Daily Fantasy Football Picks and Helper: Week 16 Saturday Slate

Featuring a pair of AFC matchups, we get the season's second NFL Saturday slate this weekend.

In the first game, the Cincinnati Bengals are 2.5-point road favorites over the Pittsburgh Steelers, per the NFL odds at FanDuel Sportsbook. The nightcap figures to be less close, as the Buffalo Bills are favored by 12.5 points at the Los Angeles Chargers.

The Bills lead the slate with a 28.0 implied team total; every other team falls below 20.0.

Let's take a look at some of the best daily fantasy football plays at each position -- accounting for salary -- on the Week 16 FanDuel Saturday slate.

Quarterbacks

Take a quick glance at our QB selection, and it's abundantly clear that it's Josh Allen ($9,500) and then everyone else.

Allen averages 24.1 FanDuel points per game, which is the league's best mark across all positions this year. In contrast, his competition on this slate is comprised of three backup quarterbacks.

According to numberFire's model, Allen is projected for 23.5 points, and no other player cracks 16 points.

Facing a Chargers team that's 29th in schedule-adjusted pass defense, per numberFire, and has given up the 5th-most FanDuel points per game to QBs, this might be a case where we just plug in Allen at quarterback and move on.

In lineups passing on Allen, Jake Browning ($7,800) is the safest value option. A pleasant surprise for the Bengals, Browning has put up 26.2, 24.7, and 20.0 FanDuel points over his last three starts, though it's worth noting those first two scores were propped up by 1-yard rushing TDs.

On paper, this isn't a great spot, but Pittsburgh's defense has coughed up three passing scores to both Bailey Zappe and Gardner Minshew over the last two weeks, and Browning could be working with short fields if the Steelers' offense continues to sputter.

Browning has the slate's second-best projection behind Allen.

If you're willing to roll the dice, Easton Stick ($6,400) remains an unknown commodity in his second career start. He did throw for three TDs against the Las Vegas Raiders, but the first didn't come until Vegas had a 49-0 lead. Still, garbage-time touchdowns are just as valuable in fantasy, and Stick could pad his stats as a double-digit underdog versus Buffalo.

Running Backs

James Cook ($8,500) has the highest projection at running back. Since Joe Brady took over as Buffalo's offensive coordinator, Cook has scored 17.7, 13.0, 22.6, and 35.1 FanDuel points. He's averaged 17.0 carries and 4.8 targets per game over this stretch.

Frustratingly, he's still not getting as many red zone rushes as we would like (22.7%), but the usage is finally giving Cook the upside we've been waiting for all season.

Although Joe Mixon ($8,300) is the only other high-salaried back, the emergence of Chase Brown ($5,200) in recent weeks makes his workload more difficult to predict. In Week 15, Mixon still dominated playing time (71.0% snap rate), but opportunities were split nearly down the middle, with Mixon logging 10 carries and 3 targets compared to Brown's 7 rushes and 3 targets.

Maybe Mixon will go back to dominating touches as he has for most of the season, but we have to acknowledge that there's a very real chance Brown continues to eat into his workload. That makes Mixon a risky bet at his salary, while Brown has some appeal as a tournament punt play.

Austin Ekeler ($6,800) is tied with Mixon for the second-best RB projection but comes at a much lower cap hit. However, he was game-scripted out of last week's blowout loss (5.8 FanDuel points), so the floor doesn't look great against Buffalo despite his pass-catching abilities.

But if the Chargers can keep things somewhat competitive, it's possible Ekeler is leaned on. Overall, he's averaged 12.8 rushes and 5.5 targets per game this season, which isn't far off his numberFire projection.

Jaylen Warren ($6,000) and Najee Harris ($6,100) continue to split work down the middle for Pittsburgh, which typically caps their upside in an offense that's struggled all season and now turns to its third starting quarterback, Mason Rudolph ($6,600). The good news is that by numberFire's metrics, Cincinnati is 29th in adjusted rush defense.

If you're stacking the Bengals, Warren makes sense as a bring-back option. As the pass-catching back, he was the far more active player of the two in last week's loss, earning a 68.5% snap rate with 10 rushes and 6 targets. Harris tends to get more red zone looks if Rudolph is able to jump-start this offense, though.

