“Will they play?” Undoubtedly, this will be the question most asked throughout Week 17.
Unfortunately, not only will we never get a straight answer regarding the gameplan of coaches entering a regular season finale, we also cannot even trust the information we are given. Last year, Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians went on record stating that he would not rest players in his team’s season finale. A 36-6 home loss later in which the backup quarterback attempted 18 passes in relief of Carson Palmer, Arians would later state that he blatantly lied about his intentions.
Attempting to win a daily fantasy football tournament requires taking bold chances. But, on a week that includes all sixteen games being played on Sunday, there are more-than-enough matchups to target if we choose to avoid a few due to uncertainty about playing time.
Sporfolio’s NFL Daily Fantasy Sports game-by-game analysis columns are driven by expected game flow. Based on a combination of our Week 17 NFL picks against the spread and our expectations for a given game, we project the actions necessary to make these picks come to fruition. We aim to pinpoint players integral to our predicted game flow for each game of the week.
Luke May is our resident NFL DFS expert, and Mario Mergola operates Sporfolio as our expert for NFL Picks Against the Spread.
Houston Texans at Tennessee Titans
Luke’s DFS Take: In a game that holds absolutely no playoff implications – and features Tom Savage facing off against Matt Cassel – it is impossible to like any offensive players between the Texans and Titans. After Savage’s heroic efforts in relief of Brock Osweiler, he fell back to earth heavily in Week 16 with a mediocre game against a suspect Bengals defense. With nothing on the line besides momentum and confidence, Savage is not necessarily in a position to lead an inspired attack. The Texans’ defense was simply dominant against Cincinnati, and nothing should change against a Cassel-led Titans offense. Both defenses are in play, with the Texans featuring the preferred unit.
Mario’s DFS Take: Houston’s defense was nothing short of impressive as it single-handedly kept the Texans alive on Christmas Eve despite another putrid outing from the offense. Without Marcus Mariota under center for the Titans, we can expect another stout performance from the Texans’ defense – although Houston has secured everything possible before next week’s Opening Round of the playoffs and might rest some players, including the injury-prone defensive end Jadeveon Clowney. Flipping sides, the Titans will almost certainly lean exclusively on DeMarco Murray and Delanie Walker to carry the offense in Mariota’s absence. Backup-turned-starting-quarterback Matt Cassel is certainly capable enough of getting the ball in the hands of his playmakers, and we have no reason to avoid the focal points of Tennessee’s offense in its final game of the season.