Mike's Thanksgiving Player Grid

Player Rankings and Strategy for Thanksgiving Day Fantasy Lineups

Author

One Week Season
November 27, 2024

THANKSGIVING PLAYER GRID

  • The Format ::

    • My “Player Grid” for the Thanksgiving slate will take the format of my usual “Afternoon Only” article that I do every Sunday. A full-fledged Player Grid just didn’t feel like the right way to try to break down this slate with only three games on it and such a limited player pool to begin with. Rather, this slate very closely resembles what we see every Sunday with only three to four games in the late window. The added caveat on Thanksgiving is that we get time between each game to learn from what has happened already and the ownerships that have flipped over.

QB Strategy ::

  • Quarterback is always an important position, but that importance goes to another level on these small slates. There are two main reasons for this. First, on average, quarterbacks obviously score the most points of any position and we can only start one of them. Second, as noted above, correlation is even more important as the slates get smaller and there are fewer scoring opportunities to go around. By choosing the right quarterback, you are also increasing the chances that you are right at two other positions. Again, the shorter slate condenses the scoring across all lineups, making each position more vital to separating and giving yourself a chance to win. This is why quarterback strategy has its own section:

    • Caleb Williams has attempted over 40 passes only three times this season and has DK point totals of 23.3, 9.2, and 29.9 in those three games. The Lions’ explosive offense and run-funnel defense point to this being another game of very high pass attempts for Williams, who at only $5,300 on DraftKings seems very likely to post a very useful score. The key with him will be how you build around him. I will have at least two Bears skill players paired with him and salaries on the slate make it very feasible to use three (especially if TE Cole Kmet, priced at only $3,600, is involved in the stack). 

    • Jared Goff and Jordan Love are the QBs for the two teams with the highest implied totals on the slate, so it should be no surprise that they will each carry a decent amount of ownership. 

    • An interesting way to play Goff would be to pair him with the Lions defense, as theoretically his best path to a “ceiling” game that leads the slate is likely if the Lions just smash the Bears the way they have several other teams this year. You could also play Goff WITH the Bears defense, as outlined below in the defense strategy section.

    • As for Love, the absence of Romeo Doubs and the lack of receiving production we have seen from the Packers RB position over the last two years makes stacking him relatively easy. The Dolphins defense has been solid this season and Green Bay wants to play conservatively unless forced out of their shell, so for rosters with Love at QB I will generally want two Dolphins players and I will definitely have Jayden Reed on the roster, as Reed’s three games this season with over 100 receiving yards were in Packers losses.

    • Tua Tagovailoa is very interesting in tournaments as he is coming off his best game of the season and the Packers’ defense has given up some bigger games to the few full-strength and capable offenses they have faced this year.

    • Cooper Rush feels like a great tournament play as well at sub-$5k with a clear elite stacking partner in CeeDee Lamb, a cheap RB1 who catches passes, and three cheap secondary receiving options to include in stacks at low ownership. Rico Dowdle’s salary, usage, and matchup will likely leave him as the highest-owned RB on the slate or close to it. Rush is a clear and easy way to leverage that spot.

My guess on final ownership ::

  • Caleb Williams – 25 to 30%

  • Jared Goff and Jordan Love – 18 to 25%

  • Tua Tagovailoa and Cooper Rush – 10 to 15%

  • Tommy Devito – Sub-6%

Defense Strategy ::

  • The Cowboys and Lions’ defenses are the highest-priced options on the slate and are also likely to be the highest owned. Dallas is at home facing Tommy DeVito or Drew Lock, while the Lions are also at home facing a Bears offense that has struggled this year and who should be throwing the ball a lot (therefore giving the Lions more chances at sacks and interceptions). Usually, on these shorter slates, you can see defensive ownership gravitate towards cheaper defenses, but the pricing is loose enough here and perception of the spots for these defenses is strong enough that people will have no troubles paying up.

  • Both the Cowboys and Lions’ defenses are solid “in a vacuum” bets this week, but given how variant defensive scoring can be and the fact that well over half of the field is likely to use those two defenses our next question must be, “which of the other four defenses is most likely to put up a score that separates?”

  • For me, the answer is one of the defenses in the Dolphins/Packers game. That game will be cold, which has historically not been great for Miami, and Love has shown a propensity to make mistakes in bunches at times, while both secondaries can be very opportunistic.

  • If you really want to go off the board, consider the Bears on the road against Detroit’s top-ranked offense. Obviously this is a reach, but hear me out. The Bears’ passing game is expected to be highly owned, as is the Lions’ running game. What is a scenario that flips that game on its head? An early defensive score or return touchdown from the Bears (along with maybe a surprise bad mistake by Jared Goff) that puts the Lions in a two-score deficit early on could nuke the outlook for the Lions’ running game and all of a sudden raise the expected volume for Detroit pass catchers. In this scenario, the Bears might end up giving up 30+ points by the end of the game, but as the lowest-priced defense on the slate, they’d put up a double-digit score and likely be optimal. Meanwhile, there’s a couple extra strategy elements to this build, as the likely optimal approach would then be to have two or three Lions skill players involved as well (banking on higher volume as they scramble to come back) and the fact that this game is first so you would have an extremely low-owned play locked in as the likely optimal prior to the other games even kicking off.

Positional Rankings ::

(My favorite plays on the slate at each position when considering all elements, including salary/ownership – these are also specific to DraftKings)

RB ::

  1. Jahmyr Gibbs

  2. David Montgomery

  3. De’Von Achane

  4. Tyrone Tracy, Jr.

  5. Josh Jacobs

  6. Rico Dowdle

  7. D’Andre Swift

WR ::

  1. DJ Moore

  2. Jayden Reed

  3. CeeDee Lamb

  4. Amon-Ra St. Brown

  5. Rome Odunze

  6. Tyreek Hill

  7. Malik Nabers

  8. Jaylen Waddle

  9. Christian Watson

  10. Dontayvion Wicks

  11. Wan’Dale Robinson

TE ::

  1. Jonnu Smith

  2. Tucker Kraft

  3. Sam LaPorta

  4. Luke Schoonmaker

  5. Cole Kmet

Game-by-Game For This Slate ::

Be sure to check the NFL Edge game breakdowns I wrote for this slate for deeper dives into these games and be sure to check out the great breakdown of the entire dynamic of the slate from JM in his “DFS+ Interpretation” section.

SHORT SLATE-ONLY OPTIONS ::

  • Here are a few cheap options that I’ll be considering in larger fields on the Thanksgiving slate that can help you make a unique lineup, but you probably wouldn’t consider using on a Main Slate::

    • Jalen Tolbert (Brandin Cooks)

    • Roschon Johnson

    • Tim Patrick

    • Malik Washington

    • Jaylen Wright

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving – let’s feast!!!

-Mike

Join us Thursday for the Thanksgiving Oracle!