Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) are a great way to get that fantasy football fix in the NFL playoffs. With just four weeks of football remaining, our time is limited. Fortunately, we have three separate days of football this week to get our fill. Let’s take a look at the Sunday DraftKings DFS slate and the fantasy outlooks for Ke’Shawn Vaughn and Miles Sanders.
NFL DFS Picks: Ke’Shawn Vaughn or Miles Sanders
Of these two NFC running backs, who has the highest upside in DFS formats for Wild Card Weekend?
Ke’Shawn Vaughn, Tampa Bay Buccaneers ($4,500)
Originally, this section was supposed to be about how great of a play Leonard Fournette is this week. Unfortunately, the Bucs did not activate him from the injured reserve by 4 PM ET on Saturday. As a result, he’s out this week.
Fournette’s absence gives Vaughn another week as the primary back. It’s worth noting that the Bucs did activate Giovani Bernard from the injured reserve. He will play Sunday. Despite being scarcely used throughout the season, Bernard is easily the most reliable running back on the Bucs roster right now. I would expect him in the game often on passing downs as the best receiver and pass blocker.
I know I just spent a paragraph talking about how much Bernard will play. Even so, Vaughn remains the best value for DFS purposes. Vaughn averaged 11.5 opportunities per game over the final two weeks. With Ronald Jones out as well, Vaughn is going to be the primary runner.
Additionally, this is an ideal matchup against the Eagles’ run-funnel defense. The Bucs are 8-point home favorites, and the Eagles allowed the second-fewest fantasy points to wide receivers this season but the 12th-most to running backs. Tampa Bay should maintain a lead and be in a position to run Vaughn rather than need to play catch-up with Bernard.
Miles Sanders, Philadelphia Eagles ($5,000)
Sanders checks in at an incredibly cheap price given his role as the Eagles’ lead back. Despite there being six starting running backs, Sanders checks in as the seventh-most expensive back this week. He’s priced cheaper than Tony Pollard. It’s abundantly clear DraftKings doesn’t have much faith in Philly’s ground game as 8-point road underdogs.
On the one hand, I agree with the sentiment. Sanders may have been running very well before he broke his hand, but he wasn’t particularly useful in fantasy. At $5,000, however, it won’t take a monster performance for him to return value. Even though he’s relatively cheap, there are better options to use on this slate.
Sanders will likely struggle against Tampa Bay’s vaunted defense
As a general rule of thumb, you don’t want to use RBs on teams that will likely have to throw to catch up. Unless, of course, their RB is utilized in the passing game.
That’s a big no for Sanders, who hasn’t caught more than 3 passes in a game since Week 1. Since Week 5, Sanders has averaged 6.6 receiving yards per game. That’s not a typo. The Bucs also allowed the third-fewest fantasy points to RBs this season. When these teams last met, Sanders played a season-high 83% of the offensive snaps.
He managed just 66 yards on 13 opportunities. There’s also the part where Sanders hasn’t scored a touchdown all season. It’s difficult to reach any sort of fantasy ceiling without a TD. Only the Patriots and Cardinals allowed fewer rushing scores than the 6 the Bucs allowed. It’s probably not happening this week.
Darrel Williams ($5,200) and whoever starts at RB for the Bucs both make for superior options in DFS. Sanders would certainly be a contrarian play that’s less-rostered. Unfortunately, you can’t just be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. There needs to be realistic upside.