teams to deal with and the thing nobody wants to say is Tampa hasn’t beaten anyone since they held on against Josh Allen to win in OT in a game they honestly should have lost.  Since 2013, the visitor in this spot is 5-3, which isn’t some 100% statistic obviously but the visiting team going 5-3 in a playoff split is significant to me.

• 2020:  Baltimore (Visitor) defeated Tennessee
• 2019:  Minnesota (Visitor) defeated New Orleans
• 2018:  Chargers (Visitor) defeated Baltimore
• 2015:  Seattle (Visitor) defeated Minnesota
• 2013:  Chargers (Visitor) defeated Cincinnati

Prior to that, the last “clean” win the Bucs had over a good opponent was ironically these same Eagles when they won 28-22, but they mostly did all their damage in the first half of the game.

Tampa’s offense isn’t putting teams away because their defense isn’t stopping the run like it once did.  Yeah, Tampa had a great rush defense but something has gone very wrong for them and honestly I think it’s because they have had to compensate so much for poor CB play.  This could turn into a disaster against a team like the Eagles who has beaten up on GOOD run teams as it is.

Here are the rushing totals against the Bucs — Carolina went for 110, The fucking Jets ran for 150, Buffalo went for 173 (ok, Josh Allen), Atlanta, the bleeping Falcons went 121, New Orleans 152…

They can be ran on and Philly can control the clock which could be HUGE against an offense that does not have big play ability and cannot afford to wait for guys to get open against a good front four.

This is potentially the one “nobody saw this coming” upset spot.

The DFS challenge however is trusting someone on the Philadelphia backfield.  We could conceivably nail the game script that Philly rushes for 150+ yards and 2 rushing touchdowns and not correctly identify who does it.  I would expect Sanders to have the best chance to have a receiving touchdown here which is how RB usually will beat the Bucs if they beat them and Hurts being the centerpiece of the offense makes a good amount of sense on the Sunday only slate, but nothing beyond that.

I would suspect that the Bucs draw all their attention on DeVonta Smith, and it’s not like they have to worry about J.J. Arcega-Whiteside or anything since he is on IR (its a joke, he fucking sucks).  I really do like the match-up for Quez Watkins however and would definitely play him on Sunday only contests.  Goedert is just fine, but honestly a lot of TE are grading well and specifically in this game we gotta like the TE on the other side.

Eagles Top DFS Plays

• Sun Only:  Jalen Hurts, Miles Sanders, Quez Watkins
• Sat-Mon:  Eagles Defense

Tampa is going to run through the return of Leonard Fournette and through Rob Gronkowski.  Gronk missed the prior meeting with the Eagles and OJ Howard had a big game there, it’s a good spot for the Tampa Tight Ends and without enough trust in Grayson (banged up) and Tyler Johnson the passing game is going to have to trust Fournette and Gronk as top 4 options with Evans and Breshad Periman.

No I am not playing Brady and no I am not playing the Bucs defense.

Bucs DFS Plays

• Sun Only:   Leonard Fournette, Rob Gronkowski
• Sat-Mon:   None

Ambush Play of the game

Miles Sanders receiving touchdown

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49ers at Cowboys

Over/Under:  51, Cowboys -3

Everyone is going to look at this as the game of the week and for good reason the way the offenses have been playing.  Over the last two months if Deebo Samuel didn’t go off (or hit close to 20), then George Kittle did.  And all during that time Elijah Mitchell had some big games when he was healthy.  So we really do know where Shannahan is going to go when they get down in the red-zone. The FanDuel price on Brandon Aiyuk makes him an interesting play for me there.  It is a big enough savings off Deebo Samuel that you can ride that, but for ranking purposes it’s hard for me to not have George Kittle #1 overall this week.

Dallas is not great at defending TE and in the playoffs I would expect Kittle to shine big time.  I trust the Niners offense to put up points on Dallas and the only scenario they don’t is a miserable game from Jimmy G, which could offer up Dallas as a Sunday only play.

49ers DFS Plays

• Sun Only:   Deebo Samuel
• Sat-Mon:  Deebo Samuel

San Francisco’s run defense has been their resurgence key but they still have some big holes in the secondary.  Dallas being without Michael Gallup due to a season ending injury should stand out here but from a DFS perspective that only means higher upside for Lamb and Cooper.  CeeDee Lamb really slowed down over the final two months and didn’t lead the team in receiving yards AND go over 100 yards since week 6 when he had a big game clinching touchdown against New England.  So in short, if you play Lamb, you gotta play Dak, because you are banking on Lamb and others all going off and at that point with how much SF is stopping the run why not just go Dak-Cooper-Lamb and call it a day with Deebo Samuel on the other side.

Cowboys DFS Plays

• Sun Only:  Dak Prescott, Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb
• Sat-Mon:   Dak Prescott, Amari Cooper

Ambush Play of the game

George Kittle over 100 yars receiving

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Steelers at Chiefs

Over/Under:  46.5, Chiefs -12.5

Welcome to the sneaky UNDER on the weekend.  They just met a couple weeks ago in Kansas City with the Chiefs defense completely shutting down the Steelers offense.  In that game we figured the Pittsburgh path to winning or staying close was to get Najee Harris the ball out on the edges and that didn’t even work very well.

