We wrap up Week 2 with a pretty exciting two-game slate on DraftKings and FanDuel. It feels like over the last couple years, these random two-game slates on Monday Night Football had overlapping start times. At least we get two separate games to watch Monday night with the Los Angeles Chargers and Las Vegas Raiders kicking off after this game.

We are providing two separate NFL DFS Showdown Playbooks for Week 2 Monday Night Football so you can use both write-ups and the entire player pool if building out lineups for the two-game slate. Let’s take a look at the NFL DFS Monday Night Football Playbook as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers visit the Houston Texans!

 

 

 

NFL DFS Monday Night Football Playbook: Buccaneers vs. Texans Game Preview

We have a doubleheader for Monday Night Football to put a cap on Week 2. The first game sees an inter-conference battle as the Bucs, coming off an exciting Week 1 win over the Atlanta Falcons visit the Houston Texans who looked abysmal in their Week 1 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.

Both teams have playmakers on both sides of the ball and there are some big bounce back spots for several position players on both teams. Let’s be honest, in looking at the box scores for both organizations, plenty of these players disappointed in Week 1 with the exception of Emeka Egbuka for Tampa. Both teams have new offensive coordinators this year and that means new play callers. Josh Grizzard is the new OC for the Bucs and Nick Caley fills the same role for the Houston Texans. There were plenty of offensive coordinators who were criticized last week for their offensive decision making, and that was certainly the case for these two teams.

Personally, I believe this game could be a defensive duel. The Texans have a formidable pass rush with Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter coming off the edges. They also have one of the best defensive backs in the league in Derek Stingley who was given $89 million in guaranteed money as part of the new contract he signed in March.

But the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are no slouches on defense either. They blitz at a high rate and aim to give fits to opposing offenses. So this might be a chess match Monday night with two great defenses and a couple offensive coordinators who want to rebound from last week. Let’s start diving into the latest NFL DFS Showdown Playbook!

 

 

 

Buccaneers vs. Texans Notable Injuries & Inactives

Chris Godwin has been ruled out by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and that isn’t much of a surprise. The team has been very open that they don’t anticipate a return for him until Week 5. The best left tackle in the league, Tristan Wirfs, has been ruled out as well but their injury report indicated he did practice in a limited fashion earlier in the week. Another offensive tackle, Luke Goedeke, is listed as questionable so Baker Mayfield’s going to have his hands full with a depleted offensive line protecting him.

The Houston Texans have a shorter injury report for Week 2. Christian Kirk has been ruled out again in addition to Braxton Berrios and Jake Andrews. They will likely rotate some cheap DFS receivers at slot receiver for this game. I’ll elaborate on those potential targets later in the article.

 

 

 

NFL DFS Showdown MVP/Captain for Monday Night Football, 9/15

Nico Collins, WR, Houston Texans - DraftKings: $11,400 | FanDuel: $13,000

Nico Collins is probably the best player on this slate. Unfortunately, Week 1 didn’t go his way and if you follow Underdog Fantasy on Twitter you were probably as stunned as I was when I saw this tweet.

Collins is a great route runner and is one of the best at gaining separation on go routes, ranking just behind Adam Thielen last year in terms of average separation score according to Fantasy Points Data. He had the third-highest average separation win rate in 2024 just behind A.J. Brown and Mike Evans.

It truly doesn’t matter the coverage the opposing defense applies. In terms of success rate he ranked in the 93rd percentile against man coverage, 81st percentile against zone, and 96th percentile against press. He’s a great route runner and excellent with contested catches. The Texans just utilized him in the most unimaginable ways in Week 1.

If there’s one concern I have it’s that the Bucs blitz at a fairly high rate. Stroud was 9-for-10 under pressure last week and 6-for-6 when blitzed but by the Los Angeles Rams. But despite that success, he clearly wasn’t looking to Collins. Tampa will be throwing more pressure especially against a weaker Houston offensive line. That’s really my lone concern with this matchup but I have confidence Collins will be beating his coverage per usual.

Bucky Irving, RB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – DraftKings: $11,200 | FanDuel: $12,200

The Bucs are firmly committed to making Irving a bell cow this year and that was apparent by last week’s workload. Irving wasn’t efficient in the running game or the passing game. He ran the ball 14 times for 37 yards and added four receptions for only eight yards, but he found the end zone. He saw 76.8% of the offensive snaps so they want to keep him on the field and give him plenty of work.

