We have easily the smallest slate of the 2017 season, as only thirteen games are on the schedule, with one on Thursday and one early Sunday morning in London. Of the eleven remaining matchups, we are fortunate to have both lopsided potential and excellent head-to-head pairings.
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.
Oakland Raiders at Buffalo Bills
Luke’s DFS Take: Well after a couple weeks of saying Amari Cooper is going to explode soon, he finally did so in a huge way. Hopefully you jumped into a Thursday included tournament and took advantage because he probably won’t have a performance like that again for a while. The Raiders’ passing game seems like they are ready to get back to their explosive ways, but may find some tough sledding this week as the Bills defense is allowing just under 17 points per game despite allowing 258.7 passing yards per game which is 26th in the league. Derek Carr and this offense remain an option, but the top play this week may be Jalen Richard. With Marshawn Lynch suspended, Richard and DeAndre Washington are expected to split snaps all game. This is obviously disappointing, but Richard has been the better back this season and is the better receiver of the two which gives him a fairly solid floor with a potentially high ceiling. The Bills offense continues to be solid but unspectacular due to their limited passing attack. Tyrod Taylor is potentially intriguing because of the positive matchup, and his ability to run the ball, but it’s just really difficult to imagine him or any pass catcher truly having a big game. For that reason you should feel free to turn back to LeSean McCoy who continues to be the focal part of this offense, and finally found the end zone last week two times, just as we expected he would.
Mario’s DFS Take: An underperforming strength meets an overperforming strength when the Raiders’ offense travels to Buffalo to face the Bills’ defense. Oakland has four games in which it scored 17 points or fewer, yet it contains some of the best firepower in the league. And, the Raiders finally have a healthy Derek Carr under center, so the low output should subside. We saw how critical it was for Carr and Amari Cooper to produce against the Chiefs basically with the season on the line, and there is no reason to think they won’t utilize the same plan-of-attack on Sunday. Buffalo has a nice opportunity to shine against a Raiders defense that has been shredded through-the-air. Start Tyrod Taylor where you see fit.
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