Staff Thursday Cash Plays - Week 12

Happy Thanksgiving! FanDuel did an interesting thing this week, giving you the option to play just the Thanksgiving Day games.

So this week, our Thursday cash picks on the staff are just from games played on Thursday. We want you to have a little extra greens with your turkey and stuffing and we ain’t talking salad. I’ve looked the lineups over and as always, have a few things to share that jumped out at me.

You can see all the staff picks here.

Since you have very limited options at each position, I’ll break form our usual format and talk about each of the major skill positions separately.

On behalf of the Footballguys staff, let me also wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Staff Trends

Quarterbacks

Matt Stafford and Cam Newton get the most love from the staff, with one nod each to Mark Sanchez and Aaron Rodgers. For myself, I like the combination of cost and consistency with Newton. He has put up good points most weeks and while $8900 isn’t cheap, his combination of passing yards and touchdowns with his rushing production is worth it. Stafford is a better price ($7200) with the requisite “who knows what you’ll get from him” though the Eagles defense did get blown up so I see the attraction this weekend.

I wouldn’t be all that excited about Sanchez as the last two weeks haven’t been awesome. Still, a pair of touchdowns and 261 yards is nice, even if tempered a bit by three picks. Again I don’t love Sanchez but he’s not only cheap at $6700 but probably lightly owned.

Running Backs

There’s a lot of belief among the staff that Jonathan Stewart is a solid play at $7100 and after a really nice weekend against Washington, we think he can approach the same numbers against Dallas. Even if this gets too far out of hand I think Carolina will keep running him as they did last week right into the fourth quarter before they shut him down.

Eddie Lacy also got some run, and while you don’t want to go overboard based on last week, he should get close to the same carries as he did against Minnesota (22) and should be close to 100 yards. He might even see the end zone. At $6500 I love his upside.

Darren McFadden ended up a little pricey for my taste this week ($8100) and I think he will struggle a little against a tough Carolina defense. Still, Dallas will run him a lot and with Tony Romo back, he will see less stacked fronts.

Wide Receivers

The usual suspects are all here—Calvin Johnson, Dez Bryant. Randall Cobb. But you can add in some Devin Funchess, some James Jones (a lot of James Jones) and a little Golden Tate.

Funchess is a little risky, even at $5900, but I liked what I saw from him last weekend and believe that Cam Newton will look for him a bunch on Thursday. If he can hang onto the ball, he could see a ton of targets since the Panthers have few other options aside from Greg Olsen.

At $6300, Tate has a ton of upside and as we know Calvin Johnson will get a ton of attention, you can bet Stafford will look at Tate again this week. We’re hoping the 11 targets are more of a trend than an aberration and truth be told, the offense needs to utilize Tate more in general.

Of the “big boys” I like Bryant the most, and though he may have a tough matchup, I do believe he will see a continue increase in production in this game. Bryant loves the spotlight and home on Thanksgiving is his kind of game.

The riskiest pick is Randall Cobb, who I dipped in with like several others. Cobb is heavily targeted but also has been dropping the ball like it is radioactive. I’m betting this is the week he and Aaron Rodgers are on the same page which means he will more than match the value of his $7400 price tag.

The risk is, of course, he is targeted a ton and doesn’t make the catches. Over the last three weeks he has seen 31 targets and made just 11 catches. That’s brutal but the good news is, one of those games resulted in a 99-yard performance and two of them produced touchdowns.

Tight Ends

It’s all about Greg Olsen, as the majority of staff have him as their tight end. I’m been rolling out Olsen/Newton pairings the last few weeks and it has worked for me (especially last week). I did like (and was also tempted to do it) the addition of Richard Rodgers as he is cheap at $5200 and has scored touchdowns in two of the last three games. He was targeted in the red zone all three of those games as well, though Cobb got a lot more of those types of looks.

Brent Celek should have a starting gig again against the Lions, and has back to back weeks of 70-yard plus games. We’d like to see him in the end zone for the price, but he saw a ton of targets last weekend and caught most of them. It’s clear Mark Sanchez likes him.