I’m trying to find positives regarding the offensive line concerns. They are certainly warranted especially with Tristan Wirfs inactive for this game. But Irving still led all running backs last year in yards per carry (3.4) when hit behind the line of scrimmage.

Irving is very good at creating on his own but only he can do so much as we saw last week. He’s a good bet for volume but the Texans surrendered only 72 rushing yards to the Rams in Week 1. If Irving is still seeing 70-80% of the offensive snaps and remains involved in the passing game then 18+ touches are in store and he’s worth mentioning in this section regardless of the matchup.

Mike Evans, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – DraftKings: $10,800 | FanDuel: $10,400

Evans had a solid but unspectacular game last week. Five receptions for 51 yards is a rather tame stat line for Evans. But keep this in mind, Baker Mayfield attempted only 32 pass attempts last week and he completely just over half of them (17). Evans still led the team in targets with eight while it was rookie Emeka Egbuka who stole the show with a pair of touchdowns.

Week 1 was a down week overall for this offense. We just touched on Bucky Irving’s inefficiency and Evans still provided a good floor even though Baker Mayfield wasn’t great last week. Evans didn’t show many signs of aging at least. Last year he was top 10 at the wide receiver position in terms of targets per route run (0.28), yards per route run (2.66), and first downs per route run (0.14). If everyone’s using last week’s performance to be down on Evans and higher on Egbuka then this is a good leverage spot four tournaments on the Showdown slate, but Tampa Bay stacks are obviously trendy for the two-game slate.

Emeka Egbuka, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – DraftKings: $9,800 | FanDuel: $9,800

We touched on the poor accuracy of Baker Mayfield already, but that didn’t matter last week for Emeka Egbuka. The rookie receiver caught 4-of-6 targets in his NFL debut to the tune of 67 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

As long as Chris Godwin is sidelined (likely until Week 5), Egbuka is going to be in play for our NFL DFS lineups and season-long leagues. Last week he saw 93% of the offensive snaps and most of those came in the slot. Houston’s pass rush does force somewhat of a pass funnel which could feed more targets his way. I do prefer a little more Captain exposure to Evans but I cannot deny the upside for this kid. He was one of the biggest risers in terms of draft stock in the preseason and he has not disappointed.

 

 

 

Mid-Tier & DFS Value Plays for Monday

Baker Mayfield, QB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – DraftKings: $10,600 | FanDuel: $13,200

Mayfield is surprisingly the most expensive option on the FanDuel Showdown slate and that is rather bold especially after his performance last week. Mayfield does possess a little rushing upside. Last week against the Falcons he rushed five times for 39 yards. And he managed to do that without Tristan Wirfs and the Falcons blitzed at a top 10 rate in Week 1.

So the matchup could very well be a bit similar for Mayfield and Co. However, the Texans have a more formidable pass rush than the Falcons do and they have one of the best defensive backs in the league. Without Wirfs, trusting Mayfield to rush for nearly 40 yards feels like asking for too much. And mind you, without Wirfs, Mayfield was pressured on 40.5% of his dropbacks last week and the inaccuracy was likely due to the fact that new offensive coordinator, Josh Grizzard, wants Mayfield to push the ball downfield which is a departure from what we saw with Liam Coen last year.

But I do expect him to improve upon the 53.1% completion percentage from a week ago because this pass rush could force quicker, shorter passes to his receivers. If he was pressured that much by Atlanta last week, it could be worse this week against Houston. But it can still work so long as Grizzard adapts and lets Mayfield do what works for him while his receivers accumulate production after the catch.

C.J. Stroud, QB, Houston Texans – DraftKings: $9,400 | FanDuel: $11,200

Pressure is the name of the game Monday night as both teams will be bringing the heat. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had the second-highest blitz rate in 2024 behind the Minnesota Vikings. C.J. Stroud has faced a 40+% pressure rate 14 times in his career and the Texans are 5-9 in those games, so it doesn’t bode well for Houston since they traded their star left tackle in the offseason.

But they also have a new play caller in offensive coordinator Nick Caley. According to Sharp Football Analysis, the Texans used motion on just 35.3% of Stroud’s dropbacks (ranking 26th in the NFL) while using play action on 11.1% (30th). We see it all the time with first-time play callers. They get a bit nervous under the bright lights and the play calling was heavily scrutinized across the league last week.

