Welcome back to Week 6 of the Thursday Night Football Showdown Build here at Aaron Torres Online. What an exciting week it has been for me! My wife gave birth to my first child this week, AND we get Tampa Bay and Philadelphia in a good Thursday Night Football matchup. This game has one of the highest expected totals of the week, and lots of points means lots of fantasy production. When we get two good teams, we have plenty of players we could use in our showdown contests. I hope you have been able to use the information in these articles to build out a winning lineup and cash in so far. Let’s do it again!
As you know, I will be coming to you weekly with a column specifically focused on one type of DFS contest, the Showdown style on DraftKings. I will be here every Thursday, specifically giving you players and strategy for the Thursday Night Football Showdown contests. Showdown Style is a DFS contests, also referred to as Captain Mode contests, where your roster consists of only six players and must include players from both teams. The positions in this type of contest are a “Captain” and 5 “Flex” players. This means that you can play a QB, RB, WR, TE, K or Defense in any of those roster spots with no minimum or maximum at any position. The player you select as the captain will score 1.5 time the standard fantasy point value for every statistic but drafting a player in the captain spot will also cost you more salary than if you were to draft them in a flex spot.
Before we get started, remember to check out my “DFS Flash” podcast, a quick whip around DFS show, that’s only 15-20 minutes and gets you ready for the full Sunday DFS slate ahead. Make sure to subscribe here or listen below.
With that, let’s build out our week 6 Thursday Night Football Showdown Slate Lineup!
The Captain Spot
As I mentioned, the player you use in this spot is going to cost you more salary by being the captain, but it will also score you 1.5 times the standard point value earned. There are a lot of stars in this game, and we’re going to want to get several of the big names in our lineup. The problem with paying up at captain is that it limits the salary you have for your flex spots so we’re going to have to be strategic. Using one of the quarterbacks here would force you to use several low salary dart throws, and since I’m looking to play a 50/50 contest and double up, Id like a safer floor.
Any time you get Tom Brady in a nationally televised game he’s always a favorite play. Same goes for when you get Jalen Hurts against a banged-up defense. Tampa Bay also has three wide receivers that are all capable of multi-TD games on any given week. I’m going to be a little different with this build and go down a bit to use Leonard Fournette as my captain this week. Fournette has clearly taken over the Tampa backfield and has looked explosive with his opportunities. Tampa was pass heavy last week and Fournette still scored 21 fantasy points on his 16 touches and scored a touchdown. He also had a nice 23 touch game the week before where he totaled 139 combined yards. Tom Brady is dealing with a thumb injury on his throwing hand that he will be playing through, but he will be in some discomfort. Tampa should have a more balanced approach this week to lighten Brady’s load and Fournette should get plenty of opportunities against a defense who ranks in the bottom fourth in the league in fantasy points allowed to running backs. Fournette should get decent volume, find the endzone, and be a good option at captain to free up some salary for some good flex plays.
Flex Spots with high salaries
There are a lot of good options here in this game that should have plenty of scoring. Although Tom Brady is dealing with the thumb issue, he will still be able to find success against a middling Philly secondary. Tampa has run the most pass plays in the league, and even if they scale it back a bit to protect Brady’s thumb, he should still throw for multiple touchdowns. On the other side, Jalen Hurts is a true dual threat quarterback that is great for fantasy football. Even in Philadelphia’s worst game where they only scored 11 points against San Francisco, Hurts scored nearly 22 fantasy points in his lowest output of the season. Tampa Bay is dealing with some injuries on the defensive side of the ball and will be without the linebacker and safety who would have been key to spying Hurts on his escapes from the pocket. Running backs can’t do much against Tampa, so it should be the Hurts show and Ill be getting him in my lineup.
Tampa Bay has three wide receivers that can be used any given week. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Antonio Brown have all shown that they can be trusted in your lineups. Godwin and Evans have both received over 40 targets and are on the field for nearly all of the Tampa Bay offensive plays. Brown is boom-or-bust, but he has shown us his ability to have multiple touchdown games like we saw last week. With Rob Gronkowski out again this week, these three will be getting most of the receiving work in this game. Use two of them if you can, but certainly use at least one of them. On the Philly side, DeVonta Smith is the top target for Hurts and has received 18 targets over the past two weeks. He can be played here, but I like the Tampa wide receiver weapons better.
Flex Spots with value
The pass catcher on Philadelphia that I want to use in this contest is one with a value salary, Zach Ertz. Fellow tight end Dallas Goedert is on the Covid-19 list and likely to miss this game which should lead to an increase in targets for Ertz. Ertz has averaged 7 targets a game over the past 3 weeks and Hurts does look his way frequently in the red zone. With Philly having to throw more this game, and no Goedert to compete with, Ertz can catch 5-8 balls and find the end zone in this one.
I did also mention that Tampa will be without their top tight end so someone will have to fill that void. Both Cameron Brate and OJ Howard have been doing so the past few weeks, but last week we saw Howard out-snap and out-target Brate. Brate has a $4,800 salary on DraftKings while Howard is down at $1,400. Ill take the significant discount on Howard and use him as my value dart throw option.
Other value options to consider would be Jalen Reagor, Quez Watkins and the Tampa Defense. Reagor and Watkins have shown that their production is too inconsistent for me to trust. Tampa does have a good defense, and the cornerbacks are getting healthier, but without Lavonte David and Antoine Winfield this week they are harder to trust, especially against a good quarterback in Hurts.
Final Build Thoughts
I decided I wanted to get both quarterbacks in my lineup, so I put them both in flex spots to start my build. I like Ertz a lot this week, so I added him in to a flex spot as well. I tried building with a Tampa wide receiver in the captain but even with using OJ Howard I was unable to get Fournette in the lineup. I switched Fournette into the captain spot, added Howard to a flex spot and was able to afford Godwin as my final flex play. With Brady dealing with the thumb injury, having Howard and Godwin in the lineup feels good for me since they are the ones who will run most of the short and intermediate routes for him in the middle of the field.
Week 5 Thursday Night Football Showdown Style Lineup
Captain – Leonard Fournette
Flex – Tom Brady
Flex – Jalen Hurts
Flex – Chris Godwin
Flex – Zach Ertz
Flex – OJ Howard
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