2025 Super Bowl DFS Strategies: Eagles vs. Chiefs lineup advice, sleepers for showdown contests

Denny Carter has a great breakdown of the game itself (and combinations to keep in mind) in the second half of this article. I’ll mention plenty of game-level stuff as well, but first I want to talk about building profitable lineups by getting unique and reducing dupes. What are dupes? Let’s talk.

Super Bowl LIX NFL Showdown DFS Strategy

The long story short is that you want to reduce the number of times your lineup is played by other people. If you win first place, you want to tie with as few lineups as possible to maximize your payout. A few examples from previous Super Bowls make this strategy clear.

This was the winning lineup from Super Bowl 55, Chiefs vs. Bucs. Rob Gronkowski was underpriced and Antonio Brown saved some salary as well. Having played a Bucs pass-catcher in the Captain spot, Tom Brady had to make the lineup. Add in the main Chiefs pass-catchers and it builds itself. The problem is 781 people played this lineup and it won $2,469 A contest that pays a million dollars to first and you only won 2.5 grand? We can do better.

Super Bowl 56, Rams vs. Bengals. This lineup isn’t drastically different than the previous one. The sum of all the ownership numbers is only 20 percent lower. Despite this, only 10 people played it, resulting in a much more exciting payout of $160,000. It cut the dupes dramatically in a few key ways.

First and foremost, these brave souls took a shot on a 2.1 percent rostered Brycen Hopkins, filling in as the TE2 because of a Tyler Higbee injury. Second, they played a wide receiver at Captain without his quarterback. This example from showdown GOAT Drewby shows how much the payout differences can be on similar lineups.

There’s a natural inclination to play a lineup that makes narrative sense. That’s logical, but it’s also relied upon way too often by the larger DFS audience. Some of these less-than-intuitive choices—playing a receiver without his quarterback—go a long way in earning big payouts when you hit.

Lastly, the Holy Grail. A no-dupes, million-dollar winner from the worst Super Bowl in recent history, Super Bowl 53, Rams vs. Patriots. Four pass-catchers—one in the Captain spot—with no quarterbacks. A low-owned defense facing a supposedly elite Rams offense. It also took a previously unmentioned edge of leaving salary on the table. It spent just $47,800 of the allotted 50K.

As prolific showdown grinder Cody Main has shown, salary left on the table has an unmistakable correlation to lower dupes.

Chiefs Pass-Catchers

Math lesson aside, let’s talk some ball. The Chiefs are a great single-game DFS team because they give us so many opportunities to play weird players. Kansas City has six receivers/tight ends with more than 15 routes in the playoffs. Despite playing one more postseason game, the Eagles only have four such players. JuJu Smith-Schuster has run 50 percent of the routes in the playoffs. Noah Gray is at 33 percent. Gray quietly earned 14 percent of the Chiefs’ end zone targets this year. He had consecutive two-touchdown games in the regular season. Justin Watson is a deep cut for the Chiefs. He has run just a handful of routes in the postseason but is still worth a shot if you’re truly sick. With as many viable options as the Chiefs have, getting to Patrick Mahomes at Captain plus three of his pass-catchers looks like a smart move.

Travis Kelce

Another interesting wrinkle with the Chiefs’ offense is that the target-earners can rack up receiving volume—PPR points—without contributing to Patrick Mahomes’ fantasy output all that much. Mahomes’ aDOT of 7.1 is the fourth-lowest (min. 500 attempts) of the past five years. The Eagles are also elite at preventing deep shots. They “allowed” -.245 EPA per play on throws 20+ yards downfield. They were the only defense to even cross the zero threshold this year. This is all to say that you can play their pass-catchers without needing to lock in Mahomes.

Travis Kelce, of course, has been a monster in the Chiefs’ recent playoff runs despite his humble regular season stats. He has earned 28 percent of the team’s targets in his six playoff appearances over the past two years while averaging 19 PPR points per game.

Saquon Barkley

The slate revolves around Saquon Barkley. Fantasy football’s regular season did so and the final DFS contest of the year fittingly does as well. I’m not going to tell you not to play the best play in the biggest game of the year. However, there are plenty of wrinkles you can throw into Barkely lineups, inspired once again by Cody Main’s posts.

Jalen Hurts ranked 15th out of 43 qualified quarterbacks in turnover-worthy play rate when pressured this year. He had the ninth-highest pressure-to-sack rate. The Chiefs had the fifth-highest pressure rate this year.

You could also pair Barkley with his backup, Kenneth Gainwell. Kenny G has a measly 10 touches in the postseason, but favorable game script has largely kept him off the field. Gainwell has played 42 percent of the two-minute drills snaps this year, giving him some PPR juice if the Eagles fall behind.

Chiefs Running Backs

No one wants to play Chiefs running backs in this game. That’s reasonable. It also means neither back will be particularly popular. Hunt is the better play, having out-carried Pacheco 25-10 in two playoff weeks. Interestingly, the Chiefs gave Pacheco their only carry inside the five versus the Bills. He was also on the receiving end of 2-of-4 backfield targets. Pacheco could be a natural fit to counter the Eagles’ run defense. No team showed opponents fewer stacked boxes in the regular season, giving an explosive back like Pacheco plenty of room to work. Pacheco, however, has not been explosive or efficient by any measure since returning from his leg injury. Maybe the two weeks of rest have helped him?

There’s also Samaje Perine. The Chiefs’ rarely-used RB3 has run 22 percent of the routes in the postseason but has been on the field for all but one of their long down and distance snaps. He ranks eighth among running backs in yards per route run (1.56).

