Welcome back to the weekly NFL Pick’em Plays article on Fantasy Life.

If you’re new, last year I put together a five-way pick'em ticket using Underdog’s selection of Higher/Lower offerings. I would also sometimes include some extra suggestions at the end and a list of “play to levels” using our Fantasy Life projections.

This year, I’m changing things up a bit. We’ll still be doing the Underdog section (and a full ticket) but I’ll also be doing entries for PrizePicks and Sleeper. The write-ups will be a little shorter but there will be more picks. 

Less boring analysis from me, and more of those sweat, sweat picks, driven by our FantasyLife+ projections and our awesome new Pick’em Lineup Builder — which, once you try, you will seriously never understand how you got by without. 

We didn’t always hit the nuts, but overall last year was very profitable, especially if you followed along via the article and our FREE Underdog Pick’em Tracker on Fantasy Life, where I load tickets as I make them. 

Without further ado, here’s the first edition of the 2024 NFL Pick’em plays. Saddle up, it’s gonna be a fun year. 

Underdog Pick’em (5-Way; 14.16x)

One market I’m looking hard at this week is receiving totals on Underdog for running backs. RBs like Tony Pollard and Jaleel McLaughlin are in new situations, with Pollard now splitting the backfield with Tyjae Spears and McLaughlin in the receiving role with Samaje Perine in Kansas City. 

Long story short, I think both of their receiving totals for Week 1 are too short. Pollard caught four passes on four drives in the preseason in the new Bryan Callahan offense, and McLaughlin is inheriting a lot of targets/potential as a receiver with Perine gone, and he used to handle all of the two-minute/hurry-up work. 

We have both players projected with solid edges to their HIGHER side this week, with Pollard’s receiving HIGHER being a top-rated play. 

You could certainly play both in a little two-way slip, but if want to build bigger I like making some mini-correlated stacks around both players. 

On the other side of the Seattle game, Kenneth Walker’s HIGHER on his anytime TD total on Underdog gives us a better multiplier than we are seeing around the industry, which makes it attractive. Seattle has a 23.5 team total, and Walker should get goal-line work. That’s a play for me regardless of the correlation, but it works well with McLaughlin’s HIGHER as any Walker score ALSO means the Broncos are more likely to be playing from behind — which would equate to more passing-down work for McLaughlin. 

In the Tennessee game, the obvious play is to pair Pollard’s HIGHER with the HIGHER on Will Levis’s passing yardage. We do have to take a reduced payout in that scenario but the Bears are a funnel-to-the-pass kind of defense and, quite frankly, Tennessee’s passing game looked legit in the preseason. 

Rounding out a five-way entry with a HIGHER on yards for Calvin Ridley, who is likely to avoid Jaylen Johnson with DeAndre Hopkins now healthy gives us three correlated plays from the same game. 

Prize Picks (6-Way; 25x)

I used the Bronco stack from the Underdog play up above in my PrizePicks entry but added Bo Nix's More Than 202.5 passing yards to the equation. It's a lower total than we saw Nix’s passing yards on Underdog and correlates perfectly with the McLaughlin More Than play on his receiving yards. We didn’t have a Kenneth Walker anytime TD square sadly on PrizePicks to use as a comeback play, but going More Than on his 12.5 fantasy total is just as good for me. If he finds the end zone, Walker likely goes for much more than that. 

For the second part of the six-way card, I headed to the Giants game. Daniel Jones’ rushing total and Devin Singletary’s receiving total have an interesting correlation for me. Going Less Than on the rushing angle for Jones and More Than on the receiving for Singletary means a game script where Jones would be happy to dump off more and run less, something that makes sense given that Singletary is a dynamic passing down back and the fact Jones is coming off a knee surgery. Our Pick’Em lineup maker loves this angle as well. 

As you can see (below), I correlated it with Aaron Jones, who I have for going More Than his slated total of 54.5.  PrizePicks has a sweet promotion called Flex Friday where you can get a sweat-free flex entry, and this is what I’ll be using for mine in Week 1. 

Sleeper (3-Way; 6.66x)

I went a little different route for my Sleeper pick but am happy with what I came up with. Zack Moss is in a great spot for Week 1, as the Bengals are huge favorites. He’s the bigger of the two backs starting this week and should be the first to get goal-line work. 

On the flip side of that game, any Moss score would correlate well with more passing from the Patriots offense. We don’t have Jacoby Brissett projected for a massive game or anything, but I like the idea of playing him to dump the ball off a lot to players like Hunter Henry in a come-from-behind scenario this weekend. 

Brissett lifted David Njoku to relevance back in the day (2022) and has a history of targeting TEs. Either way, Henry is projected for 34.0 yards on our site, so building around More Than 27.5 rec. yards on the New England TE is something I’m happy to do this week.