Wide Receivers

We lead off with yet another Bills player in Stefon Diggs ($8,900), the highest-projected wideout. There's a reason Buffalo is -180 to be Saturday's highest-scoring team, per the Weekly Specials Betting Odds on FanDuel Sportsbook.

Diggs hasn't blown up for a spike week since the switch at OC but has still carried an encouraging 27.6% target share over the last four games.

Additionally, as we saw last week with Cook's massive rushing role, it's clear Joe Brady isn't afraid to alter this game plan to whatever is working, and in this matchup, it could be Diggs who becomes the focal point. The Chargers have given up the third-most FanDuel points per game to WRs, and Diggs' receiving yardage prop is 67.5, the highest mark between both games.

Gabriel Davis ($6,300) is another way to gain exposure to the Bills' offense, though his boom-or-bust reputation is getting out of hand following fantasy scores of 0.0, 19.5, 0.0, and 0.0 across his last four. While this is the right time to take a shot, just know what you're getting into.

If Keenan Allen ($8,000) is active, he's likely to be a target sponge on the other side of this Bills game. However, he missed practice on Tuesday and Wednesday, so his outlook is shaky at best. Allen is this year's WR3 in FanDuel points per game if he's able to play, though.

Josh Palmer ($6,000) and Quentin Johnston ($5,600) are the other top Chargers WRs, and they get an obvious usage boost if Allen is out. Palmer came back to a 71.4% snap rate last week, and that figures to only grow moving forward. Even with Stick under center, Palmer made an immediate impact by catching 4-of-4 targets for 113 yards and a touchdown.

On Cincinnati, Ja'Marr Chase has been ruled out, leaving Tee Higgins ($7,800) as Browning's top option. If Keenan Allen doesn't play, that leaves Higgins as the only wide receiver projected for double-digit FanDuel points after Diggs.

Higgins could have a tough matchup if he gets the shadow treatment from Joey Porter Jr., but volume should be in his favor. He's projected for the slate's second-most targets (7.7), and his receiving yardage prop is set fairly high (60.5).

Tyler Boyd ($5,900) is projected for 5.4 targets with Chase sidelined. He's intriguing at this salary in case the Steelers focus on taking away Higgins, opening up more looks for Boyd.

Diontae Johnson ($7,000) and George Pickens ($6,200) project pretty well on paper as Pittsburgh's top WRs, but it's hard to get excited about their ceilings with Rudolph starting. Johnson has the target share edge since he came back in Week 7 (25.9% to 19.7%), which theoretically makes him the safer choice.

Tight Ends

Despite the recent return of Dawson Knox ($4,700) complicating the outlook for Dalton Kincaid ($6,000), Kincaid projects as the top tight end. Shocking, another Bills player!

If we throw out Buffalo's Week 15 blowout (Allen attempted just 15 passes), we see that Kincaid still had promising usage alongside Knox in Week 14. In that game, Kincaid displayed a 22.2% target share, 79.5% snap rate, and 80.0% route rate. At roughly the same salary as Gabe Davis, Kincaid has the safer floor. As for Knox, he isn't terribly exciting despite the low salary.

Pat Freiermuth ($5,100), Tanner Hudson ($5,300), and Gerald Everett ($5,200) are the other top tight ends, and all three are clustered together in both salary and projections.

Cincinnati has allowed the second-most FanDuel points per game to TEs, which bumps up Freiermuth's appeal despite questionable QB play. Hudson plays limited snaps but could see more targets with Chase out. Everett led the Chargers with eight targets last week in Stick's first start.

Defenses

Yes, even among the defense options, it's the Buffalo D/ST ($5,000) atop numberFire's model, but they also have easily the highest salary, and we know how flukey fantasy defense scoring can be. Still, forcing the inexperienced Stick into a negative game script could prove very, very fruitful.

Generally speaking, we probably don't want any part of the Chargers D/ST ($3,000), but this is quite the salary discount we're getting. It's not outlandish to envision a scenario where the other three units post modest scores, and the Chargers end up being the best point-per-dollar play. We know Allen can often be erratic and prone to turnovers.

Of the other two, the Cincinnati D/ST ($4,200) arguably gets the nod due to its matchup against Rudolph. We saw Rudolph underwhelm as a starter for a good chunk of 2019, and the fact that he was behind Mitchell Trubisky on the depth chart this year probably says all we need to know.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.