I don’t know what got into the NFL but the Week 10 scheduling of the “stand alone games” is truly offensive to people with eyeballs. We had the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers play to a 16-13 game on Thursday night. Sunday morning the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts played in Germany a week after the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins struggled offensively out there. For this Sunday night matchup I have to attempt to do a deep dive into the New York Jets and Las Vegas Raiders. And on Monday we have the Denver Broncos visiting the Buffalo Bills. This week is a big bucket of suck. I’ve thrown up in my mouth a little just looking at it. Sunday night sees the New York Jets head to West to face the Raiders. We have a low implied total and some horrendous quarterback play at our disposal. But there’s still money to be made and an edge to gain! Let’s take a look at how to approach Sunday night’s matchup and start constructing our NFL DFS Showdown lineups!

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New York Jets at Las Vegas Raiders

Spread: New York Jets (-1); You can basically consider this game a pick ‘em.

Over/Under: 36.5 Points

Weather: This game will be played in a controlled environment.

Notable Injuries

New York Jets

Las Vegas Raiders

NFL DFS MVP/Captain

Breece Hall, RB, New York Jets

Kind of a disappointing performance last Sunday against the Chargers, right? 16 carries for 50 yards but at least he caught all four of his targets but only turned them into 10 receiving yards. The matchup is a little better this week even if the Jets are on the road. Over the last four games for the Raiders, opposing running backs have caught 21 passes out of the backfield and the Raiders surrender the fourth-most fantasy points to the position in full PPR formats. They’ve also allowed six touchdowns on the ground to running backs in their last five games. Hall’s touching the ball, on average, over 20 times per game over his last four outings since being unleashed by Robert Salah and it’s a good matchup for him to pop off.

Josh Jacobs, RB, Las Vegas Raiders

He’s going to touch the ball a ton. With an inexperienced rookie quarterback under center going against a very good defense, I imagine the Raiders lean heavily on their running game. As good as the Jets defense is, we’ve seen plenty of running backs have success against them. Last week, Austin Ekeler wasn’t efficient, but he found the end zone twice on the ground. Saquan Barkley carried the ball 36 times against this defense two weeks ago and racked up over 130 rushing yards. D’Andre Swift caught eight passes for 40 yards and a score three weeks ago, and even Jaleel McLaughlin racked up 89 total yards on a dozen touches while finding the end zone. He logged a 78% snap rate last week which was second-most among running backs and you have to imagine the Raiders feed him plenty to avoid turning the ball over against the Jets secondary. If you can still find his rush attempts total at 16.5 I’d definitely suggest taking the over.

Garrett Wilson, WR, New York Jets

We all know his quarterback is horrendous, but Garrett Wilson gets fed targets every single week. He has roughly a 45% first-read target share which leads the league. In comparison, A.J. Brown is second at about 41.6%. Wilson has at least seven receptions in four of his last five games with 59 total targets in that span. If there’s a non-running back that I want exposure to at Captain for tonight’s game it’s going to be Wilson. The Raiders secondary looks to put up good numbers against opposing wide receivers, but it’s typically because teams can run the ball down their throats and they don’t need risk throwing the ball too much. I still imagine Wilson is leaned on heavily in this matchup and will once again be Zach Wilson’s favorite target.

Mid-Tier & DFS Value Plays

Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers, WR, Las Vegas Raiders

I’m going to lump these two togethers because they’re both pricy and it may surprise some of you that I’m not recommending them at Captain. We saw a week ago how it plays out with wide receivers against this Jets secondary. Keenan Allen finished with eight receptions for 77 yards. That’s a decent stat line against this secondary. But Allen lines up in the slot around 65% of the time. Adams and Meyers are almost exclusively lining up out wide which means they likely see coverage from Sauce Gardner and D.J. Reed. Per Mike Clay of ESPN, only three wide receivers have exceeded 11.0 fantasy points against this secondary: Keenan Allen (last week), CeeDee Lamb (Week 2), and A.J. Brown (Week 6). Truthfully, I don’t have as much faith in Adams or Meyers popping off and breaking the slate at Captain with Aidan O’Connell under center. As always, it’s a decision you don’t need to agree with. But I’m just reading the tea leaves over here, folks.

Zach Wilson, QB, New York Jets

I personally don’t love either quarterback in this game. But if playing Garrett Wilson at Captain, I think it’s okay to correlate the play with Zach Wilson in the flex. I have very little interest in Aidan O’Connell. Last week he attempted just 25 pass attempts and if the passing volume is that low for this game, he’s an expensive option that won’t make the optimal lineup. But I mostly want to play Wilson if I’m going with Garrett at Captain. Wilson attempted 49 passes last week and still only managed 9.22 fantasy points on DraftKings. So even if the volume is there, the production might not be. He’s incredibly turnover prone having lost four fumbles in the last two weeks so tread carefully. I don’t even think it’s too bold to suggest fading both quarterbacks across the board overall.

Allen Lazard, WR, New York Jets

I probably won’t land on this play too much because I’ll be allocating so much salary to try and squeeze all three Captain candidates into all of my lineups and chase that volume. Last week Lazard carried an injury designation into Monday night’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers. That isn’t the case this week. He’s not having any knee issues and he’s just $6,600 on DraftKings. He doesn’t command the target share that Garrett Wilson does but when he’s healthy, he’s on the field plenty and maybe gets six targets as we’ve seen each of the last two weeks. But be mindful, he only has five catches over that two-weeks span and has gone over 50 receiving yards just once all season.

