The yearly Thanksgiving Day slate is one of my overall favorite DFS slates of the entire year, any sports, and I could not be more excited to sweat with you all on Thursday. I’m going to be deploying the same strategy on both FanDuel and DraftKings, and that will be to lock in all three of Zeke Elliott, Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas. These three guys have the highest raw point projections by far among the skill positions, and it isn’t overly hard to fit in all three. Below I will discuss some of the other players I will be considering in my lineups…
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Josh Allen + Cole Beasley- This is my favorite game on the slate, the total jumped from 44.5 to 47 and this is where I will be finding most of my targets on Thursday. We know that Josh Allen has extremely high-upside every time he takes the field due to his rushing ability, and rostering him becomes even more attractive on a slate with just three games. He’s also projected to be third in ownership after Drew Brees and Dak Prescott, despite having arguably a better matchup that Prescott in the same game. The Cowboys have yet to win a game against a team with a winning record, and while there defense has been solid, I trust Allen much more than Dak in this specific matchup as the Bills completely sell out to stop the pass.
Both John Brown and Cole Beasley are viable stacking partners with Allen, but if I had to choose one it would be Beas both for his price and individual matchup…and narrative street truthers also get the revenge factor as well. Julian Edelman went to work on Dallas in the slot last week for over 90 yards, and Beasley himself has been surprisingly productive in his first year in Buffalo.
Michael Gallup / Randall Cobb- Amari Cooper is slated to be shadowed by Tre White, arguably the best corner in the NFL, so if I’m looking to run back the above stack it’s going to be with Gallup or Cobb. Gallup has a much stronger matchup with Levi Wallace who has been in coverage on four of the seven touchdowns the Bills have allowed through the air this season.
Cobb has been on fire in recent weeks going over 80 yards in each of the last three games — two of which being 100+ yard games and is the cheapest of the Cowboys trio.
Javon Wims / Jesper Horsted- This is by far the ugliest game, especially now that David Blough is starting in place of Jeff Driskel, so if I’m targeting plays here they are more inclined to be cheap ones with low floors, that allow me to jam in the three studs I want. Wims has been an absolute stud in each of the last two preseasons for Chicago, and will be thrust into a bigger role with Taylor Gabriel confirmed out on Thursday. Gabriel missed two games earlier this season resulting in games of 0 fantasy points and 9.6. At minimum-price, he is a good punt play, along with Anthony Miller who was criminally priced under $4K on DraftKings despite the best overall matchup in the slot.
Horsted was someone I discussed on the Tuesday podcast, he’s minimum price on both sites and what does he really need to do at a position with only one option project-able for any reasonable amount of fantasy points. He wasn’t on the field a ton last week, but Ben Braunecker has already been ruled out for this game and Bears GM Ryan Pace sent some optimism Horsted’s way in a Monday press conference saying that he thinks he has “upside.” Horsted tallied over 100 yards and double-digit touchdowns each of his last two seasons at Princeton, and went for 80 yards and score in this years final preseason game.
Jaeden Graham- It looks like the Falcons will be without both Austin Hooper and Luke Stocker for this game, but that is something we need to monitor throughout the day on Thursday. Graham is another cheap, ivy league Tight End who was on the field much more than Horsted in Week 12, making him a little bit safer of a play should both TE’s miss for Atlanta. Graham hauled in one catch for 53 yards last week, and I expect him to be a relatively popular value play at his position on this small of a slate.
Tre’Quan Smith- The cheap Bears are undoubtedly going to be chalk on this slate, so I don’t mind pivoting at all to someone like Smith. He has been seeing more slot time than Ted Ginn in recent weeks, which has been the weakest point of this Falcons secondary this year, and if you remember last Thanksgiving all of Austin Carr, Tommylee Lewis, Dan Arnold and Keith Kirkwood caught touchdowns for the Saints …it’s not out of the question that someone with real-life upside like Smith finds the box.
Before I finish the article, I want to explain how I am playing the Falcons situation…
If Julio Jones is IN — I like Calvin Ridley the most, you can take a shot on Julio but he will not be in my pool personally
If Julio Jones OUT- It’s more likely that Lattimore shadows Ridley (if Lattimore plays) so I would be looking at Russell Gage here
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
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