After an entertaining but sloppy Sunday Night Football contest, NFL Week 9 wraps up with a very intriguing Monday Night Football matchup. The Buffalo Bills will travel to Minnesota to take on the Vikings, with the Bills listed as 3.0-point road favorites. The total for this contest sits at 44.5 points.
This is very much a battle of “strength vs. strength.” The Bills have one of the best offenses in football, while the Vikings are elite defensively. Conversely, the Bills have had a putrid defense, while the Vikings’ offense has struggled to do anything. Both teams have built their success on their best units, with both teams checking in at 6-1.
Let’s dive into all the DFS options 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
As with any game involving the Bills, the fantasy analysis has to start with Josh Allen. He has become the clear-cut best quarterback in fantasy. No one in the league can do the damage he can with his combination of passing and running. He’s already accounted for 20 touchdowns this season (11 passing and nine rushing), resulting in an average of better than 27 fantasy points per game. Allen has scored at least 18.3 DraftKings points in every game this season, and he’s had at least 34.5 in three of them.
The big question is, can the Vikings manage to slow him down? Minnesota’s defense has been the best in the business against opposing QBs this season. No team has allowed fewer fantasy points per game, giving Allen an Opponent Plus/Minus of -8.2. That’s the worst mark on the slate, and it’s one of the worst marks you’ll see on any slate this season.
However, I don’t think any defense in history can stop Allen with how he’s played recently. Allen has already had two matchups with an Opponent Plus/Minus of -4.0 or worse this season, and he’s averaged 27.01 DraftKings points and a +3.4 Plus/Minus (per the Trends tool). Since the start of the 2024-25 season, Allen has averaged 25.46 DraftKings points and a +1.72 Plus/Minus in those matchups.
With Allen playing arguably the best football of his career, expect him to continue rolling. He ranks first on this slate in median and ceiling projection, and he’s first in projected Plus/Minus as well. He also checks in as the optimal Captain better than 25% of the time in Sim Labs.
James Cook is the other stud target in this contest. He’s having another excellent season, currently ranking fifth at running back in fantasy points per game.
That said, Cook has to do the most with the least for fantasy purposes. RBs earn their fantasy points by catching passes and scoring touchdowns, and Cook has plenty of competition in both areas. He routinely loses goal line touches to Allen, while Ty Johnson cuts into his role as a pass-catcher. Cook has just a 9% target share so far this season, while he’s handled just 50% of the team’s carries inside the five-yard line.
Cook makes up for it with his running efficiency (5.1 yards per carry) and the fact that the Bills have one of the best offenses in the league. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you’re not getting all the goal-line carries if your team is scoring 30+ points a game.
That could pose a problem vs. the Vikings. If the Bills can’t score the ball at the same rate – their 23.5 implied team total is well below their season average of 33.3 – Cook could be the guy who suffers. That Vikings haven’t been quite as stingy vs. the run as they have vs. the pass, but they’ve still allowed the sixth-fewest fantasy points per game to the position.
Often, the best move with Cook is using him as a pivot in lineups without Allen. Since he doesn’t catch a ton of passes and the two compete for work around the goal line, it’s not surprising that they have a negative correlation (-0.33). Ultimately, one tends to succeed at the expense of the other.
With most people gravitating towards Allen, it makes Cook the most underappreciated Captain choice on this slate. He has the largest discrepancy between projected ownership and optimal rate at the position.
NFL DFS Midrange Picks
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