NFL DFS Picks: Conference Championships DraftKings Breakdown

The Conference Championships are the last multi-game slate of the NFL season, marking the last chance to get some DFS action in for those of us who don’t play showdown. Both games on the slate have reasonably close spreads, with totals in the mid-40s, so it’s a fun slate without any obvious answers.

The action starts with Patriots-Broncos at 3:00 p.m. ET, followed by Rams-Seahawks at 6:30.

In this article, I’ll be using various FantasyLabs tools and other industry metrics to break down the DFS slate.

Don’t forget to check out our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups or our Lineup Optimizer for those of you who like to enter multiple lineups into tournaments.

Oh yeah! And our SimLabs Lineup Generator gives you the ability to create advanced DFS lineups using the power of simulation.

You can check out our in-depth SimLabs guide here.

Finally, make sure to check out all the projections available for purchase (Chris Raybon’s come included with a FantasyLabs subscription) within the FantasyLabs Models. Projections from One Week Season and Establish the Run are available if you’re a subscriber to those specific sites (our optimizer is a separate add-on feature).

You can also combine them to create your own aggregate projections:

NFL DFS Quarterback Picks

Stud/Value: Drake Maye ($6,000) New England Patriots (-4.5) at Denver Broncos (42.5 Total)

The general theme of this weekend’s action is good offenses in tough matchups and bad offenses in solid matchups. Drake Maye and the Patriots fall firmly in the former camp; New England was a top-five scoring offense this season, and they’re facing the number five ranked defense by DVOA in the Broncos.

The tricky part of handling this game is the Broncos’ QB situation. Bo Nix was lost for the rest of the playoffs in last week’s win, forcing Denver to go to a backup at the most important position. While that doesn’t directly impact Maye and the New England offense, they might choose to be less aggressive knowing that they won’t need as many points to pull off the win.

With that said, Denver’s defense has been vulnerable since the last few weeks of the regular season, giving up at least 30 points in three of their last five contests. Considering that the Patriots were a top-five PROE team this season, if they top 30 points, it’s very likely a large chunk of them will come from Maye’s arm — or his legs.

Plus, the context of this slate is such that we probably won’t see any huge QB scores, which makes Maye’s dual-threat ability especially valuable. We’ve got him a couple of points clear of any other QB on the slate, but he’s also a few hundred dollars of salary short of the leader, making him the top play and best value at the position.

Quick Hits

Matthew Stafford ($6,300): Stafford falls in the latter of the two camps discussed above. He’s the leader of the Rams’ high-powered offense but has a tough draw against the league’s best defense in the Seahawks. His Rams are underdogs against a team they lost to in mid December — but they did score 37 points in that contest. I wouldn’t expect that again here, but a Rams win likely means Stafford puts up a solid score. Their odds of winning are much higher than Stafford’s projected ownership, which is the lowest on the slate, making him a solid GPP option.

Sam Darnold ($5,500): Sam Darnold improbably was held under 10 DraftKings points last week in a game the Seahawks scored 41, illustrating the difficulty in trusting him for DFS. The good news is that Seattle has the highest team total on the slate this week — and they also lost one of their co-starting running backs last week. That might convince Seattle to throw the ball slightly more, which is a plus, as is the extremely obvious stacking partner for Darnold.

Jarrett Stidham ($4,500): Stidham is stepping in for Bo Nix at an inopportune time, but he’s extremely cheap and taking on the worst passing defense left in the playoffs. If salary were tighter, that might be enough for me to have some lineups built around him, but those savings aren’t especially helpful this week, so I’ll be staying away.

NFL DFS Running Back Picks