We wrap up Week 6 with another Monday Night Football doubleheader. The first game will see the Buffalo Bills, fresh off their first loss of the season, travel to take on the Atlanta Falcons, who are coming off their Bye week. This is a unique game because for fantasy football, the Falcons haven’t given up much production to opposing offenses. But can they step up to the plate like the New England Patriots did and not get pushed around? Let’s take a look at the first Playbook for the first NFL DFS Monday Night Football Playbook to close out Week 6!

 

 

 

NFL DFS Monday Night Football Playbook; Bills vs. Falcons Game Preview

A lot of people expect the Bills to come out firing on all cylinders. They’re coming off a loss at home to a division rival. This is a great spot to right the ship, but now they’re being tasked with going on the road and winning in primetime.

Josh Allen and James Cook are still a phenomenal one-two punch and the offense runs through those two. But the Falcons have been tough defensively and they’re fresh off their Bye week. Both these teams operate defensive zone coverage over 75% of their defensive snaps. The Falcons particularly, are very difficult and disrupt plenty of attempts to move the ball through the air. The Falcons defense allows the fewest yards after catch per reception (3.10) and they’re third in completion percentage over expected (-5.1%). This helps explain why no quarterback has thrown for 200+ yards against them yet.

The play of Michael Penix will be vital if Atlanta wants to try and keep pace in this matchup. This season’s sample size is small, but he’s played incredibly well in two home games and he’s been awful in two road games. But dating back to last year, in four starts at home he’s thrown for 300+ yards in two of them while throwing for 298 in another. So there’s potential this turns into a competitive game if the Bills play to the level of their opponent, which has been a problem for them all year.

The MVP/Captain section below is filled with the four obvious candidates in our NFL DFS Monday Night Football Playbook player pool. But injuries might pave the way for some value to come into play. Let’s take a look at the top Bills vs. Falcons DFS picks for Game 1 of Monday Night Football!

 

 

 

Bills vs. Falcons Notable Injuries & Inactives

The Buffalo Bills have already ruled out a few players on defense including Damar Hamlin, Matt Milan, and T.J. Sanders. There are two players on offense carrying Questionable tags into this matchup including Curtis Samuel and Dalton Kincaid. Kincaid’s the bigger name we’re monitoring due to his touchdown upside and fantasy production at a largely inconsistent position.

The Atlanta Falcons are coming off their Bye week. Are they rested? Yes. Are they healthy? Well, things could be better. Ta’Quon Graham, LaCale London, and Clark Phillips III have been ruled out for the defense. Go ahead and text all your group chats “London has been ruled out for Atlanta” and you technically wouldn’t be lying. But for the offense, Darnell Mooney has been ruled out for Atlanta so we may be able to find some value among their pass catchers.

 

 

 

NFL DFS Showdown MVP/Captain for Monday Night Football, 10/13

Josh Allen, QB, Buffalo Bills - DraftKings: $11,400 | FanDuel: $14,000

Josh Allen just easily feels like the safest play on the Showdown and two-game slate. He has seven touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown in his last three games. He’s even rushed for 25+ yards in all five games this year, and that will always gain our interest when considering quarterbacks to play at Captain on these slates.

A lot has been made about the Falcons defense and the lack of production they’ve given up to opposing quarterbacks. They’ve yet to allow a quarterback to throw for 200+ yards and their defense had six takeaways in their three games leading up to the Bye week. But in that span they really didn’t play against any quarterback close to Josh Allen’s talent.

Entering Week 6, Allen ranks 4th in EPA/Play (0.32), 8th in completion percentage over expected (5.2%), and he’s 5th in turnover worthy play rate (1.5%). The Bills offensive line has also been great at giving Allen a clean pocket. The Bills O-line ranks 9th in pressure rate allowed (28.3%) and 1st in pass block win rate (75%). Allen’s returned 20+ fantasy points in four-of-five games this year and he can certainly do that again Monday night.

