NFL DFS - 2020 Conference Championship
Well here we are! The Final Four version for the NFL! If you don't have a Pro Bowl level QB, you don't belong at this level! Josh Allen is the newcomer to this party who is no slouch. Something tells me that he will be a regular when it comes to the conference championship. The other three QBs (Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, and Patrick Mahomes) are no strangers to the conference championship. Check out these combined stats.
- 22 conference championship appearances
- 11 Super Bowl appearances
- 8 Super Bowl victories
- 6 Super Bowl MVP awards
- 6 NFL regular season MVP awards
Of course most of those accolades belong to Brady but Rodgers and Mahomes have knocked on the door to the Super Bowl often lately. Both have the home field advantage so will they bust down the door again for a trip to Tampa Bay for Super Bowl LV or will Brady make his 10th trip to the big game and become the first QB to play a Super Bowl in his home stadium? Or will Allen, the new kid on the block, make a household name for himself and finally get Buffalo its first Super Bowl win after 4 straight years of heartbreak from 1990 - 1993. However you slice and dice this, we will be getting some awesome story lines once the dust settles today.
If you have read my NFL DFS articles this season, you know I love me some Mahomes and even with a recent concussion and toe injury, I will go back to the well with MA-HOMIE. Get it? LOL!
Here is the output from my NFL QB DFS model and while we are at it, my output for my NFL DFS RB model is also displayed.
Again, Mahomes is the top QB based on projected DraftKings (DK) points. He is also the best value when dividing his projected DK points by his DK salary (per $1000). He is also projected to get close to 40 pass attempts and when he does, he goes off. This time, I am going to be smart with my KC stack: get both Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce in there. Sure, someone else on KC could score such as Mecole Hardman, Demarcus Robinson, Clyde Edwards-Helaire (CEH), or Darrell Williams but KC has gotten this far and has had so much success the last 3 years thanks to 4 men: Mahomes, Hill, Kelce, and of course KC head coach Andy Reid. This is a juggernaut of an offense and seems poised to repeat as Super Bowl champions. You have a QB who has a rifle for an arm and is quite mobile. You have a WR who has blazing speed. You have a TE who is incredibly hard to take down. Never before we have seen such an awesome blend of power and speed with a team's top 2 pass catchers and a QB as balanced as Mahomes. Mahomes can beat you with his arm or legs. He can improvise well and get the ball out of his hands quickly. The Buffalo defense is OK but nothing special. You pay for quality and the KC stack is the best quality out there.
As for RB, it's kind of slim pickings. Devin Singletary will be chalk and you have to eat it. The Chiefs run defense is quite weak and Singletary will garner a huge share of the RB carries as well as play a high percentage of snaps. On DK, I love Aaron Jones. His price is not too prohibitive and the Packers will lean on him, win, lose, or draw. When the Packers were crushed in the NFC title game last year, Jones still scored 2 TDs and had 17 touches good for 83 total yards. You could pay up for Davante Adams on DK but what if he doesn't see the end zone? Even a 9 catch, 130 yard game (something he did last year in the NFC Championship) doesn't quite get us the value we need to take down a GPP. Jones could get us a 4x day at a salary of $6500 on DK. However, on FanDuel (FD), I will steer clear of Jones. This time, his salary is prohibitive. In that case, I like CEH or Williams to replace him and FLEX either one. That way you can react right before kickoff of the AFC title game since CEH is a game time decision. Lastly, you need to go with Leonard Fournette. Bruce Arians has ridden him hard in the last 2 playoff games and there is no reason to go away from that. Like the Chiefs, the Packers run D is weak and a power back like Fournette should be able to put up strong numbers.
We are almost set with our lineup with a KC stack and our 3 RBs. To finish off things, I like Josh Brown and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. They are cheap and have the advanced metrics on their side. Both have a high aDOT and get a lot of air yards. You just need 1 big play from each of them to reach the promised land in the DFS world. That leaves us with just enough money for the Tampa Bay defense. My model loves them and I know it's risky to play them against a prolific offense like Green Bay but the Bucs have a high rated defense based on DVOA from Football Outsiders. They also don't rely on one player like the Rams did with Aaron Donald (who was hurt but such news was not highly publicized).
My sample lineups for both DK and FD are shown below. Good luck and I will have elaborate analysis for the Super Bowl later this week and next week.
