Daily Fantasy Football Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings Week 17 - 12/31/17

If Christmas Eve NFL wasn't enough to put you on shaky ground with the significant other, how about a little New Year's Eve action? Week 17 is always the most fluid of DFS NFL weeks. It's very hard to know who is going to play their starters, who is going to rest with some phantom injury, and which teams are going to battle for higher seeding while others rest on their laurels. That being said, there is still plenty of value to pass around this week, so let's get to it!

A quick rule of thumb for week 17
Week 17 is crazy in the NFL because we simply don't know what teams are planning to do with their DFS relevant players. This can lead to outsized opportunity for backups, or it can lead to heartbreak when we play a guy who we think is a stud and he only winds up playing the first half. Thus, there are 5 tiers of opportunity for week 17 I want you to take into account:

Tier 1: Teams with a ton on the line
I'm talking playoff births and a first round bye. Both of these are so important that any team would go all out to try and secure it.

For week 17, the following teams have this level of skin in the game:
Tennesee, Buffalo, the LA Chargers, Baltimore, Atlanta, Seattle, Minnesota, and Carolina.

Tier 2: Teams playing for playoff seeding and/or divisional titles, but who are locked into the playoffs:
New England, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, the LA Rams.

Tier 3: Teams with nothing to play for, but who haven't had anything to play for in ages:
Cleveland, Indianapolis, Houston, NYJ, Denver, Cincinnati, Miami, Oakland, NYG, Tampa Bay, Chicago, San Francisco.

Tier 4: Teams playing for moral victories (like a .500 record).
Detroit, Dallas, Arizona, Washington, Green Bay.

Tier 5: Teams that were recently eliminated or totally locked into their spot:
Jacksonville (locked into the 3 seed), Philly (locked into home field advantage), Kansas City (locked into the 4 seed).

If I can help it, I'm only playing players in the top 3 tiers unless I get explicit news that a Tier 4 team is really earnestly going for it. The Packers shutting down Aaron Rodgers shows me they don't really care, for instance, so I'm pretty unlikely to prioritize their players.

Want to see the rest of this article? Go grab a free three day trial of DFSR Pro or DFSR Basic! Your subscription will include access to premium content, our lineup optimizer, our members only chatroom, and more!