Introduction
Monkey Knife Fight is one of the fastest-growing daily fantasy sites and offers a unique product that is a lot of fun. There are no salary caps and you do not have to compete against DFS pros. Instead, you simply find the combination of player props you are most confident in and pick more or less. Since each combination (two or more players) is playing in the same game, we can use correlation to our advantage. For example, if we know that one starting quarterback throws for more yards than projected, the opposing quarterback is more likely to throw for more yards also.
In this weekly article, we will count down the five best props of the week. With the Holiday week, we are going to do things just a little bit differently. We are going to give our two favorite Thanksgiving Day props on Thursday morning and then add the top three weekend plays on Friday.
Week 12 Review
- Last Week: -5
- Season Total: EVEN
Thanksgiving week was rough. We came close to hitting a couple of these but 0-for-5 happened instead.
Week 12 Picks
- 5: Zeke Eats (-1): Elliott got into the end zone once but his injury was more serious than the reporting indicated.
- 4: Bills Dominate on Thursday Night: (-1) We had the right read on this. The Bills did dominate and Trevor Siemian did not come close to hitting his passing over. Unfortunately, Josh Allen came up 5.5 yards short on his passing prop, despite the dominant performance.
- 3: Bengals Game TDs: (-1) We have been riding Joe Mixon’s hot streak and he did score multiple touchdowns for the third-straight week, but both Najee Harris and JaMarr Chase were held out of the end zone.
- 2: Points in Indy: (-1) We got the points. Half of this call looks great in hindsight. Leonard Fournette went way over his 15.5 fantasy point projection. Despite Carson Wentz throwing for 306 yards and 3 touchdowns and targeting Michael Pittman 10 times, Pittman still came in below the 15.5 points we needed.
- 1: Scary Fades (-1) We had the wrong read on this one. The game plans were more pass-heavy than expected.
5: Bengals-Chargers TD Prop
MORE than 2.5 combined touchdowns between Joe Mixon, Austin Ekeler, and JaMarr Chase
- Why have these 4X touchdown props become our favorite of the season? Look no further than this Bengals-Chargers matchup to see how these can be +EV choices if we can hone in on the right teams to target.
- In the Footballguys consensus projections, the three-player combination we have chosen here projects for a combined 2.71 touchdowns. We are getting 4X on over 2.5. You do not need to be a math wiz to look at those numbers and think there is a potential edge here.
- Joe Mixon’s consensus projection is 1.08 total touchdowns, second-highest on the entire slate of games this weekend behind only Jonathan Taylor. Mixon has scored multiple touchdowns in four straight games.
Joe Mixon's cutback ability is astonishingly good. Filth. pic.twitter.com/0trReVn4yX
— Johnny Kinsley (@Brickwallblitz) December 2, 2021
- Austin Ekeler’s consensus Footballguys projection is 0.99 touchdowns per game, the third-highest on the entire slate behind just Taylor and Mixon. Ekeler already has 14 touchdowns on the season.
- JaMarr Chase has a solid 0.64 touchdown projection.
- In 8-of-11 Bengals games this season, the Mixon-Chase duo has combined for at least two touchdowns.
- This is an ideal spot for Mixon. The Chargers are last in the league in rushing yards allowed (145.3 per game) and are giving up 1.3 rushing touchdowns per game to opposing running backs (second-most in the NFL).
4: Betting on Backups
MORE than 2.5 combined touchdowns between Alexander Mattison, Adam Thielen, and Jamaal Williams
- One of the themes of the 2021 season has been backup running putting up big numbers. It has been a common occurrence to see a starter go down with an injury and the backup with fresh legs step in and put up big numbers.
- The Footballguys projections has this trio for 2.24 combined touchdowns. We are getting 4X value on the over of 2.5. This is a ton of value.
- For teams with solid backups but not a lot of depth behind the top two, we often see the backup get extremely heavy volume because there is a big drop-off between number two and number three on the depth chart, leaving the number two as the only trusted option once the starter goes down.
Alexander Mattison has averaged 25 fantasy points per game in two starts this year and is now set to face off against a Lions defense that has allowed the fourth most rushing yards in the NFL this season. pic.twitter.com/RwN2QEXOID
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) December 1, 2021
- Lions head coach Dan Campbell indicated as much in his press conference this week, saying Williams will get a “heavy workload” and that the team is “gonna lean on him quite a bit.”
It's Jamaal Williams RB1 time in Detroit pic.twitter.com/eIUR5IqcAI
— PFF Fantasy Football (@PFF_Fantasy) December 1, 2021
- The Vikings are giving up 1.0 touchdowns per game to opposing backs this season.
- The Lions have given up the second-most touchdowns to opposing running back (17 in 11 games) this season.
