With six teams on bye weeks and an early-morning Sunday game in London, we have one of the lightest slates of the year in Week 8. Only eleven games – ten if you partake in DraftKing’s Millionaire Maker tournament – are featured in this week’s column.
As was our belief in Week 7, there are a relatively large number of ‘equal’ matchups, where strength is pitted against strength on opposite sides of the ball. Of course, there are the exceptions, and this is where we aim to find the buying opportunities. Thankfully, while there might be a shorter list of teams to target, those worth mentioning are absolutely worth owning, as well.
Sporfolio’s NFL Daily Fantasy Sports game-by-game analysis columns are driven by expected game flow. Based on a combination of our Week 8 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.
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Kansas City Chiefs at Indianapolis Colts
Luke’s DFS Take: While my feelings toward the Kansas City offense have not changed since last week, we finally have some clarity on how they want to approach a game. We know the Chiefs love to focus on the run, but there was too much uncertainty surrounding the backfield in Week 7. Now, we can more safely trust that running back Spencer Ware is not only more healthy than Jamaal Charles, but more productive. Ware has an extremely favorable matchup against a weak Colts’ defense and should deliver volume and production. Andrew Luck is still the show in Indianapolis, throwing nearly 40 times-per-game, and there is no reason why his high total of attempts would diminish, this week. If the Colts are going to compete at all – I think they do – Luck, T.Y. Hilton, and Jack Doyle will carry the offense. Wide receivers Donte Moncrief and Phillip Dorsett might both return to action, this week, but possible limitations still leaves Hilton and Doyle a cut above.
Mario’s DFS Take: We saw it with the Packers on Thursday Night Football in Week 7, and it looks like it might return to Sunday’s game in Indianapolis. That is, the need for a quarterback to take over a game due to a non-existent rushing attack. With the Colts sitting below the league average in all ground-game categories, Andrew Luck will almost certainly be the main option from Indianapolis – especially against a rather beatable Chiefs secondary. While Kansas City has another favorable matchup against a weak defense – from New Orleans’ last-ranked scoring defense to Indianapolis’ bottom-five squad – the Chiefs only managed 27 points against the Saints – technically, a disappointment and confirmation that Kansas City is not explosive enough to warrant excitement in daily fantasy lineups. Only running back Spencer Ware gets a slight endorsement, although he still has threats in the backfield.