On Monday night, the 3-6 Dallas Cowboys will host the 6-4 Houston Texans at AT&T Stadium.
Ahead of this Monday Night Football showdown, who are the best players to plug in your DFS lineup? Using DraftKings’ prices, let’s build a lineup that could win big!
Week 11 MNF DFS Picks
- CAPTAIN: C.J. Stroud, $14,700
- FLEX: Nico Collins, $10,400
- FLEX: Rico Dowdle, $9,000
- FLEX: Texans DST, $6,200
- FLEX: Dalton Schultz, $5,000
- FLEX: Jalen Tolbert, $4,600
DFS Strategy: Trusting C.J. Stroud as Our Captain
Stroud hasn’t finished a week better than QB14 since September, a slump that just so happens to line up with Collins’ last fully healthy game.
Throughout the first five weeks of the season, Stroud was averaging 277 passing yards per game. Then, once Collins got hurt, Stroud’s average dipped to 188.5 passing yards per game over the next four contests.
In the last four games that Collins started, over 75% of Houston’s yards came through the air. In the next four games without Collins, 54.9% of their yards have come via passes.
Stroud’s recent struggles may be scaring others off, but with Collins back in the lineup, we’re trusting him as our captain. It helps that the Cowboys are giving up the fifth-most fantasy points per game to quarterbacks (22.78), so Stroud could have a big game.
Nico Collins’ Return
It’s not crazy to call Collins a top-10 receiver in the NFL, right? He has 154 targets since the beginning of last season as he continues to develop, a level of volume that could easily be achieved within a single healthy season if you consider him among the game’s best (nine receivers cleared that number in 2023 alone). On those 154 targets …
- 112 catches
- 1,864 yards
- 11 touchdowns
Those are similar raw numbers and superior rate numbers to what CeeDee Lamb did last season. This season, Collins is averaging 113.4 yards per game — by far the most in the NFL. No other receiver is averaging more than 96 yards per game — even after Ja’Marr Chase’s 264-yard explosion, he’s not close to Collins’ average.
One can certainly make the argument that Collins belongs in the captain spot, and I’m not faulting anyone who builds out their lineup that way. But given his price, it makes it tough to fill out the supporting cast around him.
Can the Texans’ DST Dominate Cooper Rush?
Cooper Rush is coming off a really rough Week 10 performance where he completed 13 of 23 passes (56.5%) for just 45 yards and zero touchdowns against the Philadelphia Eagles. With Dak Prescott out after undergoing surgery on his hamstring and Rush under center, it’s very hard to trust the Cowboys’ pass-catchers.
Things won’t get any easier for Rush this week, as the Texans are allowing the third-fewest passing yards per game (174.7). Houston’s defense becomes an interesting play, and so does Dowdle, since the Cowboys will likely lean on him rather than putting the ball in Rush’s hands.
As for Tolbert, he’s playing the most snaps (94.6% last week) and receiving the most targets (11 over the last two weeks) of the players in his price range. While he hasn’t done much with those targets as of late, the hope is that his involvement can lead to a decent performance that returns value on his $4,600 price.