Sometimes, primetime games sell themselves. This week's Sunday Night Football contest, a clash of the AFC titans between the Bengals and Bills, is one of those instances. The storylines will be plentiful for this one, and ratings should be high. But right now, all we're worried about is putting together a winning DraftKings Showdown lineup so you can win some money while watching this instant classic.
Cincinnati started this season slow, with Joe Burrow clearly not at 100 percent health, but the Bengals have come on strong of late. Buffalo, meanwhile, started hot (with the exception of a Week 1 upset from the Jets) but have faltered in two of the past four weeks. Both teams will be hungry for a big W this weekend with massive playoff implications likely at stake.
Of course, this also marks the first meeting between these teams at Paycor Stadium since Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field on Monday Night Football in early January. Emotions will undoubtedly be high — that's the easiest bet of the weekend. The second-best bet of the weekend? Our DraftKings Showdown lineup.
Before we get into our lineup and strategy, here are the key scoring settings for DraftKings Showdown contests: They're full-point PPR and there are three-point bonuses for 300 passing yards, 100 rushing yards, and 100 receiving yards. The Captain pick costs 1.5 times a player's original price, but he also gets his point total multiplied by 1.5.
MORE SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL:
Betting preview | Top props
Bengals-Bills DraftKings Picks: DFS lineup for Week 9 Sunday Night Football
$50,000 budget, need at least one player from each team.
Captain (1.5x points, 1.5x salary): Dalton Kincaid, TE, Bills ($10,200)
We went way down the player pool for our Captain this week, for three reasons:
- Kincaid has been balling out over the past two weeks, posting 15.5 DK points in New England and then 17.5 points last against the Buccaneers.
- The Bengals have allowed more DK points to opposing tight ends than any other team in the NFL,
- Playing Kincaid over each of the six more expensive players ahead of him affords us the ability to roster more of those guys in our flex spots.
What more do we need to say? With Dawson Knox on IR and Cincy flashing a dominating pass-rush of late, Kincaid should be very busy from the Bengals' opening drive to the ref's final whistle. This contrarian play gives us a great chance at standing out from the pack in big-money tournaments, and we're excited to root this talented rookie pass-catcher on Sunday night.
MORE DK SHOWDOWN: How to win a Showdown contest
FLEX Josh Allen, QB, Bills ($11,400)
Part of our reasoning behind drafting Kincaid to the Captain spot was giving ourselves the ability to also draft both QBs and multiple impact pass-catchers. Allen has been an MVP candidate the entire season, with 2,165 passing yards and 17 TDs through eight games.
Sure, he has eight interceptions as well, but you take the bad with the very good — he's averaging nearly 26 DK points per game. He's coming off performances of 26 and 33 against the Patriots and Buccaneers the past two weeks, and we can't imagine leaving him undrafted for this huge game.
FLEX Joe Burrow, QB, Bengals ($10,200)
You already know by now we were doing this. Joe Cool has been awesome lately, putting up 27-plus DK points in two of the Bengals' past three games including a Week 8 thrashing of the high-powered 49ers. The perennial Pro Bowler has clearly returned to full health, and we can't wait to see what he does in this humongous game against the conference-rival Bills. Get your popcorn ready, kids!
FLEX Ja'Marr Chase, WR, Bengals ($10,800)
By the end of our lineup creation, we actually had enough money to draft either Chase or Bills stud wideout Stefon Diggs, which honestly turned out to be a very difficult decision. Ultimately, though, we have the Bengals winning this game so we went with the higher-upside Chase at home. We can't possibly feel FOMO about this roster decision, given the fact that Chase has averaged 22.6 DK points per game this season. 28.2 since Week 3, and 32.4 over the past three weeks! The Burrow-Chase stack remains unparalleled in DFS, so we couldn't resist. Buffalo will be missing stud cornerback Tre'Davious White in a major way in this one.
FLEX Tee Higgins, WR, Bengals ($6,600)
Higgins has endured a turbulent season, marred by injuries and occasionally disappearing from action when he's on the field. But his upside remains massive when he's healthy, and he demonstrated plenty of positive signs last week against San Francisco. Higgins caught 5-of-6 targets for 69 yards, an 11.9-point effort that would have been closer to 20 if he had landed in the end zone. We love the idea of monopolizing Cincy's big-time pass-catchers and playmakers, especially with running back Joe MIxon listed as questionable with a chest injury. We'll be rooting for an airshow this Sunday night, baby!
FLEX Leonard Fournette, RB, Bills ($200)
You had to know something weird was happening at the end of this roster. We stacked up on so many studs at the top-80 percent of our build that we only left ourselves $800 to play with to fill our final spot. So, why not play a wild card who could play a huge part in this game but could also just as well not play? The Bills recently signed the veteran Fournette to their practice squad after weeks and weeks off lackluster rushing performances from second-year back James Cook and veteran Latavius Murray (not to mention the head/neck injury sustained by Damien Harris). If Fournette gets signed to Buffalo's active 53-man roster by Sunday, we can expect to see him getting in some work. If he falls in the end zone for us at $200 — with the boatload of surefire production we already have at the top of our roster — we might be in the money this Sunday.
Best Bengals-Bills SuperDraft DFS Picks
As we have every week, we're also listing our favorite single-game DFS plays on SuperDraft.
For those unfamiliar, SuperDraft's DFS scoring involves point multipliers as opposed to traditional salary-capped or tiered contests. A winning lineup will likely feature a strong mix of stud fantasy contributors with 1x-1.6x boosts, as well as matchup-based sleepers with larger multipliers. Each player is assigned a scoring multiplier based on their value as determined by SuperDraft. Users can roster any player in their lineup with no restrictions.
MORE: Win BIG with SuperDraft! Join now and get a free deposit match of $20!
Here are the most notable scoring rules for SuperDraft NFL contests: Half-point PPR, four-point passing TDs, two-point bonuses for 100 rushing yards, 100 receiving yards, and 300 passing yards.
MORE SUPERDRAFT DFS: How to play SuperDraft
- Champion (+50% points): Ja'Marr Chase, WR, Bengals (1.65x)
- Super FLEX: Joe Burrow, QB, Bengals (1.75x)
- Super FLEX: Josh Allen, QB, Bills (1.5x)
- Super FLEX: Gabe Davis, WR, Bills (2.1x)
- Super FLEX: Tee Higgins, WR, Bengals (2.25x)
We couldn't resist taking Chase with a 1.65-times boost on top of the initial 50-percent Champion boost. After that, we went with a similar strategy as we employed with our DraftKings lineup: grabbing both QBs and multiple high-ceiling pass-catchers. Davis and Higgins will always have TD-upside, and getting them with 2.1-2.25-times boosts seemed too good to pass up.
