My best advice for those building DraftKings lineups for this weekend’s Divisional Round games would be to take a narrative-based approach.
Make sure your lineups tell a story, especially if you’re entering said lineup in a DraftKings contest with tens or hundreds of thousands of entries. Piece together a lineup as if you are correct. Don’t hedge.
Asking yourself some simple questions is a good place to start. If this quarterback and his two primary pass catchers go off, who on the other offense is likely to at least get a chance to go off? If a running back goes ballistic and a team is ultra run-heavy, that probably means the team’s QB and pass catchers won’t get there for DFS purposes. If your story includes a team facing negative (trailing) game script — the kind that generates lots of drop backs — it makes little sense to use the running back without a solid role in the pass game.
Think narratively in your lineup construction and I think you’ll make the sort of high variance lineups that either tank or explode in large-field DraftKings contests. Below are some thoughts about pass and run funnel matchups and who is most likely to benefit, along with ideas for team and game stacks.
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Denver Broncos (+5.5) vs. New England Patriots
Game total: 42.5 points
It’ll be easy to get weird with large-field DraftKings lineups this week thanks to Bo Nix’s freak ankle injury near the end of Denver’s Divisional Round win over the Bills.
Jarrett Stidham, a longtime favorite of head coach Sean Payton, will get the nod against a healthy Patriots defense that has been downright terrifying in two playoff games. We can expect DFS players to flee from Broncos players and toward Patriots, Rams, and Seahawks on this four-game slate. And maybe they’re right for doing so. Maybe Stidham, who hasn’t thrown a regular season pass since 2023, will be an abject failure in the AFC title game and no Broncos players will be able to overcome The Stidham apocalypse.
But what if Stidham is a perfectly fine game manager? What if he’s functional enough to support a Denver skill position player or two? What if — as the famous meme asks — it works for us?
Let’s take a moment to look at Stidham’s metrics over his two starts at the end of the 2023 regular season. Stidham ranked 25th out of 34 qualifying QBs in drop back success rate. He ranked 26th in completion rate over expected over those two weeks. Stidham averaged a respectable 8.3 air yards per attempt, which ranked 15 out of 34 quarterbacks.
He was, however, a check-down merchant, with a league-leading 21 percent of his attempts qualifying as check-downs. Stidham was 4 percent over his expected completion rate on attempts between 1-9 yards — middle of the road. His 9 percent downfield passing rate was among the NFL’s lowest. Playing behind a Denver offensive line sporting the league’s seventh best pass blocking win rate, Stidham might not be completely overwhelmed by the Patriots’ recently frightening pass rush.
We know what we’re likely getting with Stidham: Lots of short throws to short-area operators like RJ Harvey, Evan Engram, and Pat Bryant (if he plays). It might not be a bad approach against a New England defense that — for all its various strengths — hasn’t been great against the short game. The Patriots during the regular season allowed the league’s eighth highest adjusted yards per attempt on pass attempts between 1-9 yards. The Pats allowed 88.2 passing yards per game on those short throws, the 13th highest mark in the league.
If you’re brave enough to play Stidham, you’re going to stack him with the aforementioned check-down targets while fading air yards devourers like Courtland Sutton and Troy Franklin (who suffered a hamstring injury last week against the Bills). Marvin Mims could be of some interest here after he ran 35 routes on 46 Denver drop backs against Buffalo and caught all eight of his targets for 93 yards and a score. Mims’ 7.1 average depth of target would make him a natural target for Stidham, especially if Bryant (concussion) is sidelined. Mims would also be an appealing run-back option opposite a New England stack.
Harvey could see an uptick in touches if the Broncos go conservative and hope their defense can win the game for them. He would need to have plenty of pass game involvement against a Patriots defense allowing a lowly 32 percent rushing success rate over its past three outings.
JK Dobbins’ return from IR should complicate matters for Harvey. Dobbins is a candidate to see short yardage work, including (maybe) goal line chances. Folks might not be old enough to remember that Dobbins out-carried Harvey 153 to 50 over the regular season’s first ten weeks. Sean Payton, for better or worse, trusts Dobbins as his lead back. Dobbins and Harvey split pass routes over that stretch, and Harvey out-targeted Dobbins 28 to 14.
The Broncos face the league’s lowest rate of check-down passes because, well, they’re brutally tough against short-area throws. With Denver’s defense shutting down the short areas, Broncos opponents this season have thrown deep at the second highest rate (13 percent). Only four teams faced more air yards per game than the Broncos, who profile as an extreme pass funnel defense (as you surely know if you’ve read this column all season like a studious fantasy gamer).
