NFL Thanksgiving DFS picks are extremely popular, as casual players who don’t regularly play come to the table for a little bit of holiday action.
Think about it: People are with family and friends watching the games, so why not throw a few lineups together for an NFL Thanksgiving DFS sweat?
Below are my top NFL Thanksgiving DFS picks, including core plays, sleepers, stacks, and more to consider for Thursday’s three-game slate.
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Note: DVOA data is via FTN. All other data is via PFF, unless otherwise noted.
Core Plays
QB Caleb Williams $5,300: Williams and the entire Bears passing game has been much better under new offensive coordinator Thomas Brown. Last week against Minnesota’s No. 2 pass DVOA defense, Williams completed 32-of-47 passes for 340 yards with 2 TDs and no interceptions. He also has a newfound rushing floor under Brown, posting nine carries for 70 yards and six carries for 33 yards in the two games under Brown after averaging 4.4 totes for 26.2 yards per contest under Shane Waldron. I have Williams projected to outscore Tua Tagovailoa and come within tenths of a point of the slate’s top two QBs, Jordan Love and Jared Goff.
RB De’Von Achane $7,700: In Tagovailoa’s seven starts, Achane is averaging 19 touches for 106.6 scrimmage yards and 1.14 TDs. The Packers are 20th in YPC allowed to RBs (4.47) and give up the ninth-most receiving yardage per game to RBs (37.9).
RB Josh Jacobs $7,000: Jacobs is on a four-game streak of 100-plus scrimmage yards and a seven-game streak of 90-plus. He has 100-plus scrimmage yards and/or a TD in each of his last five and 8-of-11 overall. The Dolphins are tied for the fourth-most total TDs allowed per game to RBs (1.17).
RB Rico Dowdle $5,500: Dowdle has become the Cowboys‘ clear lead back, logging 22 touches for 98 yards last week. He faces a Giants defense allowing a league-high 5.08 yards per carry to opposing running backs. With his team favored at home, he should benefit from positive game script. His stat lines in the last three Cowboys wins: 22-98-0, 22-114-1, and 12-61-1.
WR CeeDee Lamb $7,300: Lamb has caught at least six passes in all three of Cooper Rush’s starts, with stat lines of 8-93-0 and 10-67-0 over the last two. He has posted double-digit DK points in 9-of-11 games and should continue to produce against a Giants defense ranked last in DVOA on targets to the opposition’s No. 1 receiver.
WR Keenan Allen $5,100: Allen is coming off a season-best 9-86-1 line against Minnesota and is being deployed more intelligently under Brown than he was under Waldron. Allen leads the Bears by a wide margin in targets per route against man coverage (27.2%) and should stay hot against a Lions defense that plays man at the highest rate in the NFL.
WR Dontayvion Wicks $4,200: Wicks is expected to step into a larger role with Romeo Doubs in concussion protocol. Wicks leads the Packers with a 25.7% target rate per route but has been in on only 50% of the dropbacks per game. His route rate peaked at 83% when Doubs missed Week 5.
TE Jonnu Smith $4,300: Smith has 15 catches for 188 yards and 3 TDs over his past two games. Since Week 5, he is averaging 5.6 catches for 65.3 yards and 0.57 TDs per game. He has a good shot at raising those averages against a Packers defense ranked 30th in DVOA on passes to TEs.
Dallas Cowboys D/ST $3,100: The Giants have the second-lowest Vegas implied total on the slate (16.75) and a QB who plays like he’s getting paid per sack. Tommy DeVito’s career sack rate is a blasphemous 16.4%, meaning he gets sacked once every 5.1 pass attempts. The Giants’ offensive line is once again in shambles with left tackle Andrew Thomas (foot) on IR and replacement left tackle Jermaine Eluemunor (quad) looking iffy after failing to practice Monday and Tuesday. In DeVito’s last start against Dallas, he took five sacks and threw a pick while passing for just 86 yards on 27 attempts in a 49-17 loss.
Sleepers
RB Raheem Mostert $4,700: Over the past two games, Mostert has six touches for precisely zero yards. But four of those touches came inside the 10. There’s a world in which Mostert goose-eggs, but there’s also a world in which he scores multiple TDs. He also may be worked back into the non-goal-line RB rotation after rookie Jaylen Wright fumble-sixed when the Dolphins were in clock-killing mode last week. After Wright’s fumble, he did not see another carry, and Mostert got his only non-goal-line carry.
WR Tim Patrick $3,500: Patrick has seven catches for 82 yards across his last two games, with a red zone target in each. The Bears are a zone-heavy defense, which maximizes Patrick’s odds of being productive on Thursday afternoon. He has a 16.7% target rate and 1.72 yards per route run against zone compared to 6.8% and 1.45 against man.