Tyler Conklin, TE, New York Jets

He’s a cheaper and possibly more stable play than Allen Lazard. The Raiders defense has only allowed three touchdowns to opposing tight ends all year and only one of those have come since Week 4. Overall, the Raiders don’t bleed a ton of production to the tight end position, but they’ve allowed opposing TE’s to catch 46 passes in nine games this season. That’s about five per game and Conklin dominated the snap share among tight ends for the Jets last week and he caught all six of his targets. We’re seeing a massive price jump on Conklin as well going from $3,000 as a flex play last week to $5,200 Sunday night. Normally he isn’t worth that price on a Showdown slate, but in a game as ugly as this, I’m willing to get exposure and hope for the best.

Defenses/Special Teams and Kickers

You get the sense that at least one D/ST is likely in the optimal lineup while a kicker would make sense as well. With an implied total of 36.5 points, we might be looking at kickers putting up points and defenses getting sacks and turnovers like they’re shopping at Costco.

I’ll start with Daniel Carlson ($5,000) in order of pricing on DraftKings. In four of his last five games he has at least three field goal attempts. We love seeing that. This offense likely moves the ball between the 20’s but probably struggles in the red zone with a rookie quarterback. Cameron Dicker put up 11 fantasy points against the Jets last week and he has a better offense. The Jets D/ST has seen opposing kickers take 23 field goal attempts in eight games. That’s just under three per game. That’s good volume with Carlson and we prefer field goals over extra points, but the offense is a large concern and unfortunately his opportunities are dependent on the offense getting him in position.

The Las Vegas Raiders D/ST ($4,600) is more expensive than the Jets which is somewhat surprising but at the same time the Raiders have put up at least nine fantasy points in four of their last five games. They’re allowing roughly 17 points per game to opposing offenses in that span and we know the Jets could struggle to score here unless they feed Breece Hall. 33% of their sacks came last week against the New York Giants and they’ve been forcing more turnovers of late. With Zach Wilson struggling with turnovers, especially with four lost fumbles the last two weeks, the Raiders will likely be popular.

Greg Zuerlein ($4,400) has provided a solid floor in his last four games with at least seven fantasy points in each outing including 47 fantasy points total in that span. The Raiders have been tough on opposing kickers at times this year, but that’s more of an indictment on the state of the offenses they’ve faced. We know Zuerlein can drill from deep but only two kickers all year have gone for double-digit fantasy points against the Raiders. Similar to Carlson, Zuerlein is also dependent on his offense getting him into position to kick some field goals.

The New York Jets ($4,200) are the exact same price they were on Monday against the Chargers where they returned only five fantasy points. This is a bit of an odd group. They don’t force as many turnovers, but teams also know not to throw towards Sauce Gardner’s side of the field and D.J. Reed is a formidable defensive back as well. They haven’t forced a turnover in their last two games and they also have four games this year with zero takeaways. They can definitely get to the quarterback but if both teams go run-heavy in this game we won’t see many sacks or chances for an interception. But we still have two bad quarterbacks at the helm that could very well be disastrous plays and both defenses could reap heavy rewards.

NFL DFS Dart Throw Bargains

Michael Mayer, TE, Las Vegas Raiders

Looks like we’re still waiting on Mayer to become a thing. Since his solid performance in Week 6 against the New England Patriots, we’ve seen Mayer really struggle to find his footing in this offense. He has just three receptions on four targets over his last two games. And it’s odd because normally rookie quarterbacks utilize the safety net of short passes over the middle to their tight ends. O’Connell’s volume is low, but it’s still surprising Mayer hasn’t done much. With that said, you can consider Ameer Abdullah ($3,000) and/or Zamir White ($2,000) as cheaper pivots if you don’t like how well the Jets have defended the tight end position lately (eight receptions for 64 yards across their last three games).

Michael Carter, RB, New York Jets

I need some help here. I understand most depth charts have Dalvin Cook ($4,000) ahead of Carter. But Carter, as a value play last week, caught all six of his targets. Moreover, Cook was $1,400 in the Showdown slate just six days ago and now he’s up to $4,000 after failing to reach THREE fantasy points on DraftKings in five straight games. I don’t get it. So while Cook has shown he’s not worth paying anything for, I’m interested in Carter at nearly half the cost who could get some work in the passing game.

Hunter Renfrow, WR, Las Vegas Raiders

He is cheap at just $1,000 as a flex option on DraftKings and he has at least two receptions in three straight games and possibly works his way back into a regular role now that Josh McDaniels is out of town. I know I mostly spoke up about how I don’t really like Davante Adams or Jakobi Meyers in this matchup. As a very cheap paydown, I can make the exception for Renfrow. He lines up mostly in the slot and likely sees coverage from Michael Carter II. We saw Keenan Allen have a productive game against Carter last week. I’m not expecting a similar stat line for Renfrow, but if there’s a pass catching position that can succeed against this defense, it’s whoever lines up in the slot.

C.J. Uzomah, TE, New York Jets

I’m going to also include Austin Hooper ($600) as well. Because both players are cheap tight ends, under $1,000, that likely see a few targets no matter what. Uzomah didn’t run as many routes as Tyler Conklin did last week, but Uzomah still had five targets but finished with just two receptions for 11 yards. Hooper, in comparison, likely won’t see five targets. Hey, he might not even get three. But he has good hands and has caught all nine of his targets in the team’s last five games. Now that’s low volume, sure, but when we get into this range we’ll take any sort of production we can find.