Geoff Ulrich breaks down his NFL DFS Picks for Conference Championship weekend:

This is a big week for football and for fantasy purposes, there might not be bigger contests around the industry than on DraftKings and FanDuel, where both sites have some monster Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) contests up for the two-game slate.

DraftKings has their weekly “Millionaire Maker” contest, which has a $1M first prize and a $3M prize pool. They also have massive showdown DFS contests up for each game. Showdown contests on DraftKings force you to pick a “captain” for each of your lineups who gets 1.5x points (but also costs 1.5x the price).

I’ll go over some strategies for both formats below.

FanDuel also has a big $1M guaranteed contest up and we’ll cover where the best value picks and strategy might be if you’re venturing onto their site as well.

Either way, with so many big entry contests but only two games, game theory should be a big part of how you put together lineups. You’ll need to think outside the box to get contrarian—aka, get different—with your lineups and go against the grain in some spots if you want to have a serious shot at winning either contest.

I’ll go over my favorite ways to achieve those goals below.

Let’s dig into a massive DFS below!

DraftKings NFL DFS Picks For Conference Championship Weekend

Millionaire Maker Picks

These are core stacks that I’d look to build around, either with more plays from the same game or sprinkling in studs from the other game.

Either way, these stacks are trying to tell a story and take a stance on how one of the games is going to go—and hope we can hit on the right lower-owned combo of players in the process.

Eagles passing game with Washington RB bring-back

Look, you don’t need me to tell you that Saquon Barkley is going to be the highest-owned player on this slate. On top of nearly breaking the single-season rushing record this year, he decimated the Rams for 205 yards and two TDs on the ground last week.

Still, there are no guarantees he will repeat that feat vs Washington. Barkley had three games with fewer than 10.0 DraftKings points this season and if the Commanders get out in front in this game, you may see Jalen Hurts drop back to pass 30-plus times and take away some of Barkley’s volume.

The crowdthink here is that Hurts and the Eagles don’t want to, or can’t, pass the ball anymore. However, the reality is that game flow and Barkley’s effectiveness have kept their passing numbers down. 

Further, when Barkley has produced poor games, it’s almost always correlated with massive games from Jalen Hurts—who is fully capable of going for multiple rushing TDs himself.

Hurts recorded 29.1 DK points in Week 15 vs the Steelers and had 31.68 points vs the Cowboys in Week 10. Barkley had 9.4 and 8.8 points respectively, in those games.

Fading Barkley and going Hurts at QB does make stacking relatively easy as well since you’ll already be so unique by starting without Barkley and the Eagles passing game is heavily concentrated around three players.

From a strategy standpoint, Washington has struggled against TEs in the red zone so I love Dallas Goedert in this spot (assuming he practices in full Friday), although A.J. Brown—who I doubt will be heavily owned—feels like a must-play if you are fading Barkley.

On the other side, if you’re fading Barkley, then coming back with Brian Robinson from the Commanders would be a logical first step. Teams have had success running vs the Eagles in the playoffs (Kyren Williams went for 100-plus yards last week) and Robinson would benefit from any game script where the Eagles were behind and forced to pass the ball more.

Bills low-owned receivers with Chiefs RB comeback 

Neither the Chiefs nor the Bills have defined number-one WRs, which makes them maddening to stack for DFS. However, for big tournaments, it also makes it easy to get diversified when building around either of their QBs. 

On the Bills side, I expect Josh Allen will be the most popular QB on the slate, but it’s hard to say how many people will feel good about stacking him with some of his lower-priced receivers.

Going Dalton Kincaid at TE, particularly will feel gross as that may keep you away from Travis Kelce or a TE from the other game—both of whom have far better recent usage stats and production than Kincaid. 

Kincaid has upside though, especially as a low-owned stacking option. The Chiefs gave up the second-most receptions per game to opposing TEs this season and Kincaid had 5-plus catches against the Chiefs in each of his games last season.

Much like C.J. Stroud last week, who had to open things up late in the game, if Allen falls under the same dilemma then it should mean one or more of his lower-price WRs return value as well. Normally, I’d be all for fading the name value on Amari Cooper, but I do think he’s fallen so far out of favor that he’s not likely to carry much ownership, even on this two-game slate.

Cooper has been a team player since getting traded to Buffalo and it wouldn’t shock me if he was more involved vs the Chiefs than he was last week. He was dealing with some minor injuries heading into last week’s game but is off the injury report this week.

Much like our Eagles-Commanders stack above, if we’re playing for Josh Allen to potentially drop back 30-plus times (and hopefully push for 300 yards passing) then coming back with Kareem Hunt—who has out carried Isiah Pacheco four games running now—would be my first stop on KC when building out this stack.

Hunt has been effective, has taken all of the inside the five carries over the Chiefs over their last four games, and would benefit like he did last week from any game script where the Bills were trailing.

Contrarian NFL DFS Picks For Conference Championship Weekend

DeAndre Hopkins ($4,700)

Hopkins has lost a lot of luster since Hollywood Brown showed up. Still, he’s more than capable of catching a couple of red zone passes and falling into the end zone in a game like this. He should be the lowest owned by far of the Chiefs starting three WRs. 

