Here we are fantasy football fans – welcome to Week 17, Saturday edition. With three games on tap today, which team’s offenses should you be targeting, and which should you avoid?
Week 17 DFS Lineup
- QB: Drake Maye
- RB: Kyren Williams
- RB: Chase Brown
- WR: Courtland Sutton
- WR: Cooper Kupp
- WR: Devaugn Vele
- TE: Hunter Henry
- FLEX: Marvin Harrison Jr.
- DEF: Broncos
DFS Picks: Hold Your Nose – And Stack The Pats
We’re preaching to the choir here because everyone playing DFS knows that it doesn’t have to be pretty to put up points. Enter Drake Maye and the New England Patriots.
Although in a “rebuilding year” – Maye has surprised many with his play this season. With literally no one around him, he’s established a nice floor with his rushing ability and has thrown for over 200 yards and 7 touchdowns over his last 5 games. Not bad – rook. At a low price tag of $5,800, rostering Maye will afford us room for some stud WRs or RBs.
It would appear that we have found the best way to utilize Drake Maye’s upside. Last week, he posted his sixth top-10 finish at the position, partly because Maye acted as if he had Henry rostered on his fantasy team (four end zone targets).
The usage in close has been there when New England has gotten the opportunity to score, and while that’s encouraging, that’s not all he offers. Henry offers plus athleticism and has been trusted with vertical shots this year. He’s cleared 50 air yards in four of his past five games, something that gives him the potential to pay off your trust even if you’re skeptical about an offense that enters this week with a sub-20 point projection.
Although fellow TE Austin Hooper is also featured in the NE game plan, it’s clear that the offense wants to feature its chain-moving tight ends, and Henry has been on the right side of that committee often enough for us to consider him a viable low-end TE1 this week.
Paying Up At Running Back
This Saturday, we see some tough defensive matchups across the board for Wide Receivers. Combine that with some highly-priced WR studs (a la Puka Nacua and Jamarr Chase), we’re throwing our paper at Browns RB Chase Brown and Rams RB Kyren Williams.
These two are easy plays in our opinion, as they have the most obvious route to 20+ touches in the player pool. Chase Brown has reached 20 touches in three straight games and has an 88.2% catch rate in December. Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase get the attention for the success of this offense, but Brown has been critical for this team to make its late-season run.
We’ve lowered expectations due to a matchup against the second-best red-zone and yards-per-play defense in the league, but not to the point where there is a decision to be made. The Broncos defense will have their hands full with Chase and Tee Higgins, which should leave some room for Brown to operate.
Kyren Williams has a league-high 15 games with 20+ carries since the beginning of last season, a run that includes each of his past three contests (81 carries). That volume is a pretty safe bet against a defense that has been taking on water since its Week 11 bye and just gave up 152 yards and two scores on 25 carries to Chuba Hubbard.
The Rams didn’t have a 10-yard carry in their first meeting with the Cardinals and Williams turned his 12 attempts into just 25 yards, but these are two different teams now. Even in a spot where he wasn’t effective, Williams ran for a touchdown and finished with 6.7 points in the passing game.
With that type of volume, against a Cardinals team with nothing left to play for, we like the Rams to lean on Williams this Saturday.
Old Reliable: Cooper Kupp
Ok, he’s not actually OLD… but he’s been killing defenses for what seems like years now, and we like Stafford and Kupp to dice up the Cardinals this Saturday. Arizona ranks 27th in pressure rate when blitzing this season, leaving Matthew Stafford in a spot to pick apart this secondary for the better part of 60 minutes.
None of our concerns around Kupp apply for this matchup, and I have him locked in as a top-20 asset, checking in ahead of budding stars like Malik Nabers and Garrett Wilson.