Yes, Ju-Ju Smith Schuster was practicing this week and is $3,000.  No, I am not expecting him to be active or relevant unless they are planning to have a TikTok halftime show featuring him and Patty Mahomes’ younger sister, err, brother.

So yeah, I want nothing from Pittsburgh.

Steelers DFS Plays

• Sun Only:   Nada
• Sat-Mon:   Nada

As for the Chiefs, I believe we will see high ownership on Mahomes and it’s a bad move in my mind.  They’re winning this game 27-6 just like they controlled the previous meeting with Pittsburgh.  I still trust Darrell Williams and the Chiefs ground game the most to find the end zone.  The Steelers rush defense has no way to fix their holes and this is the best move to keep TJ Watt quiet.

Chiefs have ruled CEH out already – so its all Williams

Chiefs DFS Plays

• All Slates:  Darrell Williams, Chiefs D/ST

Ambush Play of the game

Chiefs Defense puts up double digit fantasy points.

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Cardinals at Rams

Over/Under:  49.5, Rams -4

The final game on the weekend does offer you a good late swap opportunity if you are stacking this over the course of the Saturday to Monday slate.  This is something I highly encourage considering if you aren’t just playing one lineup.  In their first meeting it was the white hot Cardinals who kind of smacked the Rams in the mouth 37-20 and they got 120 yards rushing from Chase Edmonds, 50  yards rushing from James Conner and three receivers over 60 yards.  Conner as of Friday is still trending as questionable while Edmonds looks good to go.

The second meeting was more of what Arizona was in the second half of the year, bad execution in critical stages of games and in that game Aaron Donald just took over.  This team really misses a healthy DeAndre Hopkins and is not going to win without Kyler Murray accounting for a lot of fantasy points.

Cardinals DFS Plays

• Mon Showdown:    Kyler, Edmonds, Ertz, Antoine Wesley
• Sat-Mon:   Kyler, Edmonds

For the Rams, do we take the bait with Cam Akers?  The Cardinals haven’t shown much consistency with stopping the run of late and he is going to certainly be involved more this week against a weaker rush defense.  In this round I don’t think I am biting on Akers, but I can definitely see him paying off in the 2nd/3rd round should they advance that far.

Cooper Kupp is someone I expect to be the complete focus on the Arizona defense.  That’s gonna open up Tyler Higbee once again.  This is not to indicate that Cooper Kupp should not absolutely carve up the Cardinals secondary — he should and obviously makes a great late slate hammer.  But this is a decent WR set of games and there is a path to avoiding him and it will have to come from the LV/CIN or SF/DAL games most likely.

Rams DFS Plays

• Mon Showdown:   Stafford, Kupp, Beckham, Higbee, Akers
• Sat-Mon:   Akers, Kupp, Higbee

Ambush Play of the game

Cooper Kupp will indeed hit value for DFS.  It’s a matter of how many other WR On the slate hit 20 fantasy points.

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So now that I exhausted your brain through all the games and my thoughts on each, here’s the quick summary  (or for those who just jumped ahead).

Saturday through Monday CORE

Updated this Friday evening….

• QB – Joe Burrow
• RB – Darrell Williams
• WR – Amari Cooper
• TE – George Kittle

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Saturday Only CORE

• QB – Joe Burrow
• RB – Devin Singletary
• WR – Tee Higgins
• TE – Darren Waller

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Sunday Only CORE

• QB – Dak Prescott
• RB – Darrell Williams
• RB – Miles Sanders
• WR – Amari Cooper

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FAVORITE VALUE PLAYS

QB:   None

RB:  Eli Mitchell (DK), Cam Akers (DK/FD)

WR:  Quez Watkins, Zay Jones, Antoine Wesley (DK), Cedric Wilson (DK)

TE:  None

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Joe Burrow – Joe Mixon – Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase lead the way with a 30+ point effort over the Raiders to kick things off.  Bengals cover

The Bills make a statement at home with their defense and new found running game.  Buffalo wins easily by three scores and holds New England out of the end zone.

The Eagles pull off the upset of the weekend going into Tampa Bay and running on the Bucs in a lower scoring early afternoon game.

Dallas and San Francisco lives up to the fireworks hype and it’s a battle between Amari Cooper and George Kittle while the RB also get into the end zone at some point too.  In the end the Niners prevail on a long field goal 30-28.

The Chiefs take care of business early with a 14-0 halftime lead off one CEH touchdown and a Mahomes rushing TD and cruise in the second half off three field goals winning 23-6.

The final game on the weekend will see Cooper Kupp faders sweating it out as he hauls in 10 catches for 147 yards but no touchdowns as those come from the RB/TE for the Rams who beat the Cardinals by 5.

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Game Bets

• Bengals -5.5
• Bills -4
• Eagles +8.5
• Niners +3
• Steelers/Chiefs UNDER 46.5
• Cardinals/Rams OVER 49.5