Monkey Knife Fight Player Props, Week 21

Photo: Kim Klement, USA Today Sports

Monkey Knife Fight is one of the fastest-growing daily fantasy sites. It offers a fun and unique product. There are no salary caps and no need for lineup builders. 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) plays in the same game, you can use correlation to your advantage. For example, if you assume that one starting quarterback throws for more yards than projected, the opposing quarterback also is more likely to throw for more yards. This weekly article will count down the five best props of the week.

5: Pass Heavy in Philly

Jalen Hurts MORE than 239.5 passing yards
Brock Purdy MORE than 219.5 passing yards

• This is a positive correlation play based upon a belief that Philadelphia will have success through the air and the 49ers will be forced to pass more than they would like to in order to keep pace.
• The expectation is Philadelphia will have to lean on a pass-heavy offensive approach. The 49ers give up the second-fewest rushing yards in the league but are just 20th in passing yards allowed.
• The Eagles passing offense has been elite and is fully healthy, with A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Dallas Goedert each playing at a high level.
• Purdy has been excellent since taking over as the starting quarterback midseason. He finished his rookie season averaging 8.1 yards per attempt and completing 67.1% of his passes. He had a career-high 332 passing yards and 3 touchdowns in his playoff debut against the Seahawks.

Plotting QB efficiency with clean pockets and under pressure... look at Brock Purdy's dot — right by Patrick Mahomes II!

This is obviously doubly huge entering a game against Philadelphia's NFL-leading pass rush.

Can Purdy sustain this amazing clip? pic.twitter.com/43CrH84tr5

— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) January 27, 2023

4: Hot hand at WR

DeVonta Smith MORE than 14.5 fantasy points
Deebo Samuel MORE than 12.5 fantasy points

• This is a positive correlation play with top receiving options for both teams targeted in what we believe will be a pass-heavy game in Philadelphia.
• In his last 10 games, DeVonta Smith has 66 catches for 815 yards and 6 touchdowns. That is an average of 6.6 catches for 81.5 yards and 0.6 touchdowns (18.4 fantasy PPG).
• Over the second half of the regular season, Smith’s 17.8 fantasy PPG was seventh-best at wide receiver and 0.8 PPG more than A.J. Brown.
• Smith has had at least eight targets in every single game going all the way back to Week 10.
• Smith has scored at least 17 fantasy points in six of his last seven games.
• In two playoff games, Deebo Samuel is averaging 8.0 targets and 3.5 rushing attempts per game (11.5 total opportunities).

Why Deebo Samuel will not be denied, not by the #49ers and not by the Eagles (via @sfchronicle, @MikeSilver)https://t.co/maSEXyRJie

— 49ers Webzone (@49erswebzone) January 27, 2023

• He has racked up 211 total yards in the playoffs so far.

3: Pass Heavy in Philly 2

• We are getting a massive amount of positive correlation when it comes to the Eagles passing offense. If both Smith and Brown top 70 receiving yards by some amount, then the odds are much higher than 50% that Hurts is throwing for 240-plus.
• If we played this game 100 times, it would be a high-scoring affair, with both teams having above-average success through the air more than 5% of the time. With us getting 20X odds, we only need to believe this combination of outcomes occurs at least 5% of the time for this to be a positive EV opportunity.
• As noted above, DeVonta Smith has been on fire over the past three months. He has 10 straight games with at least eight targets and has been a Top 10 fantasy wide receiver since the end of October.
• A.J. Brown has been nearly as dominant and ranks as a Top 12 wide receiver over that same stretch. Both Brown and Smith are averaging over 80 receiving yards per game over their last 10.

The Philadelphia Eagles are heading to the NFC championship game on the strength of wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. https://t.co/kUMlsdTCRw

— FOX 29 (@FOX29philly) January 26, 2023

• The flip side of expecting a pass-heavy approach from both offenses is that we should temper expectations for rushing success.
• With Christian McCaffrey banged up, expect the 49ers to limit his touches somewhat and continue to split his opportunities between rushes and targets. Last week, 44% of McCaffrey’s opportunities came on targets, and he carried the ball just 10 times.

2: Higgins feels due

Tee Higgins MORE than 58.5 receiving yards
JuJu Smith-Schuster MORE than 45.5 receiving yards

• Sometimes these picks are based upon gut feelings and that is the case here with Tee Higgins. He simply feels due for a big game after three straight quiet outings in which others were the primary targets more often.
• Higgins has had more than 40 receiving yards just once since Week 13. However, he remains a focal point of the Bengals offense and is due for some positive regression after just missing on some long completions in recent weeks.
• In last season’s AFC Championship game, Higgins caught is passes for 103 yards on 10 targets.

From December: Sideline talks. Locker room predictions. Calling his shot. Clutch moments.

Tee Higgins is routinely showing how much he has developed over the last year.

“His detail has improved tremendously. He has been a top-level player for us.”https://t.co/BZ7A5Hebgp

— Charlie Goldsmith (@CharlieG__) January 26, 2023

• JuJu Smith-Schuster has been phased out of the Chiefs offense to some extent down the stretch. In his last four games, he has just 11 total targets (2.25 per game). He has not had more than 35 receiving yards since Week 15.
• Smith-Schuster has faced the Bengals nine times in his career. He had 40-plus receiving yards in just two of those nine matchups (22.2%).

1: Unders in Kansas City

Joe Burrow LESS than 21.5 fantasy points
Patrick Mahomes II LESS than 21.5 fantasy points

• This is a strong correlation play, with the odds of one of the two quarterbacks having a relatively modest fantasy game rising if the other has a similarly modest performance.
• The first factor in favor of this play is the style of defense each team is likely to play against the other. In previous matchups, both defenses have had some success playing a “bend but don’t break” style that forces the other to put together long, clock-consuming drives.
• In the previous matchup, the Bengals scored five times (three touchdowns and two field goals). The average number of plays on those five scoring drives for Cincinnati was 9.4 plays. The Chiefs had four scoring drives and a fifth drive where they missed a field goal. On those five drives, Kansas City averaged 9.8 plays per drive. These long, methodical drives limit the number of possessions in the game.

.@BaldyNFL is here to break down how Lou Anarumo, the mastermind behind that stout @Bengals D, is so good at taking away your top target 😤 pic.twitter.com/qCHKInY6IA

— NFL Total Access (@NFLTotalAccess) January 24, 2023

• The second factor pointing to neither quarterback having a monster fantasy game is injuries. For the Chiefs, it is Patrick Mahomes II playing through a high ankle sprain. He should be fine inside the pocket but we should probably expect less running from Mahomes and maybe one or two fewer of the spectacular downfield plays after leaving the pocket and extending the play. For the Bengals, it is looking like it could be another game with three backup offensive linemen. While the offensive line injuries did not hamper the operation much in Buffalo, blocking Chris Jones and some of the other Chiefs pass rushers is a tougher task.
• The third factor favoring the quarterback fantasy unders is that both offenses should expect to find success on the ground. In the previous matchup, the teams combined for 290 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns. Samaje Perine (filling in for an injured Joe Mixon) rushed fro 106 yards on 21 carries. Isiah Pacheco and Jerick McKinnon combined for 117 rushing yards on 22 carries. Both teams also had success on the ground last week, with the Chiefs rushing for 144 against Jacksonville and the Bengals rushing for 170 against the Bills.