- Adam Thielen has been a touchdown magnet in recent years because Kirk Cousins loves going to him when the team gets inside the 10-yard line and Thielen has proven very effective in this situation. On the season, Thielen leads the entire NFL with eight catches on targets inside the 10-yard line and is tied for the NFL lead (with Cooper Kupp and Mike Evans) with six touchdowns on those targets.
3: Low-Flying NFC West Matchup
Russell Wilson LESS than 245.5 passing yards
Jimmy Garoppolo LESS than 240.5 passing yards
- Not only can we take advantage of a correlation play here, but we are also getting solid value on both sides of this prop. The Footballguys consensus projections have Russell Wilson for 236 yards and Jimmy Garoppolo for 225 yards.
- Russell Wilson has looked like a shell of his old self since returning from injury. Until we see something that gives any glimmer of hope, we should feel decent about betting against him whenever we can.
Among the sunken #Seahawks' many problems, this is a big one:
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) December 2, 2021
Years of mistakes and neglect by Pete Carroll and John Schneider about the offensive line have finally caught up to Russell Wilson. In decisive ways that go beyond stats. https://t.co/4W51FhwRsn @thenewstribune
- The San Francisco pass defense has been stingy. As noted in the Footballguys passing matchups article, no team has topped 250 yards since Week 3, a stretch that’s included dates with Kyler Murray, Matthew Stafford, and Kirk Cousins.
- In the Week 4 matchup against San Francisco, Jimmy Garopppolo attempted only 23 passes and threw for just 165 yards.
- Over the last three weeks, Garoppolo has attempted 67 passes total (22.3 per game). This has been a slow-paced, rush-heavy 49ers offense.
Jimmy Garoppolo's stats in his past 2 starts against the Seahawks: 25 of 39, 249 passing yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs, 2 injuries, 69.3 passer rating.
— Grant Cohn (@grantcohn) December 1, 2021
- Garoppolo has only attempted more than 30 passes all season and both times it happened, the 49ers had fallen far behind early against elite offenses. That is not how this one is likely to play out and there is nothing elite about this Seahawks offense.
2: Chicago-Arizona TDs
MORE than 2.5 combined touchdowns from James Conner, David Montgomery, and DeAndre Hopkins
This is the third game of Week 13 that features a trio of skill-position player projected for more than 2.0 combined touchdowns. This trio projects for 2.15 scores, which is close enough to the 2.5 goal to feel good about given that we are getting 4X. While the attraction here is mostly about the running backs, it is never a bad idea to expect good things from DeAndre Hopkins.
This doesn’t look like a man who’s planning on missing his fourth straight game. DeAndre Hopkins is back. pic.twitter.com/o6QDaAkYQb
— Johnny Venerable (@JohnnyVenerable) December 2, 2021
A big reason this prop profiles so well is James Conner. His 0.96 touchdown projection is one of the highest of the week.
Cardinals' TD-machine James Conner hopes to stick around Arizona for more than one seasonhttps://t.co/5zrVaXUibh pic.twitter.com/YGlsd3BTa5
— Around The NFL (@AroundTheNFL) December 1, 2021
Conner has scored 13 times over the last nine weeks. Over that stretch, he has scored in 8-of-9 games.
While the matchup is less than ideal for David Montgomery, we will take our chances on one of the few sure workhorse backs in the league. Since returning from injury in Week 9, Montgomery has played 85%, 95%, and 84% of the Bears offensive snaps.
1: Surprisingly fun in Washington
Derek Carr MORE than 275.5 passing yards
Taylor Heinicke MORE than 235.5 passing yards
- At first glance, this game looks like a snoozer but after digging in more, this is a spot where we could see more scoring than expected.
- The Raiders defense has been floundering after a strong start. As noted in our Footballguys' passing matchups, three of their last six opponents have passed for at least 325 yards against the Raiders.
- Not only have they been torched by top offenses at full strength (like Patrick Mahomes II throwing for 406 yards two weeks ago), the Raiders even got torched by a Cowboys offense without its two elite receiving weapons for 375 yards.
- On the other side, Taylor Heinicke has been sneaky good of late. Since the bye, he has completed over 75% of his passes in leading Washington to three straight wins. He has started to figure out how to take care of the ball while still giving his playmakers opportunities to go and make plays.
On Taylor Heinicke, who's heading to Vegas on a roll because... he's learned to gamble less https://t.co/THFzPBSGtH
— Pete Hailey (@PeteHaileyNBCS) December 2, 2021
- We are getting a bit of value here on Carr, who is projected for 288 passing yards by the Footballguys projection staff.
- Carr is fresh off of throwing for 373 yards against a solid Cowboys pass defense. Now he gets to face a Washington defense that is giving up the most passing yards per game in the NFL and has allowed opposing quarterbacks to throw for 26 touchdowns against just 6 interceptions.