Updated: Friday, Jan. 2 at 4pm ET 

Welcome to the NFL Week 18 DFS Watch List!

First and foremost, a very happy new year to all of you. This has been a spectacular 2025 NFL season here at Fantasy Alarm and while we hate to see it come to an end, we're already getting excited about what 2026 will bring our way. If you've caught shows like The Fantasy Alarm Show on SiriusXM or Alarm Fantasy Football on the Fantasy Alarm YouTube page, then you know we've wrapped up this season in style. Our Discord is popping with all sorts of messages touting league championships, DFS wins and cashing bets. The #FAmily is absolutely on fire. But rather than sit on our laurels and bask in our wins, we're pushing forward and are primed for a spectacular NFL Week 18. That starts with this week's DFS Watch List. We will have another separate Saturday Playbook, so for the Watch List, we'll stay focused on the 13-game Sunday main slate.

 

 

The key to remember here, is that we are investing in layers who have something to play for, whether it's playoff positioning, statistical milestones or monetary incentives. Andrew Cooper is currently writing an article to help outline the specific players and I will link that here once ready. For the DFS Watch List, allow me to start with the teams in which we want to invest for playoff purposes. We'll also look at some of the other games as well, but for the core of our Week 18 DFS lineups, we're probably staying with the teams who have something to play for and will not be resting their starters.

Teams Likely Sitting Players:

Teams We Aren't Sure We Can Trust:

  • Buffalo Bills -- playing at 4pm ET but if Texans win, can only be 6th seed
  • Los Angeles Rams -- starters supposedly will play but if 49ers win on Saturday, Rams are locked as 6th seed
  • New England Patriots -- playing for No. 1 seed at 4pm ET but could scoreboard watch as Broncos are playing the Chargers back-ups

Teams With Something to Play For:

  • Jacksonville Jaguars -- playing for divisional title and possible No. 1 seed at 1pm ET
  • Houston Texans -- playing for divisional title and retain No. 5 seed at 1pm ET 
  • Denver Broncos -- playing for No. 1 seed vs Chargers who are resting starters at 4pm ET

So, yeah, again, maybe just the core. Maybe a little Trevor Lawrence? Some Nico Collins? How about a little RJ Harvey? But, obviously we are going to need to dive into the rest of the games and see which players are going to be worth using and which ones we may want to avoid. Like that Kansas City Chiefs/Las Vegas Raiders game? Holy yuck…. unless, of course, this is Travis Kelce's final game and then maybe we need to lock him down too. After all, not only would it be his final game, but he also wrecks the Raiders every time he plays them.

So we'll get into it as the week goes on. All the great Fantasy Alarm DFS content you are used to getting, you will see. We'll do our best to help navigate through the rumors, the benchings and everything else that pops up here in the final week. And, obviously, if you have any questions, just pop into Discord as we'll all be hanging out in there too.

 

 

Before we get to the NFL DFS Week 18 picks, I always like to present to you the optimal lineups that could have been build just using the DFS Playbook and Dart Board.  

It was the full Patriots stack that got it done, at least from the Playbook. The GPP example lineups used Drake Maye, but I got cute with pairing him up with Kyle Williams and Hunter Henry instead of Stefon Diiggs and my Dart Board pick of Efton Chism. Perhaps if I went with Chris Olave instead of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, I would have unlocked this, but I did have some killer lineups that utilized Joe Burrow with Chase Brown and also had Olave in there. This week is another brand new effort, so let's not lament over what was or could have been, Let's get to this week's NFL DFS Watch List picks.

 

Stacks

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