WR Bo Melton $3,100: Melton has 42 air yards in each of the last two games he’s gotten on the field on offense (last week against San Francisco and Week 9 against Detroit). His aDOT on the year is 19.8. He also has six carries for 39 yards on the year, including two 16-yarders. He played 23 snaps and ran eight pass routes last week and should see an uptick in playing time with Doubs in concussion protocol. Malik Heath’s 2-15-1 line will probably divert ownership away from Melton, but Heath’s production came on just four pass routes, and his 15 total snaps were eighth fewer than Melton.
WR Jalin Hyatt $3,200: Hyatt played extensively in the second half of last week’s 30-7 blowout loss to Tampa Bay and ended up logging more pass snaps (24) than Darius Slayton (22). Hyatt’s aDOT is 20.7 and five of his 12 targets have been 20-plus yards downfield. He’s still looking for his first NFL TD and has missed connections of 53, 43, and 32 yards downfield this year. He’s a bust, but at some point he’ll probably catch a 50-yard TD and break a slate.
WR Malik Washington $3,000: The speedy rookie third-round pick out of Virginia is now regularly getting schemed touches drawn up for him. Over the past three games, he has seen seven targets – most of which have come behind the line of scrimmage in hopes of popping a big play – as well as four carries, one of which went for an 18-yard TD against the Rams.
TE Brevyn Spann-Ford $2,700: Spann-Ford’s 16 routes run last week were only four fewer than Luke Schoonmaker, and his 40 routes run over the past two weeks are not far behind Schoonmaker’s 51. Spann-Ford has caught 6-of-7 targets for 68 yards over that span, and unlike Schoonmaker, he has seen targets inside the red zone (2) and 10-yard-line (1) this season.
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Stacks
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QB Caleb Williams-WR Rome Odunze: The Lions play the highest rate of man coverage, and Odunze leads the Bears in receiving yardage (154), yards per route (1.27), and aDOT (15.4) versus man.
RB Jahmyr Gibbs-RB David Montgomery: Gibbs and Montgomery have both scored at least one TD in the same game five times. Crucially, in three of those games, they combined to account for more TDs than Goff. Last week against the Colts, they accounted for all three of the Lions TDs while Goff had none. Given that the Bears are 10th in DVOA against the pass but 30th versus the run, and given Goff’s past struggles against them, this could be a spot where the Sonic and Knuckles backfield hogs most of Detroit’s offensive production.
RB D’Andre Swift-D/ST Chicago Bears: The Bears’ defense gave Goff all kinds of trouble last season, picking him off five times and sacking him six times in the two matchups, the latter of which resulted in a 28-13 Bears upset. Swift has 20-plus DK points in each of the Bears’ last three wins. He’s averaging 108.8 scrimmage yards and 0.75 TDs in Bears wins compared to 72.7 scrimmage yards and 0.29 TDs in Bears losses.
QB Jared Goff-WR Jameson Williams: Williams has played nine games, and four of them have seen him and Goff connect on a long TD, with distances of 52, 70, 37, and 64. This is a good matchup for Williams against a Bears defense that ranks 26th in deep-pass DVOA (45.2%) and 31st in DVOA against WR2s (48.4%).
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RB Rico Dowdle-D/ST Dallas Cowboys-WR Malik Nabers: DeVito will probably be more popular than he should be since he’s the cheapest QB, so I’ll be looking to create Nabers stacks that fade DeVito in case he gets benched, knocked out of the game, or simply gets outscored by the Cowboys D/ST even with Nabers posting big numbers in extended garbage time.
RB Tyrone Tracy Jr.-QB Cooper Rush-WR CeeDee Lamb: The Giants’ best path to victory may be to try and replicate what the Texans did with Joe Mixon (20 carries, 109 yards, 3 TDs) with Tracy. That was a game in which Rush ended up throwing 55 times for 354 yards with Lamb catching 8-of-12 targets for 93 yards.
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QB Tua Tagovailoa-RB De’Von Achane: Tagovailoa’s five TD passes to Achane are more than he’s thrown to any other receiver, but Tagovailoa-Achane will likely be a less popular stack than Tagovailoa-Hill (3), Tagovailoa-Waddle (2), or Tagovailoa-Smith (3).
QB Jordan Love-WR Jayden Reed: Although he plays from the slot, Reed has been the Packers’ most efficient deep-ball receiver. He has caught 9-of-10 deep targets for 376 yards and a TD this season and 19-of-29 for 705 yards and four TDs over the past two seasons. The Dolphins rank fifth-worst in defensive deep-pass DVOA (48.4%). Reed’s issue has been snaps, as he tends to only play in 11 personnel, but he logged a season-high 90% route rate with Doubs out in Week 5.
WR Tyreek Hill-RB Josh Jacobs: All eight of Jacobs’ TDs have come in Packers wins, and 57.1% of Hill’s receiving yards come when trailing – more than Achane, (48.0%), Waddle (42.9%), and Smith (34.2%).