Underdog and PrizePicks Pick'em Plays Week 8: Play Jayden Reed
Geoff Ulrich reveals the Underdog and PrizePicks Pick'em Plays Full Card for Week 8 DFS plays.
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. The writeups will be a little shorter but there will be more picks.
Less boring analysis from me, and more of those sweet, sweet picks, driven by our FantasyLife+ projections and our awesome new Pick’em Lineup Builder—which, once you try it, you will seriously never understand how you got by without it.
Week 7 recap: Injuries and Titans …
Last week was a tough one as the Titans announced Will Levis wasn’t playing on Saturday after the article was published and I had already submitted this lineup. That pretty much killed DeAndre Hopkins’ viability. I would never have played him if I knew Mason Rudolph was starting.
Things snowballed from there as got injured in-game as well.
As always, I loaded up this week’s plays on Thursday in our FREE Underdog Pick’em Tracker on Fantasy Life, where we are now up well over 60 units on the season. Keep checking there for more plays as I’ve already loaded this week’s main card plays plus more to take advantage of some early lines.
Now let’s get to the Week 8 plays …
Underdog Pick’em (5-Way; x20.46)
- Tyler Allgeier HIGHER 8.5 carries
- Rachaad White LOWER 40.5 rushing yards
- Jayden Reed HIGHER 55.5 receiving yards
- Kenneth Walker HIGHER 0.5 rush/rec TDs
- Dalton Kincaid HIGHER 39.5 receiving yards
I’m heading to Atlanta for the first two picks this week. We’ll start with Tyler Allgeier, whom I think is in a clear bounceback spot against the Buccaneers. Allgeier got only 5 carries against Seattle, but he again produced in limited opportunities, averaging 7.0 yards per carry in the loss.
This week he faces a weaker Bucs defense that has allowed 5.3 ypc against. Tampa is also depleted on offense, making it likely the Falcons will have more possessions in this game–and a better chance of getting into a run-heavy game script on offense for Allgeier, who we have projected for 8.8 carries on Fantasy Life.
On the flip side, having no Chris Godwin nor Mike Evans in the lineup should make it easier for the Falcons to stack the box against Rachaad White, who we only have projected for 31.0 rush yards this week.
Even if Bucky Irving doesn’t play, this is a tough spot for White (as a rusher) against a Falcons defense that is 10th in ypc against. Using White’s LOWER with Allgeier’s HIGHER also makes plenty of sense given that more runs for Allgeier will equal fewer opportunities for White, and a better chance Tampa Bay will be passing late in the game.
I also like targeting two HIGHERS from the Seahawks-Bills game, that also correlate well. RB Kenneth Walker has scored 7 times in five games this season, and faces a Bills defense this week that has allowed 6 TDs to opposing RBs already this year. Walker is an all-around beast of a player who can score from distance, but he’s also got a firm hold on the short-distance carries, taking 80% of the Inside-the-5 (I5) carries to date for Seattle.
His TD prop is also as low as -150 at some sportsbooks, so the fact we can take the Higher on 0.5 TDs for Walker this week–without our payout suffering–makes it a great target for me on Underdog.
For the Bills, I also love this spot for Dalton Kincaid, who faces off against a Seahawks defense that has allowed the fourth-most yards to opposing TEs this year. Kincaid has faced some tougher pass defenses of late, but he’s still gone over this total in four of his last five games. Gameflow-wise, if Walker finds the endzone, it would only favor the Bills being in more pass-heavy game scripts, giving us some decent correlation to take advantage of.
Finally, I’ll take a solo flier on Jayden Reed’s receiving yard Higher this week against the Jaguars. Reed’s weekly totals are all over the place, but I fully expect him to bounce back after a slow outing against the Texans. The Jaguars have allowed the third-most receiving yards to opposing WRs this season and Reed’s five plays of 30+ receiving yards, are tied for third in the league.
The payout using Reed’s regular total sets us at a juicy 20.46x payout, but I do think using Reed’s alternate total up to 79.5 or higher is completely fine in this spot if you want to play for a bigger multiplier.
PrizePicks (4-Way; 14x)
- Dalton Schultz More Than 29.5 rec yards
- C.J. Stroud More Than 243.5 pass yards
- Hunter Henry More Than 3.0 receptions
- Rome Odunze More Than 49.5 rec yards
As poor as the Texans' passing game has been of late, I do think C.J. Stroud will need to pass the ball more against Indianapolis. The Colts have been quite decent against the run of late and are now 8th in EPA per rush on defense. However, they’ve also allowed 300+ yards passing against in three of their seven games this season and are just 25th in EPA per dropback.
We have Stroud projected for 250 yards this week on Fantasy Life giving us a decent edge by adding Stroud for More Than 243.5 passing yards to our card.
With Stroud in the lineup, it’s also a good idea to look at the Texans’ receivers for some obvious correlation.
The Colts have allowed the second-most receptions to opposing TEs and Dalton Schultz has averaged a 20% target share over the Texans' last three games (all without Nico Collins). He’s projected for 35.0 yards this week and if Stroud does hit for us, it’s hard to see Schultz falling short of his meager 29.5-yard total.
I’ll finish off this four-way on PrizePicks with a couple of receivers who are in solid matchups with lower totals that I’m bullish on them exceeding.
Hunter Henry has seen 14 targets over his last three games and has benefited over the last two games from the switch to Drake Maye at QB. With his projection on Fantasy Life set at 5.4 targets and 3.4 receptions, his More Than on 3.0 receptions is a total I’ll be using in multiple lineups this week.
Finally, we have Rome Odunze, who, despite going for 40 yards in each of his last two games, still has a very low total of just 32.5 receiving yards in a matchup against Washington. We have Odunze projected for 44 yards this week, and with that big an edge off his regular total—and how explosive a player he is—I see this as a good spot to boost his total up to 49.5 and boost our payout from 10x to 14x.
Odunze has averaged 14.5 yards per catch this season, and with a close game spread and Washington’s secondary somewhat vulnerable on the outside, it’s not hard to see him pumping out a couple of big plays and getting us to 50+ in this spot.