While NFL teams use the preseason to tune up for real games, sharp DFS enthusiasts use it to seed their bankroll. The competition is soft relative to typical NFL slates, with a significant portion of entries fundamentally flawed. One-third of entrants kept at least one Packer or Colt in their lineup – or didn’t submit one at all – when lineups locked more than an hour after Sunday’s Hall of Fame game was canceled.
Although a game being called due to an unsafe field is unusual, it’s common to see lineups littered with big-name players who will get minimal snaps. It was known Aaron Rodgers would not play on Sunday well before someone nuked the playing field, yet he was still used in DFS. Preseason lineup construction is as simple as it is labor-intensive. Figure out who will play the most and you own the high ground.
The tedious part is determining which players will get the most snaps in a given preseason week – each one is unique – and if the playing time is likely to produce quality point-scoring opportunities. There is no shortage of clues among the mountain of beat writer camp reports, but sifting through the muck to find useful nuggets is a painstaking process. Fortunately for you, some of us enjoy the pain.
Below are some DFS picks for Thursday’s NFL preseason action.
Quarterbacks
Jimmy Garoppolo, New England Patriots: Garoppolo will probably be the highest-owned quarterback on the slate, but the preseason is no time to get cute. Many of our competitors will eliminate themselves by starting players who won’t play, or won’t play enough. That will not be a problem for Garoppolo, who was essentially in the same position last season. With Tom Brady set to be suspended for the first four games, Garoppolo threw the second-most passes (30) and played the third-most snaps among quarterbacks during Week 1 of the preseason against the Packers. This time he gets the Saints “defense.”
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