We have the potential for a really fun contest on Sunday Night Football. The Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers will square off in a battle between historic NFL franchises with plenty of offensive upside. The Packers are listed as 1.5-point home favorites, while the total sits at 53.5 points.
Dallas entered this season with ambitious goals. They already boasted an elite offense, while their defense was expected to be significantly improved. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. They currently sit at just 2-3, and while the NFC East is wide open, another loss would put them in a precarious spot.
Meanwhile, the Packers got off to a dreadful start this season. They were 1-2 through the first three weeks, and they could’ve very easily been 0-3. That said, they’ve picked up two straight wins, and their offense seemingly came to life in Week 5. They put up season highs in terms of yards and points scored, so their outlook is trending up.
Can the Packers keep the momentum rolling, or will the Cowboys get back on track? Let’s dive into all the fantasy options for Sunday Night Football.
As news breaks throughout the week and we adjust our projections (powered by award-winning expert ranker Sean Koerner), player ratings in our Player Models will change as the projections change. For updates, visit the models directly.
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Or you can just use our NFL DFS sims to effortlessly create advanced lineups.
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You can also combine them to create your own aggregate projections:
NFL DFS Stud Picks
For a game with plenty of offensive firepower, it is a bit light on studs. Only two guys enter with salaries of at least $10,000 on DraftKings: CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott.
Let’s start with Lamb. He is undoubtedly one of the league’s most talented receivers. He currently ranks fourth at the position in fantasy points per game, trailing only Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Puka Nacua, and Christian Watson. He’s posted a positive Plus/Minus in three of his past four games, and he’s gone for at least 38.3 DraftKings points in two of them.
However, Lamb has to compete with George Pickens for targets. Pickens is an excellent receiver in his own right, which makes Lamb a bit more boom-or-bust than the prototypical No. 1 fantasy receiver. We saw the “bust” side of the equation just last week. Lamb managed just a 13% target share, and he finished with just two catches for nine yards. His snaps were limited by a quad injury, but he was still targeted on just 20% of his routes run.
Still, Lamb’s metrics for the year are impressive overall: 28% target share, 30% targets per route run, 37% air-yards share, 38% end-zone share. Those numbers are all borderline elite, especially in an offense as good as the Cowboys.
The matchup is a bit of a mixed bag. While the Packers haven’t been great defensively, they do rank fourth in the league in EPA per pass defensively. They’ve also allowed the 10th-fewest fantasy points per game to opposing receivers.
It makes Lamb a bit uninspiring as the top fantasy option in this contest. He has just the third-highest raw projections in our NFL Models, while he’s No. 7 in projected Plus/Minus.
Prescott is the more appealing target of the two. While Lamb will have games where he takes a backseat to Pickens, Prescott benefits from both of his stud receivers. Whichever one ends up having a good game is going to bring Prescott along for the ride.
Prescott has eclipsed 15 DraftKings points in all five games this season, and he’s had at least 18.94 in three of them. He may lack the ceiling of an elite dual-threat quarterback, but he’s capable of racking up more points with his arm than just about any QB in football. He’s led the league in completions in two of the past three years, and he’s currently fifth in the NFL in passing yards.
Unfortunately, the matchup is even tougher for Prescott than it is for Lamb. Prescott’s -6.4 Opponent Plus/Minus is the worst on the slate, and Green Bay has allowed just 11.2 fantasy points per game to opposing QBs this season.
Of course, we’re still dealing with a small sample, and Green Bay has faced almost no one at quarterback. They’ve already faced backup QBs in three games this season, and when they saw Michael Penix in Week 4, he and Drake London absolutely carved them up.
It gives Prescott (and Lamb) more upside than there appears to be on paper. That’s reflected in our projections, which have Prescott as one of the strongest plays on the slate. He leads all players in median projection, and he’s second in projected Plus/Minus.
NFL DFS Midrange Picks
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