FanDuel NFL picks, Conference Championships: DFS fantasy football advice
FanDuel NFL picks and lineup advice for your Conference Championship Round DFS fantasy football lineup.
Our FanDuel NFL DFS advice is here to help your fantasy football needs once again. The NFL Playoffs are a great time to hone your DFS skills with smaller slates and they provide a change of pace from the usual DFS you played during the regular season.
DFS in the Conference Championship Round may be the hardest week of the year, with only two games on the slate, you will have to decide between stuffing your lineups with studs or playing some dart throws and leaving a bunch of salary on the table. The pricing on this particular slate makes this question even harder to answer, as a cheap collection of running backs mixed with stud wide receivers and quarterbacks makes it easy to afford any players you want.
When talking about players I will reference the salaries and salary cap of a typical FanDuel tournament. I will also assume a full roster lineup, which consists of nine positions: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, FLEX, TE, and D/ST. Note that your individual strategy should change based on the type of formats you enter, and I will reference strong plays in cash and tournament formats.
With that in mind, here are my FanDuel DFS picks for the NFL Conference Championship Round!
FanDuel Conference Championship picks: Quarterback
If you are playing in a large field tournament, there is a very strong chance that your lineup will not cash if you play the wrong quarterback. While there is always a strong chance multiple quarterbacks have great games, with so little variation at other positions, your quarterback selection could make or break your lineup. The decision is not an easy one either, with four of the best quarterbacks in the league available on this slate.
Patrick Mahomes ($9,000) is the most expensive quarterback on the slate but is coming into the conference championship questionable with a concussion. However, before leaving the game with a concussion, Mahomes also suffered a toe injury which clearly hindered his mobility in the pocket.
While it is clear Mahomes will not be coming into this game at full health, it is still not advisable to fully fade him and he will likely come in under-owned due to injury uncertainty. However, he is far from the best value on the slate at $9,000 and may end up not even suiting up on Sunday.
Josh Allen ($8,500) is coming off his worst fantasy performance of the year, though it was clear this was due to the strength of the Ravens defense and game flow. If Mahomes is good to go the Bills will likely continue to ignore their run game and get Allen going in a high-scoring shootout.
In the earlier game, Aaron Rodgers ($8,700) is the quarterback of choice. Even though he put a terrible performance in his first matchup this year with the Bucs, the Packers offense and Bucs defense have trended in opposite directions since that game. Since that brutal loss, Rodgers has scored at least three touchdowns in all but one game. This represents a 12-game span where his lowest fantasy score is 18.3 fantasy points.
Though the Bucs have remained formidable against the run, they have become much more susceptible to the pass over the second half of the season. Considering game script, if Rodgers has a field day Brady will likely have to throw a ton to keep pace.
Though I am slightly more concerned about the Packers defense and more confident in Rodgers’ ability, this is offset by Brady’s cheaper price of $7,800. Brady is similarly on a nine-game streak of at least two passing touchdowns and should put up a strong game, though I do not love his chances at finishing as the QB1 on the slate.