NFL Daily Plug: Conference Championship

This is the Conference Championship weekend NFL DFS Daily Plug! 

Follow Occupy Fantasy on Twitter for updates through lock. Keep an eye on this page, updates will be made IN BLUE throughout Saturday if anything changes.

For NFL Inactives, visit this link to the NFL.com page - updates roughly 90 minutes before kickoff for each game.

Consider the Plug an in-depth road map for this weekend's Classic and Showdown slates. Let’s get to it!

Want analysis for every player on the slate? Check out the Occupy Model. Want help building lineups? Our Lineup Builder is available now for as little as $4 a week!

Betting Odds:

Biggest Favorites:
Green Bay Packers, -3.5
Kansas City Chiefs, -3

Highest Game Total:
BUF@KC, 54.5
TB@GB, 51

Highest Implied Team Totals:
Kansas City Chiefs, 28.75
Green Bay Packers, 27.25

Lowest Implied Team Totals:
Buffalo Bills, 25.75
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 23.75

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Games To Stack

Both! While that sounds silly, it's an important note for short slates to understand. 

Correlation is most likely to help you climb leaderboards in these DFS environments. Stacking a minimum of 2 players (QB and a skill player) with at least one of their opponents should be the baseline of all your tournament lineups.

Your baseline should be to start with QB-WR1 stacks for all teams, using the opposing WR1 if possible. For example, let’s say you want to stack the Chiefs and the Bills this week. You should start by thinking about the kinds of lineups you can build around Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill together (or Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs on the other side).

Now, let’s dive into the games!

Buccaneers @ Packers

Injuries
Antonio Brown is OUT for the Bucs on Sunday.

Buccaneers Notes

• • Tom Brady and the Bucs have thrown more passes than any team with 2 games this postseason. They’ve also ran the 2nd most in that stretch - so this is a high volume, efficient offense. 
  • This has been the same Brady we’ve seen for most of his career - he moves the chains, protects the football, and leads his team to scoring drives. 
  • Brady will stand behind 2020’s 3rd best pass blocking unit, and will face a roughly league average pass defense at Lambeau. This is good news for Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, who should see the bulk of opportunities in the passing game.
  • The backfield for the Bucs? Most will see that TB was able to rush for 150+ yards and 2 scores earlier this season against the Packers, and focus on this unit. It was Ronald Jones who dominated that day (113/2 on the ground), but things have changed. 
  • Leonard Fournette is their playoff RB1. Jones may have returned in the divisional round, but he played just 29% of snaps to Fournette’s 70%. We project Fournette for 22.6 weighted opportunities to touch the football Sunday.
  • Jones still managed to earn 14 opportunities to touch the ball in limited action, so there’s plenty of high-risk appeal there.
  • This week is different, though. For one thing, the Packers are home this time, and favored. Second, last week’s Bucs/Saints game should have taught us not to worry too much about prior matchups between teams in the postseason. If they were the be-all and end-all, then TB wouldn’t even be playing this weekend. The Packers are a league average rush defense, which means any opponent has the opportunity to find success “any given Sunday”. 
  • Chris Godwin has 19 targets through two playoff games, 6 more than the next closest receiver. He’ll work slot routes against the Packers, where he should continue to see a safe volume of targets. Godwin is severely underpriced on FanDuel and DraftKings, and should be a staple of low-risk lineups.
  • Mike Evans posted a sick 1 reception, 1 touchdown game at the Superdome against the Saints, which is weirdly exactly what he did in the Week 1 opener, as well. Does this mean anything? No - just thought it was weird and wanted to mention it. Expect Evans to get a little more attention this time around against the Packers - he had just 2 targets in their last matchup. We project him for just shy of 8 in the Occupy Model.
  • Tom Brady is low key trying to feed Rob Gronkowski touchdown passes. He leads TB with 4 red zone targets in the playoffs. He pulled ahead of Cameron Brate in routes run last weekend as well, so there’s plenty of upside with the future Hall of Famer here. 
  • Speaking of Brate, he’ll be involved. This offense has room for 2 TEs to operate, especially without Antonio Brown in the picture. Brate has consistently played around 45% of snaps and received about 3 targets per game in the second half of the season.

Packers Notes

• • • The presumptive MVP did the damn thing last Saturday - with 296 yards and 3 total touchdowns. Aaron Rodgers will now look to avenge his most brutal loss of 2020 in the NFC Championship.
    • Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams were curiously close in carries (14 and 12 respectively), but playing time was much different. Jones had 63% of snaps to just 37% for Williams. 
    • Neither is very involved in the passing game of late, and Jamaal frankly isn’t involved at all - he has 4 targets in his last 6 games. Aaron Jones remains the safest bet to see the majority of the work in this backfield as a result - his 25.4 weighted opportunity projection is the highest in the Occupy RB Model for Sunday. Expect him to be the highest owned RB period.
    • Also expect goal line back Davante Adams to be the highest owned WR period on Sunday. We project him for 10.8 targets in the Occupy WR Model.
    • Curiously, Aaron Rodgers (yes we’re going back to QB) projects to be lower owned than each QB in the nightcap. There’s significant leverage in simply pairing Rodgers with each of his preferred weapons as a result. Playing Rodgers - cheaper than both Mahomes and Allen - and getting Jones/Adams? Doesn’t seem like it should be lower owned, but that’s how it projects.
    • Seeking further differentiation? Allen Lazard and Marquez Valdes-Scantling (MVS) each project for 5 or more targets for us Sunday. MVS comes with the higher average depth of target in recent weeks, so the higher air yard share, and therefore is the more “boom or bust” play. Lazard has seen a higher volume of targets. 
    • Robert Tonyan - the clear fifth option in the passing game - comes alive in the red zone, so don’t discount his touchdown upside. A 1 to 2 TD game for any TE not named Travis Kelce (combined with a modest performance for Kelce) is likely to be optimal given pricing this weekend. The Occupy TE Model prefers Tonyan as TE2 behind Kelce on the slate.

Single Game/Showdown Low-Risk Player Pool

Situation statistics sourced from Pro-Football-Reference.com’s Play Index Finder. DVOA data from FootballOutsiders.com. Air yards data pulled from AirYards.com. All salaries from contest providers. While we like the player pool selected above, we reserve the right to roster other players should news and trends closer to lock push us in that direction. Pay attention to our stream schedule for discussion of those thoughts!