Bijan Robinson, RB, Atlanta Falcons – DraftKings: $11,200 | FanDuel: $12,800

Robinson and the Atlanta Falcons are fresh off their Bye week and Bijan offers up a great combination of safe floor/high ceiling. We also have heavy involvement in the passing game if you look at the fact, he has two 100-yard receiving performances in addition to a 100-yard rushing performance from Week 2 against Minnesota.

Robinson only had 24 rushing yards on 12 carries in Week 1. In his last three games before the off week he averaged 5.5 yards per carry behind an offensive line that ranks 28th in run block win rate (68%) and 19th in yards before contact per carry (1.00), so Bijan is really doing a lot of this on his own.

There’s heavy volume with this play and he has fresh legs against a defense that’s allowed 145.6 rushing yards per game. Bake in a little touchdown equity and it’s easy to see this game play out where Robinson is the optimal Captain.

James Cook, RB, Buffalo Bills – DraftKings: $10,200 | FanDuel: $12,000

Cook is having a phenomenal season despite the poor showing on Sunday Night Football last week against the New England Patriots. Prior to last week’s game he had returned 20+ fantasy points in each of his first four games.

Cook sees volume and largely has more touchdown equity than Bijan Robinson. Cook has five touchdowns on the season and was kept out of the end zone last week. The Bills offensive line ranks 8th in yards before contact per carry (1.44) and they’re 3rd in run block win rate (75%).

The Falcons have a respectable and well rested defense, but they did give up 109 combined rushing yards to the Washington Commanders backfield two weeks ago. Plenty of times a good defense can shut down a high-powered offense. But the Bills do operate on a different level and are coming off a loss so I’m not expecting that to be the case Monday night.

Drake London, WR, Atlanta Falcons – DraftKings: $9,200 | FanDuel: $10,200

So far we’ve seen the Falcons play two home games and two away games. Michael Penix has been bad in both road games completing just 54.4% of his pass attempts. But luckily at home he’s completed 69.1% of his pass attempts for 611 total yards. That translates well for London who has seen 25 targets in two home games compared to 12 targets in two road games.

Moreover, Darnell Mooney will miss this game. Over the last two seasons, whenever Mooney has been inactive or when he’s been injured in a game, London has gone for 100+ receiving yards. Mind you, three of those games went to overtime. The matchup lines up well for London because the Bills run zone coverage on 75% of their defensive snaps and London has a 90.2 receiving grade against zone which is 2nd among qualified receivers per Pro Football Focus. The Bills also run the fourth-most two-high zone coverage schemes and he averages 2.20 YPRR against this coverage.

Coming out of the Bye week, London has a great opportunity to go over 100 receiving yards which he did against Washington in Week 4. It all boils down to Penix once again living up to the billing of his home/road splits.

 

 

 

Mid-Tier & DFS Value Plays for Monday

Michael Penix, QB, Atlanta Falcons – DraftKings: $9,000 | FanDuel: $11,000

In the section above for London, we made the argument for Penix when playing at home. But I’ll admit, even the sample size I looked at was pretty small: two home games and two road games. He is prone to some mistakes and turnovers. Against Carolina in Week 3, he displayed some of the worst football you could ever see.

But he correlates well with both London and Robinson if you utilize either of them at Captain. Penix’s numbers aren’t great by any means, but he’s adequate and just needs to put the ball in his best players’ hands. He ranks 17th in EPA/Play (0.10) and success rate (48.3%).  He does rank 13th in average depth of target (7.9) so there’s some optimism he can target London down the field. This is also a game script where he could flirt with the 300-yard bonus on DraftKings which would possibly get him close to 20 fantasy points if he also has a couple touchdowns.

Khalil Shakir, WR, Buffalo Bills – DraftKings: $7,600 | FanDuel: $9,400

Shakir doesn’t have the greatest ceiling and it’s hard to imagine him popping off in this matchup. But he runs 68% of his routes from the slot so he should avoid the shadow coverage from A.J. Terrell and may not see much coverage from Mike Hughes. And with Atlanta really defending the tight end position well, that may allow for more production to go to Shakir.

