Getty Gallery: 1/5
With Monday Night Football wrapped, it means fantasy football players are locked in on what lies ahead. First up, of course, is Thursday Night Football and the always-exciting DraftKings showdown games. While a game between the New York Jets and Cleveland Browns may not move the needle a ton of the generic NFL fan, the daily fantasy football options for this one have my attention.
It's almost consistent at this point that Thursday Night Football doesn't offer overly-exciting matchups, which is why we're all thankful for showdown games. This week, DraftKings has upped the offering, rolling out a $10 game which features $1 million guaranteed and $250,000 to first place.
If you're more of a single entry, three-max, or higher-dollar player, they have you covered as well. There's a $180 game with $50,000 guaranteed, a $12 single entry with $25,000 guaranteed and plenty of other options.
With the site offering such a wide range of options, I'm going to offer a few different optimal lineups. There will be two optimal lineups, a single entry/cash lineup, and a 150-max lineup. The two optimal lines will simply offer two different ways to approach my favorite plays while the single entry is safer and features player with higher floors and the 150-max game includes more risk.
Before we dive into the lineups, let's first break down how showdown games work and offer some insight to the strategy behind building these lineups.
DraftKings Showdown Rules and Strategy
– Six total players (one captain, five flex players)
– Captain selection costs 1.5 times standard salary but scores 1.5 times the standard points
– Can choose from any position (QB, RB, WR, TE, K, DST)
– $50,000 salary cap
– You can use more than one quarterback
When building showdown lineups, filling out just six spots means that games which allow players to enter up to 150 teams wind up with a lot of ties. In turn, you'll need to differentiate your builds by either adding a player expected to have low ownership or getting unique with your captain spot.
The captain spot is key, as the 1.5x bonus can add up, even if you wind up adding a defense or kicker in the spot. Which player(s) you choose to focus on as captains will largely depend on the actual NFL game itself and how you believe game-flow will go.
As for the single entry games fantasy games, this is a spot for you to use more of the top plays and worry a bit less about ownership. I'd still recommend adding one or two plays to make your lineup different, but you can play it safer with the bulk of the choices.
Finally, the optimal lineups I offer are a mixture. They can be played in single entries and 150-max games, as I do my best to make them unique. With that said, it's important to note there is a lot of variance in these games, and one touchdown can literally jump you from being near the top of the leaderboard to barely cashing, and vice-versa.
Let's kick things off with the first optimal lineup, featuring a few of my favorite plays.