Week 3 DraftKings & FanDuel Showdown Strategy: Sunday Night NFL DFS for Chiefs at Giants

When the scheduling staff set a Week 3 Sunday Night Football matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Giants, they may have been able to forecast the Giants entering the game as the NFC East’s last-place team. I’m not sure it would have been as apparent that the Chiefs would enter the matchup as the only 0-2 team in the AFC West. We have come to expect excellence from a Chiefs team that has attended five of the last six Super Bowls.

Mahomes’ primary boundary receiver, Xavier Worthy, has been sidelined with a shoulder injury since he exited the Chiefs’ Week 1 loss to the Chargers in Brazil. Despite practicing early in the week, reports suggest he is not expected to participate in Sunday night’s game. His absence has caused some significant shifts in the Chiefs’ passing game usage. In his stead, Hollywood Brown, Tyquan Thornton, and JuJu Smith-Schuster have filled gaps; but estimating Chiefs target shares remains a challenge. However, it will be an important factor in projecting the outcome of this game from a fantasy perspective. This will continue to be an opportunity where projections are fragile and volatile, opening doors for fantasy players to exploit uncertainty in their lineup builds.

On the other side of the football, the key to this game will be predicting which Russell Wilson shows up on Sunday night. In Week 1, Wilson completed just 46% of his passes, tallying 168 yards and no passing touchdowns. He followed this with a monstrous Week 2 performance in a high-scoring battle with the Cowboys, throwing for 450 yards and three touchdowns. Wilson’s volatility, evidenced not only so far this season but throughout his career, also enables showdown slate players to build lineups favoring a wide range of game scripts within his reasonable outcomes.

How I Plan to Beat the Field This Week

When building for a showdown slate, you are essentially attempting to optimize for a single game outcome. In essence, you have to work backward from a probabilistic game outcome (even if only marginally likely) and build a lineup that would be optimal given that scenario. This effort tends to lead to significant lineup clumping and duplication because optimizers, built like calculators, are designed to maximize high-mean projected lineups that regress heavily toward the average. But in showdown slates, it is often the outlier game outcomes and scripts we care about, as they offer savvy fantasy players chances to achieve high-ceiling results without the significant lineup duplication that destroys edges.

While this game does not feature an excessively high total, I like the dynamics of the slate for targeting high-volume game outcomes in my builds. Contributing factors include weak backfields lacking high projectable volume due to heavy sharing, and diverse projected ownership at skill positions, especially in the captain spot. I intend to build a diverse pool of lineups with various pass catchers on both sides of the ball, ensuring high correlation and lineups reflective of reasonable game scripts.

Captain Candidates

• Travis Kelce ($12,000 CPT): Despite modest output in the first two weeks of the season, Kelce has posted double-digit fantasy points in both games so far. With Xavier Worthy out, it is hard to deny Kelce remains the Chiefs’ best passing-game option, even if he may be slipping past his prime. His target share has been lower than we’ve become accustomed to, and since I’m targeting high-output game scripts, a return-to-form performance—featuring heavy involvement and significant touchdown equity—could easily translate into a tournament-winning captain spot in Week Three at a relatively affordable salary.

• Wan’Dale Robinson ($11,100 CPT): In my opinion, Robinson represents the most affordable captain option before you see a significant dip in passing-game upside. The popular Week 3 waiver-wire pickup is coming off a dynamic fantasy performance in Week 2, catching eight passes for 142 yards and a touchdown. He is the clear second option in the passing game behind Malik Nabers and comes at a significant discount relative to the Giants’ No. 1, who is the slate’s highest-priced player on DraftKings. The upside and favorable volume are both there.

Value Plays

• Noah Gray ($2,000 FLEX): Gray has just two catches this season and has been relatively uninvolved compared to past years (he posted 437 yards and five touchdowns in 2024). However, this may be more a symptom of the Chiefs’ slow start than his role. Gray has played more than 50% of the team’s snaps so far, giving him volume upside and touchdown equity. At such a steep discount, he enables fantasy players to build high-upside rosters around him.
• Theo Johnson ($3,200 FLEX): It is rare to see a starting tight end priced this low on a showdown slate. Johnson carries much of the same upside as Gray—touchdown equity and potential volume—while playing at a much higher rate. Johnson has logged over 80% of the Giants’ offensive snaps this season and is simply too cheap. In a high-volume game, his opportunity is far too strong at this salary.

Lineup Rules to Consider (Based on the Sims)

I built a pool of 1,500 lineups using five different high-upside pass catchers in the captain spot with our optimizer and simulated them. Below are some heuristic lineup rules to consider that performed well in large-field, mass multi-entry simulations.

• Zero RB
No, this isn’t a preseason best-ball strategy. And I’m not suggesting you do this if you’re playing more than 10–20 lineups on this slate; this is more for players building only a handful of lineups in the largest contests. I suspect most running backs will carry negative leverage (optimal – ownership) in this game. If you’re targeting high passing-game upside, it is plausible to build high-ceiling lineups without any RBs, especially given the lack of major RB pass-catching contributors.
• X Out Kickers and Defenses at CPT
This one I may entertain at higher lineup volumes. Taking a stand and building for a defined game environment is crucial. Since my targeted environment is unlikely to favor scenarios where a kicker or defense at captain is optimal, I plan to avoid them in that spot.
• Low-$ Wide Receivers with QB
This is straightforward correlation but worth noting. I highlighted mid-to-high tier receiver captain options and low-salary tight end values above. However, there are also several low-cost wide receivers with upside. They not only stack well with their quarterbacks but also unlock salary flexibility to roster more obvious high-dollar options. Common favorable options in simulations included Darius Slayton, Tyquan Thornton, and JuJu Smith-Schuster.

A Look at the Prop Market

Here are some notable player props that may inform how the game could unfold. (Not betting advice, but useful for DFS lineup construction.)

• Noah Gray – O/U 15.5 Receiving Yards; +410 Anytime TD
  • DraftKings: $2,000 ($3,000 CPT)
• Theo Johnson – O/U 20.5 Receiving Yards; +410 Anytime TD
  • DraftKings: $3,200 ($4,800 CPT)
• Russell Wilson – O/U 226.5 Passing Yards; O/U 20.5 Rushing Yards
  • DraftKings: $9,400 ($14,100 CPT)
• Hollywood Brown – O/U 54.5 Receiving Yards; +120 Anytime TD
  • DraftKings: $8,400 ($12,600 CPT)