Shakir has also produced more than Keon Coleman of late. Coleman’s had some disciplinary issues that haven’t resulted in a full game suspension by the team, but he was noticeably absent from Buffalo’s first drive last week against the Patriots. Shakir provides a good floor with a decent amount of targets, receptions, and he has some touchdown equity.

Dalton Kincaid, TE, Buffalo Bills – DraftKings: $7,400 | FanDuel: $8,400

Kincaid’s production has put him close to the top for tight ends and he’s done it on the back of three touchdowns and he logged over 100 receiving yards last week against the Patriots. Kincaid’s production may be unsustainable because he’s yet to see more than six targets in a game. To go with that, no receiver in this offense carries a significant target share.

Atlanta’s been tough on opposing tight ends so it may seem a bit odd that I’m previewing both Kincaid and Pitts in bad matchups. The Falcons have only surrendered 69 yards to opposing tight ends, but Kincaid is a big red zone target for Josh Allen. But the Falcons run single-high zone coverage and Kincaid’s averaging 2.93 YPRR against this coverage. If he is ruled out for this game, then Dawson Knox is firmly in play as a value tight end.

Kyle Pitts, TE, Atlanta Falcons – DraftKings: $5,800 | FanDuel: $5,800

I don’t really love this matchup for Pitts. In fact, I’ve taken the under on his receiving yard prop for my DraftKings Pick6 entries. For starters, the Bills deploy a lot of zone coverage schemes and Pitts has been better against man coverage, where he has the highest receiving grade among tight ends.

The Bills are also pretty good at defending opposing tight ends. Just last week they limited Hunter Henry to just two catches on four targets for 46 yards. The week prior they held Juwan Johnson to three receptions for 28 yards. And before that, the Miami Dolphins failed to get their tight ends going.

The argument for Pitts is that Michael Penix certainly likes getting him the ball. Pitts has at least four receptions and five targets in every game this year. For such an affordable play on both sites, especially FanDuel, Pitts is rested and provides a decent floor that warrants consideration as a Flex play.

 

 

 

NFL DFS Dart Throw Bargains

Tyler Allgeier, RB, Atlanta Falcons – DraftKings: $4,400 | FanDuel: $5,000

Allgeier is a little game script dependent, but we rarely get a running back this cheap on a Showdown slate that has 10+ touches in three-of-four games. He is a bit dependent on the game script. In Atlanta’s two wins this year, Allgeier has 16+ touches and found the end zone in both. Those were also two games where the Falcons had comfortable leads and they didn’t need to necessarily overuse Bijan Robinson.

Allgeier is a talented running back and had a strong rookie campaign before the Falcons drafted Robinson. And Allgeier still can be a productive running back in a bizarre game script where the Falcons are dominating the Bills. 

Joshua Palmer, WR, Buffalo Bills – DraftKings: $3,000 | FanDuel: $4,400

Dawson Knox is the preferred value play on the Bills but that’s only if Kincaid were to miss this game and it’s still a bad matchup for him. I lean into Joshua Palmer as a value play even though no receiver in this offense is a complete lock.

Palmer saw nine(!) targets in Week 1 and he turned that volume into five receptions for 61 yards. However, over his last four games he has only seven receptions on nine targets. But the yardage totals are decent as he’s averaging 14.5 yards per catch so there’s been an okay floor despite the low volume. If he can get a few targets and some big catches he can pay off this price tag, but I don’t get the sense there’s a ton of touchdown equity.

Ray-Ray McCloud, WR, Atlanta Falcons – DraftKings: $2,800 | FanDuel: $3,000

Darnell Mooney is unavailable for this game and he also missed Week 1. In that matchup we saw McCloud catch three passes on five targets for 51 yards. Even last year, McCloud had some pop weeks when Mooney missed time.

There’s also a little bit of a revenge game narrative for McCloud as he was with the Bills sporadically from 2018-2020. So he should be on the field for more two-receiver sets and if he gets five or six targets he has a great opportunity to pay off this cheap price tag.

 

 

 

Bills vs. Falcons DFS Player Pool, 10/13

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