Football is back! Every NFL week starts with a Thursday Night Football game for most of the remainder of the 2023 season, and these are our favorite slates to play Daily Fantasy Football. The TNF showdown slate allows you a smaller crop of players to choose from, and if your cheap sleeper pick hits, you can cash big in your tournaments or easily win your head-to-head DFS matchups. Tonight, we kickoff Week 8 with the Pittsburgh Steelers hosting the Tennessee Titans.
Every week, I'll get the Thursday Night DFS picks from our experts and we'll feature them below. We'll take a mix of lineups from our panel of experts that feature builds on Fanduel. But first, let's preview the matchup and what we might expect.
The Titans offense enters this game with a lot more excitement from a Fantasy Football standpoint than they've had all season after turning the reigns over to rookie second-round quarterback Will Levis last week. Levis threw for four touchdowns with zero interceptions in his debut and he finally got Deandre Hopkins going on the vertical plane with multiple long touchdown throws to Nuk. Hopkins will be one of the most rostered players on this solo DFS slate because of it. However, if Levis can continue to ignite the offense, it's really good news for Derrick Henry as well since he should be in plus game script with more scoring opportunities.
On the flip side, the Steelers offense is a bit of an unknown with Kenny Pickett expected to play but no guarantee to make it through the entire game. He was replaced due to injury by Mitch Trubisky last week. Speaking of last week, Diontae Johnson saw a whopping 14 targets in the pass game while George Pickens took a back seat. Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada limited the route tree for Pickens after he excelled with an expanded route tree in Week 8. Someone will have to explain that logic behind that to me, but either way, it's difficult to feel comfortable rocking with Pickens in DFS tonight.
Sportsline's Jacob Gibbs does the deep dive on the Steelers-Titans with a breakdown of all the players who should be in your captain consideration, a break down of the FLEX plays by tiers and more. Mike McClure has you covered with optimal lineups for the TNF slate on both DraftKings and FanDuel. Or you can lean on former Millionaire Maker winner Jimmie Kaylor for his picks.
Without further ado, here's a look at who our experts are picking on this DFS Thursday Night Football slate:
Dave Richard
FanDuel:
MVP: Derrick Henry $16,000
FLEX: Will Levis $15,000
FLEX: Diontae Johnson $12,000
FLEX: Titans DEF $9,000
FLEX: Chig Okonkwo $7,000
Jamey Eisenberg
FanDuel:
MVP: Steelers DEF $9,500
FLEX: Derrick Henry $16,000
FLEX: Kenny Pickett $13,500
FLEX: Diontae Johnson $12,000
FLEX: Chris Boswell $9,000
Heath Cummings
FanDuel:
MVP: Steelers DEF $9,500
FLEX: Derrick Henry $16,000
FLEX: George Pickens $14,000
FLEX: Nick Folk $9,000
FLEX: Chris Boswell $9,000