In Thursday’s featured Showdown, the Carolina Panthers visit the Houston Texans as eight-point favorites. For a breakdown of this game, check out Rich Hribar’s Fantasy Football Worksheet.
The Panthers have been playing well and the Texans have overperformed as a bottom-tier team but are missing their starting QB, Tyrod Taylor. In these situations, the field generally defaults to 4–2 and 5–1 onslaughts of the favored team. I expect that continues as it is hard to get excited about most of the Texans roster in general, let alone when led by a third-round rookie, Davis Mills.
Building with three or four Texans will certainly differentiate your lineups. In games where one team is such a big favorite, I like the idea of building for alternate game scripts, where the game is much closer than expected or the underdog pulls off an unlikely upset. I will update with further strategy once ownership projections are available.
(Injury Update: Danny Amendola ruled out)
(Updated) Roster Strategy:
Christian McCaffrey will dominate exposure, expected to be rostered 29-39% in CPT and approaching 90% overall. Projections differ on whether Sam Darnold or D.J. Moore will be next in CPT popularity, but the former is expected to be rostered more in the flex. Mills, Brandon Cooks, Robby Anderson, and Terrace Marshall Jr. are clustered closely nearby, and there is a huge drop-off from there. There is a small chance CMC doesn't appear in the optimal roster, though very unlikely. We just saw Lamar Jackson miss in a similarly chalky spot. I don't see a need to fade him or go underweight, but it is important to find ways to ensure differentiation in your CMC lineups. I think the logical way to do so will be mixing in these dirt-cheap Texans' WRs, and I wouldn't be surprised if their exposure is more than expected. Perhaps what is keeping it suppressed is that there are so many to choose from, so it could be spread out between them without any of them approaching over-rostered territory.
Aside from CMC, RBs appear to be contrarian in this slate. A potential build rule for exactly one of Mark Ingram, David Johnson, Phillip Lindsay, or Chubba Hubbard would certainly differentiate your lineups. If you took that a step further and made a lineup with two of them and no CMC, you'd have a strong chance at having a completely unique lineup. A strategy I like for this game is to go overweight on Panthers' WRs or Darnold at CPT. I like going underweight on Mills in his first start against the league's top defense in this short two-week sample, and wouldn't mind fading him entirely. The Panthers DST makes sense at FLEX, but the ($6,200) salary makes it tough to imagine them as the optimal CPT. This could be a rare situation where 2-4 pass-catchers from the Texans end up in optimal lineup without their QB, just due to how low their salary is. Optimizers might be jamming them in at a high rate though, so be sure to use build rules that you're happy with your exposure to the Texans passing game.
- Texans' WRs Roberts/Miller/Conley ($600-1,600) – Very underpriced
- Pharaoh Brown ($2,600) – Projected TE1 for Texans
- Terrace Marshall Jr. ($4,000) – Similar to Anderson at a huge discount
DK Leverage
- Phillip Lindsay ($5,800) – projecting as Texans’ RB3
- Robby Anderson ($6,400)
DK Build Ideas
- Max 1 DST, Max 1 K
- Max 2 Panthers' WRs
- Max 1 TE per team
- Max 1 of Ingram/DJ/Lindsay/Hubbard (Or exactly 1 for differentiation)
- If CPT QB, boost pass-catchers or consider forcing stacks
- If CPT RB, negative boost same team RB opposing DST/K
- If CPT WR/TE boost or force QB
- Cumulative ownership under 250%
- Use ownership product to reduce duplicates (Pairing chalk with low-owned players is superior to using all medium-owned players paired together when considering similar cumulative ownership).
FD Values
- Pharaoh Brown ($5,500)
- Terrace Marshall Jr. ($8,500)
FD Leverage
- Mark Ingram ($11,000) – Overpriced leader in 3 RB committee
- Any other non-McCaffrey RB
FD Build Guide
- No K or TE at MVP
- Focus on 3-2 build construction
- No solo CPT in 1-4 construction
- Negative boost opposing QBs (Lineups with both only win 30%)
- If WR CPT, boost QB
- QB is overused at MVP while RB and WR are underutilized at MVP
- Don’t stack 3 pass catchers from the same team
- Don’t force the max salary
For more optimizer build rules to consider, check out the list for each DK and FD here.