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03:47

How you can get ‘unique’ with Super Bowl DFS picks

Patrick Daugherty and Denny Carter discuss how to navigate DFS picks for Super Bowl LIX, and how you can get “unique” by leaving Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley out of your lineups.

Super Bowl LIX DFS Strategies from Denny Carter

The Barkley-less Gamble

It’s enough to make you nauseated: Creating a single-game (showdown) lineup without the only player who really mattered in fantasy football this season, the guy around whom the entire Philadelphia offense revolves, the guy who can pop off for a long score on any touch, against any defense, anywhere on the field.

Fading Barkley against KC would certainly accomplish one task in creating a single game roster in a large-field tournament: It would make your team exceedingly unique. Barkley is sure to be the most rostered player in this contest and the most used in the captain spot, which awards 1.5 times the fantasy production.

If the question in single-game DFS is what do you win when you win, then the answer here — in a scenario where you leave Barkley out of your lineup and other Eagles players come through for a big game — would be quite a bit.

Any Barkley-less lineup would necessarily have to lean hard on a Jalen Hurts stack. And who better to stack alongside Hurts than the book-enjoying A.J. Brown, who has ripped man coverage this season (as he did in 2023) and now faces a Kansas City defense playing man coverage at the league’s ninth highest rate.

No wideout had a higher rate of yards per route run against man coverage looks this season than Brown, who led all receivers in first-read targets against man in 2024. DeVonta Smith, meanwhile, was 41st out of 100 qualifying wide receivers in yards per route run against man looks. When Hurts stares down man coverage schemes, it’s Brown, not Smith, who takes priority.

If Hurts is going to have a biggish day through the air, he’s likely going to bring along more than one pass catcher. That could be Smith, of course. He led the Eagles with nine targets the last time the Eagles faced the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. I lean toward Dallas Goedert for purely matchup purposes though.

Goedert has been Hurts’ short-era dump off option against man coverage over the past two seasons. TJ Hockenson was the only tight end to log a higher yards per route tan Goedert against man coverage this past season, and Goedert was fifth among all tight ends in yards after the catch per reception against man. His 5.5 average depth of target suggests a lot of easy receptions could be coming his way in the Super Bowl, especially if the Eagles fall behind and have to operate more of a balanced attack against the Chiefs.

The Kansas City Checkdown Merchants

All the Chiefs do is throw short. Patrick Mahomes in 2024 had the NFL’s second lowest air yards per pass (6.4), and over the past three seasons, no quarterback has a lower rate of air yards per throw (6.7). You know this on a gut level if you’ve spent even five minutes watching the boring KC offense since the Chiefs got rid of Tyreek Hill.

That will certainly continue unabated this Sunday against the Eagles. Philly’s defense has no weak spots. They’re especally good at snuffing out splash plays, as only the Packers in Week 1 burned the Eagles deep before the team’s defense said enough of that. There’s no chance the Chiefs even try to go deep against the Eagles in the Super Bowl.

That leaves Xavier Worthy and Travis Kelce to eat up short-area targets from Checkdown King Mahomes. The Eagles play zone coverage at a slightly higher rate than the league average. Against zone, Kelce in 2024 was targeted on 30 percent of his routes, one of the highest rates in the league and far higher than Worthy’s 22 percent rate since Week 14, when the Chiefs all but gave up on the rookie as a deep ball threat and deployed him exclusively in the short area.

Worthy since Week 14 has an average depth of target of 3.1 yards against zone looks. It’s a little higher against man coverage. No one else beyond Noah Gray sees dump off looks from Mahomes in this offense, and though Gray might be a cost-saving DFS play in Super Bowl contests, his usage has been maddeningly inconsistent. Gray could run a route on 50-60 percent of Mahomes’ drop backs this Sunday; he could also run 20 percent. In the latter case, he’s dead in the water for fantasy purposes without a touchdown grab.

Hollywood Brown profiles as a decent contrarian option if you’re keen on stacking Mahomes with two or three pass catchers. Brown has seen a target in a shockingly high 28 percent of his pass routes since making his season debut in Week 16 against the Texans. After being used as another check down option in his first two games, Brown has been deployed as the team’s only downfield threat over the past two outings, leading the Chiefs in air yards. Please remember at all times that you can’t feed air yards to your family. You can try. They won’t like it.

Kickers and Defenses: The Boring Path

Another way to get weird (unique) with showdown lineups is to use the Eagles or Chiefs defense. You’re hoping for a special teams touchdown more than you’re hoping for a bunch of sacks and interceptions, however. Hurts since the start of 2022 ranks second in completion rate over expected, trailing only Geno Smith. Mahomes ranks fifth in CPOE. Mahomes threw a pick on less than 2 percent of his attempts in 2024, the sixth time he’s accomplished that feat in the NFL.

Neither of these teams have been generous to enemy kickers. That’s how it goes when you’re a good team: Opponents are rarely in position to attempt field goals against you. KC gave up the fifth fewest field goal tries in 2024; the Eagles were eighth best. Playing either Harrison Butker or Jake Elliott would be a bet on these teams failing to finish drives. You should ask yourself who would produce in such a scenario. As far as I can tell, that would be Mahomes’ short-area targets and one or two of Philly’s three main pass catchers. Throwing the corresponding defense into your roster with Elliott or Butker might not be the worst idea either. This constitutes the most boring way to make single-game rosters.