Welcome to the NFL DFS DraftKings Showdown series as we kick off the road to Super Bowl LVII. Dave Eddy here (@CorporalEddy) to break down the 2022-23 NFL Playoffs and we start with a Wild Card matchup between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Los Angeles Chargers.
Let's talk about a little bit of Showdown strategy, lineup building and roster construction will definitely be different than your main slates.
On DraftKings, you have a captain spot which is going to have one and a half times the regular salary and they're going to get one and a half times the points as well. Then you're going to have five Flex spots. With such a small player pool, correlation really becomes game theory and it's up to you to think about how the game is going to play out. So, before you sit down and build lineups, you need to construct your player pool and you want to do that in the way of your thinking how the game going to go
My build for a high-scoring game is going to look very different than one for those of you who see a low-scoring defensive battle, or a blowout.
When it comes to the captain spot, typically I'm looking at either a quarterback or a pass catcher. Running backs are fine, especially if they are a pass-catching back but I typically stay away from tight ends for the most part. Always stay away from kickers but a defense in the right situation can work.
NFL DFS DraftKings Showdown: Chargers @ Jaguars
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Captains
Justin Herbert - I'm going to stack any QB Captain with two pass-catchers. We don't know if Mike Williams is playing in this game or not. Even if he is, he is boom or bust anyways so you've got to keep that in mind. But focus on Keenan Allen here along with Austin Ekeler or Gerald Everett.
Trevor Lawrence - I think that the volume there is going to go between Kirk, Jones and Engram. You can throw Marvin Jones in there as well but it's not a very deep pool.
Even if you don't captain a quarterback in this game, make sure you have one of them in your lineup as a FLEX.
Austin Ekeler - obviously he can get it done on the ground but he's also going to catch a ton of passes. I expect that this is going to be a pretty close game and I expected it to be high scoring - I think we're going to see 50 points. I'm not going to force Justin Herbert with him but I'm going to try to make it fit.
Zay Jones - I'm interested here because the price tag makes a big difference. Jones is coming in at $5,400 so a lot cheaper than Christian Kirk ($8k) and Evan Engram ($6.2k. I think Jones is going to be a little bit higher exposure for me at Captain because of the price. His ceiling may not be the same as Kirk but it's probably a little bit higher than Engram.
FLEX RB/WR/TE
Travis Etienne can have big games as well and he can get involved in the passing game. It's nowhere near the level of Ekeler but he's going to get his volume in this matchup. Just because it's going to be high scoring doesn't mean that these running backs are going to be out of play, so I definitely am going to have exposure all across the board with these running backs.
Keenan Allen is the guy that I'm focused on. I think he's going to get peppered with targets from Herbert. I'm expecting 10 targets in this game. Only time will tell what he does with said targets, but l see at least 15 points. That being said, I could see him hitting his ceiling and reaching 25 or 30 points!
Marvin Jones is priced at just $2,600, I think that that's a great price for him. I've got him projected for about seven points which isn't a lot but at $2.6k that helps you out with fitting in other studs.
I'll mix in a little bit of Christian Kirk as well and if Mike Williams is out then you've also got to consider guys like Joshua Palmer and DeAndre Carter. Josh Palmer gets up there at $6.6k so I may be more interested in Carter for the savings. That being said Palmer is going to be extraordinarily interesting.
I basically consider Evan Engram to be a wide receiver.
Gerald Everett is intriguing at $4,800 but to me, that makes Donald Parham very interesting. I think Parham could be in line for four or five points which doesn't sound like a lot but at only $1,000 that's very helpful.
Kickers are always in play and are another way to save some money. It's not uncommon for them to get double-digit games. I'm not the biggest fan of Cameron Dicker here but he can definitely get the job done. Riley Patterson is in line to get 10 points here so it won't surprise me if he did that at all. When it comes to the kickers though, I do keep it to one per lineup.
I don't know that I'm going to play a defense here. It's not a problem for me to play a defense in a Showdown, all it takes is one pick-six, but I expect these teams to be going up and down the field.
NFL DFS DraftKings Showdown: Chargers @ Jaguars - Final Thoughts
I think it's going to be a high-scoring game. If I had to pick I would say I'm going to lean Jaguars, but it's a coin flip. I like the Jaguars at home and the Chargers will probably be without Mike Williams - or at best a hobbled Mike Williams.
However, when it comes to Showdown lineups it doesn't mean I would go Jacksonville heavy. I would just play a game script that says these teams are going to score nearly 50 points.
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