Kenneth Gainwell ($4,600) 

Do you want to get really crazy? Gainwell isn’t for the faint of heart and isn’t someone expected to get a ton of work (unless Barkley gets injured early) but he is an explosive back and used in the passing game on occasion.

This is the ultimate Barkley leverage play in some regards and while I’d keep my exposure to him very minimal he would be a potential contest winner IF he were to break off a big play and/or Barkley were to underperform (or not finish the game).

Ty Johnson ($4,400)

A Johnson play is along the same idea as Gainwell but has much more one-off value than Gainwell does, who is really just a YOLO kind of leverage play.

Johnson has actually averaged around a 40% snap count over his last two games caught a TD in the Bills first playoff game vs the Broncos, and has four receiving TDs on the season. I think including him in any Josh Allen stack (like the one I mentioned above) also has value given the correlation between him and Allen. 

Jamison Crowder ($3,100)

I didn’t think I’d be discussing Jamison Crowder as a DFS option in the final multi-game slate of the season but here we are. 

Crowder played on 40% of the snaps last week and caught two passes. With Olamdie Zaccheaus banged up it’s not inconceivable that he plays a decent role once again, and with the Commanders set as big underdogs he could exceed his usage from last week. 

Justin Watson ($3,000)

If you’re starting with Patrick Mahomes, there are numerous ways to get contrarian when making your Chiefs stack, but Justin Watson is the ultimate contrarian angle. He only played a handful of snaps last week but the Chiefs like his downfield ability and he’s got the biggest body of work playing with Mahomes. Versus the Steelers in Week 17, he went for 60 yards and a TD on two catches. 

It’s not inconceivable the Chiefs have a play or two dialed up for him and he matches that effort with a similar game this week.

DraftKings Conference Championship Showdown NFL DFS Picks and Builds

Eagles (2) vs Commanders (4 - Brian Robinson CPT)

  • CPT - Robinson ($9,900)
  • Daniels ($11,000) 
  • Crowder ($2,400)
  • Ekeler ($6,400)
  • X
  • X

Robinson would be essential in any Commanders win. The idea in this one is that using him as Captain will hopefully get you exposure to at least one TD and potentially more while leaving room to come back with a combo of Hurts and a receiver in the flex 

Chiefs (4 - Mahomes CPT) vs Bills (2)

Mahomes will be the lower-owned QB at captain and the $1,000 Watson play will give you room to come back with Allen and a low-owned receiver of your choice in the flex.

FanDuel NFL DFS Picks For Conference Championship Weekend

A.J. Brown ($8,200)

A common thread this week in DFS will be how you approach Saquon Barkley ($9,800). Certainly, the most likely scenario is that Barkley puts up another monster game and the Eagles roll into the Super Bowl.

However, as I outlined above, Barkley has had a few trip-ups this season—and the Commanders are very familiar with the Eagles rushing attack by this point. If, somehow, the Commanders are able to stop Barkley or the Eagles fall behind to the point where they have to abandon the run, it could finally be time for A.J. Brown to shine.

Brown was inefficient last week with just two catches on seven targets but he beat this secondary for 8 receptions, 97 yards, and a TD in Week 16. If you’re fading Barkley in GPPs, then Brown is the logical pivot when targeting this game and building out lineups. They’re both the most expensive player at their position and don’t correlate much if at all.

Austin Ekeler ($5,600)

I know I mentioned Brian Robinson ($6,400) above, but if you’re using Robinson you are playing for a very narrow type of game in my opinion, one where the Commanders don’t just keep things competitive but one where they potentially win as well.

With Washington set as 6.0-point underdogs, the more likely scenario is that passing back Austin Ekeler becomes the more focal point of the offense in the second half. He’s nearly $1,000 cheaper than Robinson as well so from a pure value perspective does have a little more appeal on FanDuel.

Ekeler went off for 9 receptions and 89 yards as a receiver back in Week 11 vs Phily (his best game of the year) so there is certainly some good historical context for what he can do in the right game script against this defense.

Either way, make sure whichever RB you build around on Washington fits with the story you’re telling in the rest of your lineup, with Ekeler being the more passing game-oriented option.

Dalton Kincaid ($5,200)

Looking at TE, it feels almost inevitable that people will either pay up for Travis Kelce ($6,800) or land on one of Zach Ertz ($5,500) or Dallas Goedert ($5,900) on FanDuel. Both the last two aforementioned names are only a few hundred dollars more expensive than Kincaid and have better usage stats—and production—over their last couple of games.

The matchup here for Kincaid is immaculate, however. The Chiefs’ defense allowed 5.9 receptions to opposing TEs—the second-highest number in the league—and Kincaid also had success against the Chiefs last year, going for five receptions in both games against them last season.

I’d not hesitate to look to him as a natural pivot at what should be a very top-heavy position. Despite the down season, Kincaid is still an elite pass-catcher and fully capable of breaking a slate in the right game script—and matchup.

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