The NFL has an outstanding start to the season with a thrilling Week 1, and two teams that pulled out late, close wins, will meet on Thursday Night Football looking to move to 2-0. The Buffalo Bills are opening their brand new home at Highmark Stadium on Thursday, when they host the Detroit Lions. Both teams are looking to make a deep playoff run and have legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. It should be a great matchup with a playoff feel, even though it’s only Week 1. In this contest, the Bills are listed as 5.5-point favorites, while the over/under is 54.5 points for this matchup.
Last week, the Bills rallied past the Texans in Houston, while the Lions held on at home to beat the Saints by just one point in overtime. Both games were high-scoring and came right down to the wire, which could set up a great showdown matchup this Thursday. Let’s take a closer look at this Thursday night matchup from a DFS showdown perspective.
As news breaks throughout the week and we adjust our projections (powered by the 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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You can also combine them to create your own aggregate projections:
NFL DFS Stud Picks
While the Bills defense came up huge in their win over Houston, the hero on offense was Josh Allen, who has the highest median and ceiling projections in this matchup in both the FantasyLabs projections and THE BLITZ projections.
He is projected to have very high ownership, but his ceiling is too high to overlook since he carries so much of the workload in Buffalo’s offense. In a FLEX spot, he has the highest projected ownership and the highest rate of finishing in the optimal lineup in our NFL SimLabs.
Allen has the highest Projected Plus/Minus of all players as both a Captain and a FLEX option in both sets of projections.
Last week, Allen racked up 38.7 DraftKings points on 334 passing yards with a pair of touchdowns, adding 23 rushing yards and two more scores on the ground. One of those rushing touchdowns was a 21-yard scramble and the other a one-yard plunge. He is the team’s top option in short-yardage situations and can also improvise his way to big plays both on the ground and through the air.
He welcomed his new No. 1 WR D.J. Moore with a big game, connecting on five of eight targets for 100 yards and a touchdown. Moore finished with 24 DraftKings points in his Bills debut and will be in a good spot for another big performance.
Allen and Moore will be in a great matchup against the Lions’ secondary, which is without safeties Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch and possibly starting CB D.J. Reed (foot), who is questionable. Last week, Saints QB Tyler Shough threw for 410 yards and three touchdowns against Detroit, while Chris Olave and Devaughn Vele combined for 17 catches, 251 yards, and a touchdown. Those totals from last week are boosted by the overtime period, but in what should be another up-tempo game, the Bills’ passing game has plenty of room to shine.
The other stud to consider from the Buffalo side is RB James Cook, who has a very high ceiling but does not come in with as much momentum as the other studs on the board. Last week, Cook took 13 carries for 57 yards and added three catches for 12 yards, but he didn’t find the end zone, losing the rushing scores to Allen. With only 9.9 DraftKings points, he was a huge letdown for fantasy owners who used a high draft pick on him in season-long leagues or spent up for him in DFS contests.
Cook still brings a ton of upside, though, as one of the Bills’ primary offensive playmakers. We’ve seen absolutely huge games from him in the past, and he remains clearly the team’s lead running back. He’s very boom-or-bust, which makes him an ideal target for high-risk, high-reward tournament lineups.
Cook has the highest Optimal vs. Projected Ownership % in our SimLabs as both a Captain’s Pick and a FLEX option. He’s a strong contrarian play for leverage in tournament builds since so much of the public is out on him after last week’s quiet game.
On the other side of the matchup, the Lions come with their own set of stud options to consider building around. Jahmyr Gibbs is the most expensive player on the slate after his starring role in Week 1, and he has the highest floor projection in a 50/50 blend of the FantasyLabs and THE BLITZ projections. He also has the second-highest ceiling and median projections in that set of projections behind only Josh Allen.
With David Montgomery no longer in the picture, Gibbs is clearly the go-to option in the Lions’ backfield. He had 29 carries and five catches in Week 1’s overtime win, racking up 37.6 DraftKings points on 156 rushing yards, 30 receiving yards, and a pair of rushing touchdowns. He did lose a fumble, but other than that, Gibbs was outstanding.
He set a career high with 320 touches last year but could get even more work this year if he stays healthy. The Bills gave up three touchdowns to Montgomery in his Texans debut last week, and Gibbs will look to put up another big total against them this week.
While Cook is a boom-or-bust option for tournament lineups, his counterpart, Gibbs, is actually one of the safest stud plays available since he consistently gets so much work in every area of the field. His two scores last week were both short-yardage runs, so he has all the goal-line work in addition to his big-play ability from anywhere on the field.
Gibbs has the highest chance of any player on this slate of being the Captain in the optimal lineup, according to SimLabs.
The other huge option to consider on the Lions’ side is WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, who had 10 catches for 67 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the opener. His 14 targets in Week 1 led the league, and his 35.9% target share was the third-highest in the NFL behind only Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Justin Jefferson. He should be in line for another heavy workload in Thursday’s matchup.
St. Brown has the third-highest median, ceiling, and floor projections in the aggregated projections, behind only Gibbs and Allen. Since he’s a little cheaper than Gibbs, he actually has a better Projected Plus/Minus, ranking second in a FLEX spot behind only Allen. His ownership projection is a little higher than ideal, but he brings enough upside to be worth the salary if you can make it work under the cap.
The projections aren’t quite as high on Lions QB Jared Goff as the rest of the studs in this section, but he has flashed a high ceiling when the Lions take the chance to air it out. In Week 1, he had 16.4 DraftKings points with both his touchdowns going to St. Brown and 206 passing yards. If Gibbs is thriving on the ground, Goff’s yardage totals can be a little low compared to other elite options.
He makes sense to build around if you expect him to spread the ball around to some of the mid-range picks below, but if Gibbs and St. Brown do most of the work, like last week, Goff will have a lower ceiling as a result.
NFL DFS Midrange Picks
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