Top daily fantasy football plays for Thanksgiving

Welcome to the always popular Thanksgiving Day slates in Daily Fantasy. Thanksgiving provides that unique opportunity to play a small slate of games on one day that get treated like the major full-slate Sunday tournaments, from a prize-pool perspective. Because of some late-breaking injury news with Andrew Luck and Stefon Diggs, there are increased opportunities to build unique lineups in FanDuel tournament play, which is always the goal on such a short slate. But there are also traps, like those gross yams, that should be avoided.

The quarterback position got a whole lot more interesting for this slate with the news that Andrew Luck is not expected to play against the Steelers with a concussion. That means the immortal Scott Tolzien — and his FanDuel minimum salary of $5,000 — gets the start. On one hand, Tolzien’s price tag opens up the entire field, allowing for a possible stack of the Fantastic Four at running back and wide receiver. But even against a generous pass defense like the Steelers, can you trust a journeyman backup to produce enough points to justify the savings? If you’re making multiple lineups, playing Tolzien in some spots is a must.

For a single lineup, you can get more reliable savings — and still load up with three of the key Cowboys and Steelers at RB and WR — by turning to Sam Bradford $6,700, who went for a respectable 15.92 FanDuel points against the Lions three weeks ago. But if Bradford is missing Diggs, he becomes a shaky play, as well. Of the high-end QBs, Ben Roethlisberger looks to be the safest play at $8,500, facing the league’s worst pass defense for fantasy. But his upside could be capped if the game turns into a blowout early. The best option is Cousins, who has a reasonable salary of $7,400 and will likely be throwing all day to keep pace with the Cowboys offense. Cousins has seven touchdowns over his past three games and threw the ball 46 times against Dallas in Week 2.

The only question here is whether or not to play both of this dynamic duo, or use just one and spend down at RB2 to pay up elsewhere on the board. Obviously these two are going to be among the highest-owned players on the slate, probably pushing 75 percent each. Chalk like this is unavoidable on a three-game slate, but so often on Thanksgiving, you need to eat the chalk in order to enjoy a feast, and these two should have no trouble being the highest point-producers on the entire board. I would recommend using both, but if I’m looking to go cheap and contrarian, my alternative play is Kelley, whose price is not matching his recent production. Kelley has carry totals of 21, 22, and 24 the past three games and the yardage has also increased with each game. Pairing him with Bell (my preferred choice if you only use one of Bell/Elliott) will still be popular, but not nearly as much as the Big Two together.

A similar situation to running back, as Brown and Bryant are going to soak up a disproportionate amount of the ownership on this slate. Some will stack Brown and Bell with Roethlisberger. Others will go Dak Prescott ($8,000) with Elliott and Bryant. There are just enough value players to allow for all manners of high-powered stacks. Going with QB-RB-WR from one of the Cowboys-Steelers and taking either the RB or WR from the other team is probably going to be the most popular lineup construction.

The Cowboys’ trio is less-expensive, thereby setting up as the more popular of the two. But with folks perhaps shying away from the uncertainty in the late Steelers-Colts game, catching Ben, Bell and Brown in an ownership dip could be worth exploiting. Regardless of how you stack the Steelers and Cowboys, you will need a third receiver somewhere.

While Cole Beasley ($6,400) or Eli Rogers ($5,400) could allow for using five Cowboys and Steelers exclusively in the six QB-RB-WR slots on FanDuel, I would advocate for some diversity here with Thielen, who has been emerging lately and put up 22 points when Diggs missed a game earlier this year, or Garcon, who is the cheapest of the most-viable wide receivers and is coming off a 20-point game on Sunday night.

I’m guessing that Reed is going to be the least-owned of all the “stud” options on Thursday. There are so many value options at tight end that allow players to go big elsewhere that spending $7,400 on Reed will not be a popular option. And Reed hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire this season. But if you’re looking for the one contrarian play that could pay off huge, Reed is always capable of going off at any time. Ebron and Rudolph will be the popular choices at their price points. I would lean toward Rudolph, especially if Diggs either misses the game or is limited. Rudolph almost scored in his third straight game on Sunday, but the TD was called back on a penalty. He has been underrated all season and provides the best combination of upside and salary savings at the position.

I can justify using Tolzien because of the extreme salary savings he provides. That discount also will make him a popular choice, and given the likelihood that he under-performs on a short week to prepare, it reduces T.Y. Hilton ($8,100) and Donte Moncrief ($6,900) to high-priced contrarian plays. Now, if Tolzien channels his inner Clint Longley (look it up, kids), then playing these guys could make you a lot of money on Thursday. But with better value plays at receiver on the slate and tremendous uncertainty as to whom Tolzien is likely to focus on, choosing between Hilton and Moncrief seems like a fool’s errand.