That probably means a good amount of downfield throwing for Drake Maye, one of the NFL’s most aggressive (and best) deep ball passers. Kayshon Boutte, to exactly no one’s surprise, led the team last week with a 29 percent air yards share (16.5 air yards per target) on five looks from Maye. Boutte had 75 yards and a touchdown against Houston.
I mentioned in the Wild Card and Divisional Round that Mack Hollins’ absence means Boutte is the Patriots’ only air yards eater. That will remain the case this week against Denver unless Hollins is activated from IR and suits up (that seems unlikely as of this writing). Demario Douglass could also be interesting for tournament purposes if Maye does what many Denver opponents have done this season and lets it rip downfield.
Hunter Henry is a potential beneficiary of a Patriots game plan that avoids the Broncos’ elite run-stopping unit and leans on the pass. Denver gave up the third most tight end targets per week (8.6) in the regular season. Just last week we saw Bills tight ends catch nine of 11 targets for 115 yards and a score. Don’t forget about the forgettable Henry when you make your DraftKings lineups this week.
Rhamondre Stevenson remains the superior fantasy option in the Patriots backfield. He’s running more routes, seeing more targets (even first read targets) and being more efficient on the ground than backfield mate TreVeyon Henderson. The Broncos run defense has softened a little bit in recent weeks but Henderson will remain a big-play dependent DFS option in a New England offense that’s likely to be pass-first this week.
Seattle Seahawks (-2.5) vs. LA Rams
Game total: 46.5 points
There’s no way around it: Ken Walker is going to be mega-giga-turbo chalk in DraftKings tournaments this week. With Zach Charbonnet out with an ACL injury, Walker finally gets the real-deal lead back role in a Seattle offense with a 53 percent neutral pass rate.
There are, I think, a couple scenarios in which the Walker DFS chalk fails this weekend. The paths to bad Walker chalk would involve Walker -- who drew praise this week from head coach Mike Macdonald for running with more decisiveness -- losing out on inside-the-five opportunities. George Holani, a big back who saw some run earlier this season, is returning from a hamstring injury he sustained in Week 12. He vultured Walker and Charbonnet for a touchdown in Week 10 against the Cardinals and profiles as a reasonable replacement for Charbs as the team’s primary goal line back.
Then there’s AJ Barner, who plays quarterback on Seattle’s tush push plays. Macdonald told reporters the team would likely use Barner more in short yardage situations with Charbonnet sidelined. That, of course, could include goal line plunges. Klint Kubiak’s offense does not pass the ball when they smell the end zone paint; the Seahawks were nearly 10 percent below their expected pass rate inside the ten yard line this season, the fourth lowest mark in football.
You could secure decent leverage on this short slate if you were to fade Walker and go heavy on the Seahawks passing attack. They were (very) run heavy in their Week 11 meeting with the Rams before going 3 percent over their expected pass rate in Week 16 against LA. It was in that Week 11 matchup that Sam Darnold logged a season-high 44 pass attempts. While it’s certainly not what the team wants to do, game script that sees the Hawks lean hard toward the pass would create target and air yards volume for Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Barner, and maybe Cooper Kupp against his former team. The Seahawks’ 48 drop backs in Week 11 against LA produced 11 targets for Barner, who had more than five targets just four times in 2025. He’s a sneaky play.
The Rams are as predictable as any offense in the league. The ball only goes to two pass catchers and Kyren Williams — and sometimes Blake Corum, I suppose. The Rams have gone away from the backfield split they featured for most of the regular season: Kyren has out-carried Corum 34 to 17 in two postseason games while running 38 pass routes to 21 routes for Corum. That’s important in a Rams offense with the NFL’s third highest neutral pass rate (62 percent).
The Rams took two very different approaches to attack the Seahawks this season. In Week 11, Sean McVay’s offense had a 68 percent neutral pass rate; in Week 16 that dropped to 57 percent. Seattle’s defense profiles as neither a pass nor a run funnel but we can safely assume Matthew Stafford and the Rams will be pass-first barring sideways game script. Obviously this puts Puka Nacua and Davante Adams firmly in play (Nacua is basically a must-play on a four-game slate).
Colby Parkinson last week led the team’s tight ends in routes (20) and targets (7). Terrance Ferguson, meanwhile, logged 18 routes and five targets against the Bears. The rookie might have more big-play upside since he’s used as more of a downfield option; last week Ferguson accounted for 21.3 percent of the Rams’ air yards, just behind Adams and Nacua. This week he goes against a Seattle defense that allowed the fourth most targets per game (8.4) to tight ends. Rams tight ends in Week 16 against the Seahawks combined for 15 targets, or a 33 percent target share. You could do worse than Ferguson or Parkinson as a salary-saving option on DraftKings.
