The second week of NFL preseason action arrives on Thursday night, and DraftKings rewards us with a 2-game slate. This is perhaps the most volatile DFS genre you can ask for, but there’s also an absurd amount of leverage to tap into.
Want to know where to start and build a winning foundation? I’ll highlight my top NFL preseason DFS picks for week two, give you reasoning for them, and also suggest some potential pivots. Let’s build!
NFL DFS Core Plays for Thursday Night
- Trey Lance, QB, Chargers
- Noah Whittington, RB, Texans
- Brenen Thompson, WR, Chargers
- Albert Okwuegbunam, TE, Raiders
Trey Lance, QB, Chargers
This slate is bad for reliability, but we can feel pretty good about Lance. Not only is the former 49ers bust a great athlete, but he is a preseason darling who offers a solid floor and a nice ceiling. We also know that Justin Herbert is only playing a series for L.A., so it’s going to be the Trey Lance Show for at least a half.
Davis Mills and Fernando Mendoza are also in play, and if the Lance ownership is out of control a pivot is totally fine. I just think Lance’s rushing floor makes him the best QB pick of the night.
Noah Whittington, RB, Texans
This is the easiest click of the slate. Houston got scared by the Jayden Higgins injury and won’t be playing any of their starters. I have to believe that means we see none of David Montgomery and probably very little or none of Woody Marks as well.
Houston has some injuries to monitor, but all of British Brooks, Jawhar Jordan, and Joshua Pitsenberger are either for sure out or are very much in doubt for this contest. Whittington, on the other hand, carried the ball over 10 times last week and his competition just shrunk.
This is an explosive back looking to earn a roster spot in the NFL, so we have a really nice mixture of talent, role, and narrative.
Owen Wright should operate behind him and there’s a big-time leverage opportunity here. I love Whittington, but with the Texans shorthanded, it’s easy to see both of these guys getting a ton of work. Wright is quite the leverage play, and on a tiny 2-game I really don’t even mind pairing them together.
Mike Washington and Kaelon Black are standout options in terms of explosive ability. The Raiders got to see what Washington can do last week, however, while San Francisco still doesn’t know what they have in their third round pick. I lean Black between the two.
Brenen Thompson, WR, Chargers
I will start off by saying that Houston is going to be incredibly light in their WR room. Jared Wayne is the guy I want first in that group, as he was very busy last week and even scored a touchdown. I’m keeping Lewis Bond and even (gulp) Justin Watson in my WR player pool, but Wayne is my first click there.
That said, I am making a pivot to name Brenen Thompson as my top WR play. He got a lot of playing time in his preseason debut, but wasn’t able to turn six targets into much production. The Chargers are lightly playing their starters, but after that I can see him getting a lot of chances to impress.
Thompson is an explosive athlete with the potential to bust this slate wide open, plus he’s a nice stacking option with Trey Lance.
The 49ers could play their main guys a little tonight, and that’d complicate matters in their WR room. Game one production out of Watkins and Stribling was insane, but I’m wary about trusting it can happen again.
Malik Benson, Jack Bech, and KeAndre Lambert-Smith are the other receivers I have my eye on at a fairly loaded position.
Albert Okwuegbunam, TE, Raiders
His name is a nightmare, but he also looks like the best option on a really bad NFL preseason DFS slate for tight ends. I will say that Houston has two really good picks – Marlin Klein and Cade Stover – but it’s unclear who they are prioritizing. I’ll just get to both of them, but it’s worth noting that Klein is a plus athlete rookie who already flashed his ability with a 31-yard catch last week.
Could Houston limit or rest Klein now that they saw what he can do in game action? It’s possible. Maybe that’s galaxy-braining it, but I don’t want to tie up all of my TE exposure into one dude.
That brings Okwuegbunam into the picture, who many have forgotten despite at one point being a very interesting prospect. From a sheer size/speed perspective, the guy is a freak. It has never fully translated, but we know he’s big and he can run. He’s a good overall athlete, too, and he’s still trying to prove himself at age 28.
Las Vegas won’t play Brock Bowers or Michael Mayer very much, so they’ll turn to Okwuegbunam and Ian Thomas. I’m willing to bet on the size/speed ceiling here, especially since he played almost half the game last week.
Noah Simpson is a New England-based DFS writer who has spent the better part of a decade obsessing over MLB DFS. He got his start playing DFS recreationally before realizing he was spending more time building spreadsheets than actually watching games, and decided to make it official. At DFSBuild, Noah covers MLB DFS strategy with a focus on finding edges that casual players overlook. When he’s not staring at Statcast data, he’s somewhere on a hiking trail in Maine with his two dogs, Sandboy and Johnner, who are undefeated at ignoring his lineup advice, because they are dogs. They don’t have the cognitive or motor skills required to operate a computer, let alone process complex theories and information.
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