Wildcard Weekend SATURDAY ONLY DFS Short Slate Strategy

After Steve’s massive wins on the Thanksgiving 3-game slate and the Early Only short slate on in Week 12, we are doing a weekly Short Slate Strategy Surveys. Check out our favorite QB stacks, values, contrarian plays, fades, and more for the Saturday ONLY Wildcard Weekend slate! You can always find all our Daily Fantasy content here!

FAVORITE QB STACK?

STEVE:

FAVORITE GAME STACK? 

STEVE:

Browns vs Texans

TOP 3 VALUE PLAYS (ANY POSITION)?

STEVE:

TOP 3 CONTRARIAN PLAYS (ANY POSITION)?

*Note:  Ownership tough to judge at this point for Saturday Only.

STEVE:

TOP 3 FADES (20% OWNERSHIP OR HIGHER)? Or Underweight?

*Note:  Ownership tough to judge at this point for Saturday Only. Not necessarily full fade on small slate, could be underweight stand too.

STEVE:

FAVORITE DEFENSE?

STEVE:

OVERALL LINEUP STRATEGY FOR EARLY ONLY?

STEVE:

On paper and in our minds we think of the Dolphins-Chiefs game as some high-scoring game with the opportunity to be an ultimate shoot-out. And maybe that is the version of these two teams we will see, but the reality right now feels much different.

The Chiefs are 15th in the league in points, and have only had 3 offensive TDs twice in their last 10 games. They are winning and keeping in games mainly due to their defense, and enough offensive play to sneak by teams. Miami on the other hand hasn’t had that long of a drought, but they have been struggling recently, and have only really beaten up on some bad teams like the Commanders and Jets in the past two months.

Now the Dolphins have to go on the road in the frigid temperatures to face a tough Chiefs defense, that did well to shut them down when they played in Germany earlier this year. In addition, a couple of the Dolphins top offensive weapons are dealing with injuries. While they are expected to play through them, this team is not at 100%. The Dolphins’ defense is very banged-up which could open the door for a bit more KC production, so I don’t mind a few of the Chiefs’ top offensive weapons (Pacheco, Rice, Kelce), but I still wouldn’t want to overstack either side.

The Browns vs Texans game is a lot more appealing. Cleveland’s offense has looked pretty good since Joe Flacco took over, and they were able to rest their star players in week 18. I love starting teams with Flacco, Cooper, and Njoku and just building from there. The Texans’ defense is very much a unit that has had some serious struggles this year, which has led to multiple shootout games. That bodes very well for the Browns offense. I also think Jerome Ford and Elijah Moore are fine plays, with Kareem Hunt and David Bell as some cheaper contrarian options to pivot to.

On the Houston side, the Browns do have a much tougher defense to worry about, but the Texans offense has typically done well regardless this season. C.J. Stroud has been great vs some very tough opponents, and that can continue here with Nico Collins figuring to get a massive 10-15 target workload. Devin Singletary should get most of the RB carries and a few targets, while Dalton Schultz should see 5-8 targets at the TE position.

After that, we need to see what happens with the Noah Brown and Robert Woods injuries. Woods seems more likely to play, but Brown has the bigger upside if he’s in. If one is missing then you can take some shots at John Metchie or Xavier Hutchinson, and if both are missing you should absolutely be looking to play these two. Hutchinson has probably the bigger upside and currently projects to be lower owned, but there isn’t a great basis to predict who the real beneficiary will be. If you guess right though it could be a big payday as it skyrockets you up the leaderboards.