NFL DFS Showdown Picks for Bills vs. Rams on Monday Night Football (October 12th)

One of the most anticipated football games of the season will take place on Monday Night Football in Week 5. The Buffalo Bills will travel to Los Angeles to take on the Rams in a potential Super Bowl Preview. The Rams are listed as 3.5-point favorites, while the total sits at 54.5.

The last time these two teams met, it provided fireworks. The Rams managed to secure a 44-42 win, and there were huge performances delivered up and down both rosters. Some of the pieces have changed since then, but the main players are all back to hopefully deliver an exciting encore.

Let’s dive into all the DFS targets for Monday 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.

And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.

Or you can just use our NFL DFS sims to effortlessly create advanced lineups.

Finally, make sure to check out all the projections available for purchase within the FantasyLabs Models. Subscribers now have the option to purchase Derek Carty’s THE BLITZ from our Marketplace.

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

NFL DFS Stud Picks

Josh Allen has become the unquestioned top quarterback in fantasy. He put together two monster performances to start the year, racking up 38.66 DraftKings points vs. the Texans and 40.82 DraftKings points vs. the Lions. Even after two “down” performances of 20.46 and 19.52 DraftKings points over the past two weeks, he still leads the position in fantasy production by a wide margin. He was also first in fantasy production last season, and the gap between him and the field is only getting wider.

Allen put together a historic performance the last time he faced the Rams. He had 342 passing yards and three passing touchdowns, which would’ve been a good day by itself. But he also added 82 rushing yards and three scores on the ground. The result was 54.88 DraftKings points, the top mark by any QB in our entire Trends database.

Allen’s production on the ground is nothing new, but he has used his legs a bit more often so far this season. He already has seven rushing touchdowns, and he’s averaged a career-best 8.3 carries per game. He’s also averaging 259.8 passing yards per game after sitting at just 215.8 last year. If he can keep up this pace, we could be looking at a historic campaign.

Unsurprisingly, Allen owns the top raw projections in our NFL Models. He also ranks second in projected Plus/Minus, making him a nice combination of value and upside. He is projected for the most ownership on the slate, but it’s hard to imagine not using him in some capacity.

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Puka Nacua is next on the pricing spectrum, and he’s a pretty elite fantasy producer in his own right. He returned to the lineup following a two-week injury absence in Week 4, and he picked up basically right where he left off. He racked up 12 targets, which he converted into nine catches for 125 yards. He added a two-yard rushing touchdown, bringing his fantasy total to 30.7 DraftKings points.

Matthew Stafford has always peppered his top receivers with targets, and there’s no doubt that’s Nacua for the time being. He’s been targeted on 30% of his routes run this season, and he was at 35% last year. If anything, Nacua’s involvement might only grow moving forward.

Nacua has the potential for a big showing on Monday. The Bills defense has been a major question mark this season, and they’ve allowed the second-most fantasy points per game to opposing receivers. Nacua doesn’t stand out as quite as strong a target as Allen, but it should surprise no one if he puts together a big game. He had 44.8 DraftKings points in his last game vs. the Bills, and that was a better Bills’ defense.

James Cook rounds out the stud tier, and he is clearly the weakest option in this group. Cook was fantastic for Buffalo last year, leading the NFL with 1,621 rushing yards. He also managed 14 touchdowns. He was a clear focal point for the squad down the stretch, and he was considered a top-five fantasy RB entering the year.

Unfortunately, Cook’s workload has taken a step back. While he remains the Bills’ clear-cut No. 1 option, he’s not providing a ton of value in the most important areas for fantasy scoring. Specifically, he has just a 9% target share, while Allen has handled more of the goal-line opportunities. Cook has just 44% of the carries from inside the five-yard line, and it’s hard to score fantasy points if you’re not scoring touchdowns or catching passes.

Cook currently ranks as just RB15, which is a clear disappointment following last year’s production. He’s best used as a pivot in lineups that don’t feature Allen. The two players have a negative correlation (-0.28), so one tends to succeed at the expense of the other. 

NFL DFS Midrange Picks