This article is part of our Showdown/Single Game DFS Breakdown series.
The season has more or less gone swimmingly for the 5-2 Steelers, who are looking to make it six wins at the expense of the predictably bad 2-5 Giants. Brian Daboll remains one of the better head coaches in the league and for that reason the Steelers need to take this game seriously, but it's easy to argue that Mike Tomlin is the best coach in the league at getting his team to show up each and every week. Tomlin has to slip up occasionally himself, but the Steelers are sort of riding a high after Russell Wilson emerged as an apparently major quarterback upgrade over Justin Fields, who started the first six games while Wilson was injured with a calf issue. If Wilson can continue to outplay Fields then the Steelers become even more intimidating after opening the season 4-1 under Fields. The over/under is at 36.5 and the Steelers are favored by 6.0 points.
QUARTERBACK
Speaking of Russell Wilson ($9600 DK, $15500 FD), he's all of a sudden a tough fade in this slate, if only because it projects to be so low scoring and potentially light on producers from scrimmage. That's because the Steelers defense is a threat to smother most otherwise potential producers on the Giants, while in the case of the Steelers offense things are channeled heavily through just the run game and then George Pickens at receiver. Although, we should probably count kicker Chris Boswell as another primary threat on the Steelers,
The season has more or less gone swimmingly for the 5-2 Steelers, who are looking to make it six wins at the expense of the predictably bad 2-5 Giants. Brian Daboll remains one of the better head coaches in the league and for that reason the Steelers need to take this game seriously, but it's easy to argue that Mike Tomlin is the best coach in the league at getting his team to show up each and every week. Tomlin has to slip up occasionally himself, but the Steelers are sort of riding a high after Russell Wilson emerged as an apparently major quarterback upgrade over Justin Fields, who started the first six games while Wilson was injured with a calf issue. If Wilson can continue to outplay Fields then the Steelers become even more intimidating after opening the season 4-1 under Fields. The over/under is at 36.5 and the Steelers are favored by 6.0 points.
QUARTERBACK
Speaking of Russell Wilson ($9600 DK, $15500 FD), he's all of a sudden a tough fade in this slate, if only because it projects to be so low scoring and potentially light on producers from scrimmage. That's because the Steelers defense is a threat to smother most otherwise potential producers on the Giants, while in the case of the Steelers offense things are channeled heavily through just the run game and then George Pickens at receiver. Although, we should probably count kicker Chris Boswell as another primary threat on the Steelers, which he absolutely is. In any case, there might not be that many high-scoring options on this slate, but if Wilson keeps playing like he did last week he might be one of them, though Pittsburgh rarely looks to throw the ball much.
Daniel Jones ($9400 DK, $14000 FD) saw the bench late in the Giants' Week 7 blowout loss to the Eagles, but that was just the Giants acknowledging the game was over rather than indicating much or anything about Jones' job security. With that said, it's difficult to identify what angle Jones could have in this game, short of simply overachieving and playing one of his best games ever at this particular time. Anything is possible, but the Steelers in Pittsburgh is not the venue when your bad luck on offense tends to turn for the better. For what it's worth, if Jones surprises here then he would be a nice high-leverage pick on this slate, because Jones at his best can provide standout rushing and passing production both.
RUNNING BACK
Najee Harris ($9200 DK, $13500 FD) after two big games in a row, and if Wilson continues to prove an upgrade at quarterback a lot of the benefit will fall to Harris, whose struggles in past cases were often informed by the Pittsburgh passing game providing no space as defenses keyed on Harris. With that said, Jaylen Warren ($7200 DK, $9500 FD) is highly capable in his own right, and if luck aligns with Warren's usage he could be a cashing pick either as a standalone or even on lineup cards that also include Harris. When run-heavy offenses go into victory scripts they sometimes feature more than one productive player, and the Steelers might be looking to get Warren rolling a bit since he hasn't had a good game yet in 2024.
Tyrone Tracy ($4400 DK, $11500 FD) and Devin Singletary ($8400 DK, $10500 FD) will have to split the Giants backfield work on some basis, but it's not perfectly clear how that will work. As much as Tracy saw more touches (nine) than Singletary (six) last week, it's not clear if Singletary was perfectly healthy in his return to injury, and the Giants falling behind big might have otherwise led the Giants to use Tracy more even if they still regard Tracy as the backup between the two. It's not obvious how either player is supposed to get much going in this game if they couldn't do much last week, but the Giants have to try something to get the ground game going.
WIDE RECEIVER + TIGHT END
Malik Nabers ($10000 DK, $16500 FD) will be the one tough fade about the Giants, because a talent like him is capable of producing big fantasy numbers even if the offense around him is failing. That might be the exact scenario here, but either way it's hard to fade a wideout with 60 targets on 280 snaps. That's not to ignore guys like slot wideout Wan'Dale Robinson ($7800 DK, $10000 FD) or boundary specialist Darius Slayton ($5800 DK, $8000 FD), both of whom are good players, it just might be true to say that in their cases they might be a little more dependent on Jones actually playing well, which might be a condition Nabers is exempted from at his particular target rate. Tight end Theo Johnosn ($2400 DK, $7000 FD) doesn't draw many targets, but the athletic rookie is at least playing clear starter snaps over backups Daniel Bellinger and Chris Manhertz, making Johnson a viable punt play, albeit one with no floor to speak of.
George Pickens ($9800 DK, $12500 FD) is about as tough to fade as Nabers in this game, because Pickens likely has the better support at quarterback and the Giants defense is not as tough as the Steelers' is. Even if Pickens can't get close to Nabers' target rate, the YPT and touchdown rate should be reliably higher with Pickens if Wilson and Jones maintain their respective recent levels of play. Van Jefferson ($4000 DK, $7500 FD) and Calvin Austin ($3000 DK, $7500 FD) are theoretically the other options at receiver, though Jefferson has awful per-snap production and Austin generally plays fewer snaps than Jefferson. Rather than either of them the better bet to be the second-most productive route runner for Pittsburgh is Pat Freiermuth ($6200 DK, $8000 FD), an effective if overqualified receiver. Freiermuth has been highly efficient this year and if the Steelers can get him more targets they probably should. Darrell Washington ($2800 DK, $6500 FD) is a player better in real life than fantasy football, but since he's playing starter-level snaps alongside Freiermuth, there should be ongoing punt-play logic with Washington in any single-game slate.
KICKER
Chris Boswell ($5000 DK, $8500 FD) quietly might be the second-best NFL kicker behind the barely-human Brandon Audrey, and in this game Boswell could be in a good spot to make more noise. Boswell has gone over double-digit fantasy points three times this year and went bonkers between those three games, averaging 19 points per game between them.
Greg Joseph is not a good kicker and doesn't have an obviously good setup here.
DEFENSE/SPECIAL TEAMS
The Giants ($3400 DK, $9000 FD) have a rebuilding defense, which means they are often overmatched but also have players who might be improving from week to week or are otherwise suffering losses that they will eventually adjust to and improve against. The Steelers offense is far from infallible, and even with the seeming upgrade at quarterback it's tough to fully give Wilson the full benefit of the doubt off just one game. With that said, the Giants are heavy underdogs in this game for a variety of sound reasons.
The Steelers ($5400 DK, $9000 FD) should be in a good spot here. Daniel Jones hasn't been the turnover machine he was earlier in his career, but Jones is still struggling badly and if he starts to crack under the pressure he might start taking risks or/and making stressed decisions that he spared himself previously. Desperation probably won't lead Jones anywhere helpful against this defense, which figures to apply steady if not heavy pressure while continuing its strong play against the run.