When the play calling was more imaginative and creative, Stroud was 9-for-11 with motion for 105 yards and 3-for-3 with play action for 47 yards. Hopefully adjustments are made as it’s likely Stroud sees heavy pressure Monday night and Caley gets more aggressive at home Monday night.

Nick Chubb, RB, Houston Texans – DraftKings: $7,000 | FanDuel: $8,800

I’ll be the first to admit it, I wasn’t a huge Nick Chubb fan coming into the season. With his age and the injury he sustained last year, I wasn’t optimistic. I won’t concede defeat, but I will admit that even I was impressed that he led all running backs with seven missed tackles forced in Week 1.

The other nice part was that Chubb was pretty efficient. He ran the ball 13 times for 60 yards. He saw 28 snaps while Dare Ogunbowale was second with 15. But the reality is that he will likely be a touchdown dependent fantasy option in all formats. There will be some good matchups but he’ll have little involvement in the passing game and so if he isn’t finding the end zone, it’s unlikely fantasy managers will be satisfied with the production.

Jayden Higgins, WR, Houston Texans – DraftKings: $6,400 | FanDuel: $3,000

What if I told you the Houston Texans, who already have Nico Collins, also have Nico Collins 2.0 on their roster? Physically these two are fairly comparable. Collins is 6’4” and 222 pounds depending on the site you’re viewing. He ran a 4.45 40-yard dash at his NFL combine a couple years back. Higgins is also 6’4” and ran a 4.47 at his respective combine and comes in just a little lighter at 214 pounds as a rookie.

Higgins, like Collins, was a victim of Caley’s nervous play calling last week so we’re hoping things get better obviously. Technically he led the team in receiving yards last week but that really isn’t saying anything because he had 32. But he also only ran 11 routes and had a 29.7% air yard share. That does impress me. Christian Kirk has been ruled out again so I’m optimistic we can see more of this prized prospect Monday night as I’m sure the Texans want to unleash the 34th overall pick from the 2025 NFL Draft.

 

 

 

NFL DFS Dart Throw Bargains

Sterling Shepard, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – DraftKings: $3,000 | FanDuel: $4,400

The targets were rather consolidated last week among the receivers. Egbuka, Evans, and Shep were the only receivers to see at least six targets. Bucky Irving saw four out of the backfield and the remaining six targets were distributed among four other players.

Chris Godwin, Jaden Smith, and Jalen McMillan are all on IR for Tampa Bay. Shepard only had 6.9 fantasy points last week (three receptions for 39 yards) but his expected fantasy points were 10.8 according to Pro Football Focus. At such a cheap price on a two-game slate you can do a lot worse for a receiver who will see targets.

Xavier Hutchinson, WR, Houston Texans – DraftKings: $2,800 | FanDuel: $3,600

Hutchinson feels a little bit like a trap. My gut is telling me to grab more exposure to the next receiver. But I’ll highlight the good with Hutch. He ran the second-most routes last week (behind only Nico Collins) but saw just two targets. Again, Christian Kirk is out, but every receiver on this roster was kept in check because of the play calling.

I almost feel better about betting a receiving prop on Hutchinson. But you have to imagine there’s positive regression in store for all of Houston’s pass catchers Monday night. All that Hutchinson has on Higgins currently is an additional year of experience. But based on last week the Texans seem inclined to give Hutch more routes early on in the season.

Justin Watson, WR, Houston Texans – DraftKings: $1,000 | FanDuel: $2,600

I truly have no idea how the slot reps are going to play out Monday night. It feels like Collins and Hutchinson will work mostly outside. Higgins hasn’t taken over for Hutchinson yet so it does feel like Higgins, Jaylin Noel, and Justin Watson will rotate in and out at slot receiver.

Watson’s very familiar with this role dating back to his time with the Kansas City Chiefs. He caught both his targets last week for 27 yards. This is a price tag where 4.7 fantasy points is serviceable on a Showdown slate. On a two-game slate? That’s a different story. So there’s no strong long here towards Noel or Watson, as you’ll want to mix and match exposure to both as cheap options on the Showdown slate.

 

 

 

Buccaneers vs. Texans DFS Player Pool, 9/15

Player Pool

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