Thursday Night Football DFS Showdown Analysis: Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers

Week 9 kicks off with a Thursday night game between the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers. My thoughts for Showdown are below, but be sure to check out Rich Hribar’s Fantasy Football Worksheet for a full breakdown of GB @ SF.

Another unique situation presents itself for showdown as both teams lose starters to COVID-19. For San Francisco, this comes right after suffering cluster injuries at QB, TE, RB, and DST. As a result, their starting WRs, Trent Taylor and Richie James are both priced at or near the minimum on both DK and FD. River Cracraft as the WR3 projects as a dart throw option.

The rest of the passing attack is made up of Ross Dwelley, Jordan Reed, and the RB/FB options. QB Nick Mullens has been a fan of targeting the injured George Kittle heavily, so perhaps he will look towards the backup TEs tonight, but neither one is a great value and they cap each others’ ceiling if they share the snaps. Consider using a max 1 rule with Dwelley and Reed.

JaMycal Hasty is expected to get the early down work while splitting snaps with Jerick McKinnon, who will probably get more targets. Each guy seems fairly priced and I will negatively boost them, but given how SF is likely to attack GB on the ground, there are paths where both appear in the optimal. Kyle Juszczyk is usually in play as an MME punt, and he could get more opportunities with the lack of starting talent.

GB also has a COVID situation that has opened up huge value with their RB options. This is conditional on Aaron Jones missing more time with his injury. He is listed as questionable but unlikely to return. Assuming he misses, Tyler Ervin looks like the best value on the slate with Dexter Williams not far behind him. There is a lot of uncertainty here so the workload could shake out much differently than anyone expects. Irvin is expected to get more targets and his higher projection may lead to increased ownership. (UPDATE: Jones is expected to play, but it appears he will not be 100% during the game.)

There is an abundance of value such that the optimal projected lineups on DK are leaving nearly 4K salary on the table. This will lead to most lineups including Davante Adams, Aaron Rodgers, or both. You don’t have to choose between them, but my preference would be Adams because nearly all paths to a Rodgers ceiling game are through his top WR. It might make sense to have some bills limited to max 1 or even omitting both to differentiate.

Any other GB player seems like a punt or way overpriced. My preferred options would be Robert Tonyan, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and the Packers DST. I will wait until ownership projections are available before I decide anything further.

(UPDATED) Ownership:

Aaron Jones is now expected to play pending a pregame warm-up which throws a wrench into current ownership projections. If he goes, it should somewhat lower the field’s exposure to Adams and Rogers while increasing the ownership of the low-priced SF value plays.
If Jones is out, Rogers and Adams will make up at least 50% of CPT ownership on DK with potential for > 60%, and probably more on FD.
Mullens is the next closest, and others with ceiling potential worth considering at MVP are Hasty, McKinnon, Taylor. Also, Ervin or Williams if you're expecting a limited Jones.
Reed has a higher ownership projection than I would have expected, around 25%. I’d rather go well under that considering his part-time role and being an injury-prone veteran returning from IR. I’d prefer Dwelley for leverage.

DK Values: