The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still in the hunt for the NFC South crown, and they can keep the pressure on the Falcons on Sunday Night Football with a win over the Panthers on Sunday afternoon. They’ll be without top pass-catchers Cade Otton (knee) and Sterling Shepard, though, which opens opportunties for Jalen McMillan ($4,600) and Payne Durham ($2,900) to emerge as great DFS values.
Week 17 is always wild in DFS contests with teams doing all kinds of different things based on their playoff positions and team goals. However, there are still huge prizes to be won in contests like the NFL $2.25M Fantasy Football Millionaire [$1M to 1st]. Getting big time values like McMillan and Durham in smash spots can be the key to late-season DFS success.
Let’s take a look at each of their upsides.
The upside of Jalen McMillan
While Shepard hasn’t had a huge fantasy impact this season, he has been getting steady targets from Baker Mayfield ($6,900). Since Week 7 when Chris Godwin was lost for the season, Shepard has averaged 4.6 targets per game. During that same span, McMillan averaged 5.3 targets and missed two games with an injury as well.
McMillan had his breakout game in Week 14 against the Raiders with two touchdowns and 21.9 fantasy points, and he has found the end zone in each of the last two weeks as well, posting 18.5 fantasy points against the Chargers and 16.7 fantasy points against the Cowboys.
He has been getting good targets and would have been a good value play at this salary even without Shepard’s injury, but extra targets coming his way only further boost his floor and his ceiling.
The sleeper potential of Payne Durham
Durham had two catches on two targets for 34 yards in his first 13 games of the season, but he saw a massive uptick in playing time last week with Otton sidelined.
The second-year tight end from Purdue played 93% of offensive snaps last week and hauled in five of his seven targets for 29 yards. None of those targets came in the red zone, but Otton has proven all season that Mayfield looks to his tight end in short-yardage and goal-line scenarios. Since Durham looks like a straight swap in for Otton, it’s safe to say he’ll get red zone looks if the opportunity arises this week against the Panthers.
The Panthers have allowed the fifth-most fantasy points per game to tight ends this season. Tight ends have 10 touchdowns in 15 games this season against Carolina with an average of 54.5 receiving yards per contest.
With his DFS salary under $3,000, Durham is a cheat code for DFS contests this week and can be used as a ultra-cheap TE or FLEX play to give you more to spend in other spots.
Week 17 is time to BRING THE PAYNE!
The bottom line
The Bucs are eight-point home favorites against the Panthers this week and their point total is over 27.5 at -118. McMillan is +155 to score a touchdown and Durham is +225.
If the Bucs get that many points, there should be enough production for both McMillan and Durham to exceed salary-based expectations and return outstanding value. Both should be excellent DFS plays and deserve to be part of your Week 17 strategy.
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