Super Wild Card Weekend certainly lived up to the name as the Houston Texans ended the Cinderella run for the Cleveland Browns. And on the NFC side of things we saw underdogs such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Green Bay Packers send the NFC East packing. We even had some weather implications for a couple games last week that likely won’t be repeated this weekend. So we should be in store for some competitive match-ups on this slate as we look to narrow the field down to the conference championship contenders. For this four-gamer we only have eight D/ST’s. On these shorter slates, no D/ST is truly off the board. I’ll provide a fade, but as is always the case, this is the last piece of your NFL DFS lineups. I didn’t write up the Green Bay Packers last week, but they helped me to a very profitable night on the Sunday two-game slate. But we obviously care more about the upcoming week than discussing last week. So let’s take a look at the top D/ST’s on DraftKings and FanDuel for the divisional round of the NFL playoffs!

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NFL DFS D/ST Divisional Round Top Tier Pick

Baltimore Ravens

I’m not going to sit here and dwell on how things played about between these two teams when they met back in Week 1. The Houston Texans were a different team then and scored only nine points on offense. We know that’s not who they are now. But we also have a well-rested Baltimore Ravens team playing at home as 9.5-point favorites in a game with the lowest implied total on the slate. Over the course of the regular season, the Ravens collected 60 sacks and had 31 takeaways while allowing just 15.8 points per game and just over 300 yards of offense on a per game basis. The Texans didn’t fare as well offensively on the road as they did at home. They averaged 26.6 points per game at home, but just 19.5 on the road and they averaged about 55 less yards of offense per game on the road as well. C.J. Stroud specifically had his struggles on the road. He had 23 touchdown passes this year, but only six came on the road (in seven games). We’ll always have some colder temps and winds to monitor as we get closer to this game. The Ravens are the most expensive team on the slate, but even $3,500 on DraftKings doesn’t feel like we’re breaking the bank for a team that can go out and return double-digit fantasy points.
 

NFL DFS D/ST Divisional Round Mid-Tier Pick

San Francisco 49ers

This almost feels like cheating because the 49ers are only $100 cheaper than Baltimore on DraftKings and $200 cheaper on FanDuel. But I don’t make the price tags, so this is my mid-tier pick simply because they’re also reasonably priced. Like the Ravens, the 49ers are well rested and they were a defense that was able to force opposing offenses into making mistakes. They had 48 sacks and 28 takeaways earlier this year and they have not been easy to move the ball on. However, they do still give up points. The floor may be a bit lower than Baltimore’s, but the ceiling is just as good. The Green Bay Packers come to town for this match-up. Green Bay is playing on a short week while San Francisco has had plenty of time to rest up and get healthy. The implied total (50.5 points) is much higher than it is for the game in Baltimore, but they’re still 9.5-point favorites. Jordan Love has done well protecting the ball so that could very well limit the ceiling of this defense and it may be wise to either just consider paying up for Baltimore or finding value elsewhere.
 

NFL DFS D/ST Divisional Round Value Pick

Kansas City Chiefs

You can probably consider either team in this match-up but I’ll take the discount with the Chiefs. They are on the road but they have the luxury of two extra days of rest since they played on Saturday during Wild Card Weekend and the Bills had to wait until Monday to play. Josh Allen had a massive game last week against the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he completed less than 55% of his completions when these two teams met in Week 14 in a game that only saw 37 total points put on the board. Allen still had 22 turnovers in the regular season so we do need to bank off some mistakes for this D/ST suggestion to pay off. Temps will be in the low 20’s with wind gusts up to 20 mph. They won’t be consistent but both teams are used to these conditions so neither one has a weather edge. The Chiefs haven’t forced a ton of turnovers, but they can collect sacks and have been tough to score on of late. With all that said, they provide a pretty good floor. But to take down a GPP we likely need to get a little more creative and find upside. So I wouldn’t rule out any of the cheaper options on DraftKings and FanDuel if you absolutely need to punt that low without sacrificing the integrity of the rest of your roster.

 

NFL DFS D/ST Divisional Round Fade

Detroit Lions

As I said at the beginning of this article, no D/ST is a true “fade” when you only have four-game slates. That position holds true even more when you’re playing just the two-game slates. But the Lions are probably my least favorite defense to play of the eight that remain. Their secondary is terrible. They’ve allowed over 320+ passing yards in their last four games and opposing offenses have scored 20+ points in nine of their last 10 games. Baker Mayfield just dropped 337 passing yards and three touchdowns against a similarly weak secondary in the Philadelphia Eagles. I’m not predicting the Bucs to win, but Vegas is still giving Tampa Bay an implied total of about 21 points. The Lions become a particularly easy option to be underweight on for FanDuel since they’re more expensive than Baltimore.