After a great Sunday of Week 14 action, two teams having disappointing seasons will look to turn things around with a win on Monday Night Football. As you build your DFS entries for Showdown contests like the NFL Showdown $1.25M Monday Night Showdown [$300K to 1st] (CIN @ DAL), both teams offer several strong options to consider for your Captain’s Pick at 1.5x the salary and 1.5x the points. My top two options are Joe Burrow ($15,300 as Captain’s Pick) of the Bengals and Rico Dowdle ($13,500 as Captain’s Pick) of the Cowboys.
Of the two options, Burrow is a safer but more expensive play while Dowdle is lower cost but also higher risk. While neither of my Captain’s Picks in this game is extremely cheap, they do leave plenty of salary for FLEX spots. At the end of this post, you can find some of my favorite bargain plays to help round out your roster.
Here’s a deeper look at why I like these Captain’s Picks and how I’d go about building a lineup from top to bottom:
Joe Burrow as a Captain’s Pick
Burrow has been on fire lately since getting Tee Higgins ($9,600) and Ja’Marr Chase ($11,600) healthy at receiver. He has spread the wealth between multiple receiving options, which is why I prefer using Joe Cool instead of one of his pass catchers.
There has been plenty of wealth to spread around lately, since Burrow has completed over 25 passes in five straight games. He has totaled over 250 passing yards per game in each of those five contests and has 25+ fantasy points in each of his last four games.
Burrow had a season-high 36.72 fantasy points in a loss to the Ravens in Week 10 and then posted 32.04 fantasy points against the Chargers before their bye week. After the bye week, he faced the Steelers last week and threw for 309 yards, three touchdowns and 25.26 fantasy points.
On the season, Burrow has an impressive 30 touchdowns and just five interceptions while averaging 23.5 fantasy points per game.
The Cowboys have been a top-five fantasy matchup for quarterbacks. QBs have thrown seven touchdown passes in the last five weeks against the Cowboys and are averaging 229.8 passing yards per contest.
Rico Dowdle as an intriguing alternative
The Cowboys went to Dowdle as their feature back a few weeks ago, and he has shown a lot of upside even in an offense that has been underwhelming with Cooper Rush ($8,800) at quarterback.
Dowdle had his first 100+ yard game of the season last week on Thanksgiving. He added a touchdown on top of his big production for a heaping helping of 24.3 fantasy points. Dowdle has four touchdowns this season and over 10 fantasy points in six of his last eight games.
He is also typically involved as a receiver with multiple catches in seven straight games. His work in the passing game raises both his floor and his ceiling against the Bengals.
Running backs have five touchdowns in the last four weeks against the Bengals and are averaging over 90 rushing yards per game.
Lineup Advice
If you’re building around Burrow, you can include both Chase and Higgins as a Bengals stack, although you’ll only have $4,500 per FLEX spot. If you choose just one of those star receivers, you can pivot to Dowdle and have more space or include a lower-cost play like Brandin Cooks ($7,000) or Mike Gesicki ($5,600).
If Dowdle is your Captain’s Pick, you can stack Chase, Burrow and Higgins and still have over $5,000 for your two FLEX spots. If you want to stack the Cowboys, you can go Rush, Cooks and CeeDee Lamb ($10,600) in FLEX spots and still have $10,000 for your last two spots.
Value plays
My top bargain option is KaVontae Turpin ($3,000), who always brings a high ceiling with his playmaking ability. He has at least three catches in three of the last five games and has the chance to take any touch for huge gains. Jonathan Mingo ($2,200) has also been involved since coming over from the Panthers at the trade deadline.
On the other side, Tanner Hudson ($2,000) has multiple catches in four straight games. He had a massive 16.3 fantasy points against the Ravens and has 6-of-6 targets since then.
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All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.
I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is z.thompson) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.
