Getty Saquon Barkley of the New York Giants
DraftKings NFL $1.11M Monday Night Showdown is open for entry now. The contest will feature two NFC East division rivals, as the Dallas Cowboys travel to New York to face off with the Giants.
The first place prize winner of the DraftKings MNF Showdown will receive a hefty $250K payout. Let’s see how to optimize our lineups below.
Rules & Scoring:
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- Six total players (one captain, five flex players)
- Captain selection cost 1.5x standard salary
- Captain scores 1.5x fantasy point values
- Can choose from any position (QB, RB, WR, TE, K, DST)
- You can use as many players at the same position as you’d like
- $50,000 salary cap
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Roster Construction
- Captain: Golden Tate $10,200
- FLEX: Ezekiel Elliott $11,600
- FLEX: Dak Prescott $10,400
- FLEX: Daniel Jones $8,000
- FLEX: Darius Slayton $5,000
- FLEX: Randall Cobb $4,800
Why this Lineup?
Since Sterling Shepard has gone down with injury, Golden Tate has been the ninth-highest scoring fantasy player at his position with 17.6 points per game. We’re plugging Tate into our Captain slot due to the abundance of consistent volume, matched with a favorable price tag. Tate has hauled in at least six receptions for a minimum of 80 receiving yards in each of his last three games.
Dallas has finally begun to feed Ezekiel Elliott a proper workload, and he’s responded in a huge way. Over his last two games, Elliott has averaged 25 rushing attempts. During that timespan, Zeke has racked up 26.5 fantasy points per game average, the most by any player at his position.
Dak Prescott was the fourth-highest scoring quarterback prior to his bye one week ago, with nearly 23 points per game. In fact, if you eliminate the single dud performance of the season back in Week 4 from his resume, that average jumps up to 26+ points. Speaking of that performance, that matchup is the lone game that Prescott has scored below 18.22 points in 2019. Dak also enjoyed his best fantasy performance this year back in Week 1, against, you guessed it, the New York Giants, putting up 36+ points.
It’s not often that you can grab a starting quarterback for $8,000, let alone one who led all players at his position in fantasy points the week prior. However, that’s exactly the case for Daniel Jones. While I don’t expect another 30+ point outing by the Giants rookie signal-caller on Monday night, he has averaged 22.12 in five of his six starts this season. An output close to that would be more than enough for his price tag.
Sterling Shepard is back in concussion protocol. This means Darius Slayton will once again play a major role within the Giants offense. Slayton is coming off a two-touchdown performance one week ago, and has now averaged six targets in three of his last four games. Receivers to see at least six targets against the Cowboys in each of the last two weeks have averaged 19.65 DK fantasy points.
Randall Cobb may not be the player he once was, but by seeing six targets in three of his last four games, and carrying a salary below $5,000, he’s exactly what we need to fill out our Showdown lineup. The Giants surrender the third-most fantasy points to opposing wide receivers this season. That statistic includes 17.5 points to Lions slot-receiver Danny Amendola one week ago, the same position that Cobb has seen 81.7 of his snaps come from this season.
Final Thoughts & Obvious Omissions
The salaries for tonight’s showdown are as top-heavy as they’ve been all season, with four players all owning $10,000 price tag or higher, while only one of those players is a quarterback. Those numbers made it nearly impossible to combine Ezekiel Elliott and Saquon Barkley in the same lineup and still round it out with anything but numerous flyers.
Reminder, the game kicks off tonight at 8:15 pm ET. Be sure to set your lineups, and good luck!
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