NFL First Look at DraftKings Salaries for Thanksgiving Slate (Fantasy Football)
Consider it a DFS holiday! A Festivus for the “DFS for the rest of us”!
Below you will find our higher-level thoughts on this 3-game slate, how to approach each game stack, and salary standouts at each position.
In addition to the resources in this article and our Thanksgiving Best Plays (for DraftKings and FanDuel), which will be out on Wednesday, Betz and I talked through this special Turkey Day slate on the latest episode of the DFS & Betting Podcast.
Betz and I genuinely hope all of you enjoy the holiday and want to thank all of you for support of the DFS Pass this season. Best of luck on Thursday, and Happy Thanksgiving from the Fantasy Footballers family to yours!
Game Theory & the Thanksgiving Slate
Before diving into the salary standouts and how we view these games from a pace perspective, let’s go over a couple of high-level thoughts about this slate.
Roster Construction– You’re not going to be sneaky. Everyone is going to be playing everyone this week because of the nature of a 3-game slate. The combination of your players ultimately is what differentiates you from the rest of the field. Ask yourself the question: what do I gain if this player hits? But not only in regards to their points but the leverage it allows you to gain on other players involved.
For example, rostering Amon-Ra St. Brown at WR is essentially asking for him to be the WR1 on the slate ahead of CeeDee Lamb. But you’re also asking for a scoring output that more than pays off the salary you are allocating for him. Paying up at WR (and potentially even FLEXing another) is begging the rest of the field to have lower RB scores. You need Amon-Ra St. Brown to be a differentiator at his salary potentially putting up 20-25 DK points.
Looking Back at 2023– Here is how the field attacked the Thanksgiving slate in the Milly Maker last year courtesy of FantasyLabs.com:
- Dak Prescott was chalk but the other QBs were overlooked for their perceived “lack of upside”.
- CMC was a must based on raw points and if you tried to get different at RB, you were buried
- The chalk WRs are showed out but the skeleton key of the slate was a $3,600 WR named Curtis Samuel. I know I reference that phrase all the time but ask the question when factoring in a player’s ceiling projection: should this player be more expensive?
- Everyone and their mama wanted to pay down at TE but the ceiling outcome came from a “too expensive” Sam LaPorta rostered by only 15.6% of the field.
Salary Distribution– Three games on a slate can lead you to think about getting different from the field. I love it. But there’s a certain point where you are hindering your roster from accruing raw points. Based on our projections and historical data from these Thanksgiving slates, when you start leaving more than $600 on the table, you are also leaving fantasy points out there.
FLEX Usage– Courtesy of FantasyLabs, here is 2023’s Thanksgiving Slate in terms of how the field attacked the FLEX in the Milly Maker.
WRs are the it seems like the field still didn’t roster them enough. The major caveat I will give about 2024’s slate is we have two high-end WRs (Ceedee Lamb & Amon-Ra St. Brown), an expensive difference-making RB (De’Von Achane), and no expensive TEs in the mix that will skew some of the numbers this year. FLEXing WRs is always an optimal move on DraftKings, a site with PPR scoring. You can see how the field was overly confident in 3RB builds in tournaments.
Game Stacking– This might be the most important bit to consider for tournaments this week. Normally, we employ stacking strategies to take advantage of simple correlation properties in DFS. In a 3-game slate, we are narrowing our player pool but the aspect of creating leverage is even more important. For example, if you are going overweight CHI-DET you are saying that game will be the most valuable for DFS while recognizing a lot of the roster percentages will flow from it. If you stacked Jared Goff with two Lions and brought it back with two CBears, you are asking Goff to be the QB1 on the slate and perhaps players like Jahmyr Gibbs or Amon-Ra St. Brown to fail in tournaments. You want to create leverage situations in your stacks with three games at your disposal and everyone having some exposure to almost every team. Instead of saying I want to roster only the best Lion (Amon-Ra St. Brown), attaching two more Lions gives your roster more routes to success (or failure) compared to just playing one of the most popular WRs on the slate.
For contrarian large-field tournament players, write out the game scripts that you think the field will be using. For instance, MIA/GB likely will be played with Jordan Love or double-stacks with someone running it back with a player on the Dolphins’ side. Flip the script if you want assuming Miami gets a lead through their defense and a TD on the ground. Stacking the Packers’ side gives you massive leverage, especially if you think this team can put up enough points.
For a full write-up on the subject, check out Stacking: The Strategy & Thinking Behind It.
Salary Standouts
Quarterbacks
- The prices for QBs on this slate feel relatively cheap but the totals on the slate also reflect this. The best options in full PPR scoring tend to be the elite pass-catching RBs and WRs capable of hitting the 100-yard bonus. If we are treating this 3-game slate like a cash style format,
- Jared Goff is an enigma for fantasy purposes. Two weeks ago… the Lions steamrolled the Jaguars and kept their foot on the gas en route to a 4-TD performance for 50+ points for the team. Last week? They dominated the Colts and yet it felt like they didn’t really need Goff. As heavy home favorites, it is another game flow that is a complete guessing game. Chicago’s defense ranks #2 in EPA per pass attempt (behind only DET) yet they gave up some monster plays last week to Jordan Addison and company. Since Goff became the Lions starting QB, he’s 0-3 on Thanksgiving but this is a different Lions squad than in years past.
| Date | Team | Opp | Result | Comp | Att | Comp % | Yards | TDs |
DK Points
|
| 2021-11-25 | DET | CHI | L 14-16 | 21 | 25 | 84 | 171 | 2 | 13.8 |
| 2022-11-24 | DET | BUF | L 25-28 | 23 | 37 | 62.2 | 240 | 2 | 17.6 |
| 2023-11-23 | DET | GNB | L 22-29 | 29 | 44 | 65.9 | 332 | 2 | 24.2 |
- Jordan Love at home has been awesome all year long. He’s averaging 261 & 2.6 passing TDs compared to half the amount of TDs on the road. Gamescript is the name of the game for Love as the Packers rank #1 in 1st half rush rate on the season. If they jump out to an early lead at home in the cold, expect them to ride the run game again and the volume from Love remains tame.
- The “cold weather” Tua Tagovailoa narrative is going to be at the forefront of people’s minds as he’s 0-4 in games 40 degrees or colder. That’s relatively small to completely write him off. Let’s look at what Tua and the offense has accomplished since his return: 27, 27, 23, 34, and 34 points scored. More importantly, his 76% completion rate and 7.5 yards per attempt gives us something to work with that cuts through whatever weather nonsense is out there. My contrarian nature wants to play Tua stacks chasing pure volume on the road on a slate that lacks a lot of firepower.
- If you watched the MIN-CHI game, you likely saw some growth with Caleb Williams. The Lions’ defense has morphed from a pass funnel to simply one that is dominant in all facets of the game. They rank #1 in EPA per pass attempt and they’ve yet to allow an opposing QB to throw for multiple TDs in a game. They run man coverage at the highest rate in the NFL, something that gave Anthony Richardson fits last week. Consider Caleb a GPP play at his price point with a wide range of outcomes if you are willing to gamble on the rookie.
- If you’re planning on getting down and dirty with guys like Cooper Rush and Tommy Devito, you need them to at least 3x on their salaries. Rush steadily improved each week as a starter increasing his yards per attempt (2 < 6.4 < 7.7) and completion rate (57% < 58% < 75%) while also putting up back-to-back QB1 weeks (QB12, QB10). The matchup says he won’t be pushed nearly as much from a volume standpoint but at $4800, if he puts up 15 DK points and the other QBs fail to 3x on their salary, you are ahead of the field on a QB who likely will be 4th or 5th in roster percentage.
- DeVito? It was ugly last week but if you stare just at his second half passing stats, there was at least a pulse of a human being capable of playing QB in the NFL. He ran for 32 yards, which was 6th most among QBs in Week 12. The Cowboys have allowed the 2nd most rushing TDs for QBs and 6.5 rushing fantasy points per game to QBs. That is a sneaky high floor for someone sitting at $4500 in a dome game. His status remains up in the air with news Tuesday of a forearm issue. Expect a healthy amount of Malik Nabers if you buy into the squeaky wheel narrative.
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