FanDuel Daily Fantasy Football Helper: Week 17

And just like that, it's the final week of the NFL regular season! With no Thursday, Saturday or Monday island games, only the Sunday night matchup is off the main slate, giving us 15 games to peruse for our lineups. Still, even with the extra games, Week 17 is always a tricky beast, as plenty of teams have nothing left to play for and will elect to sit players or give them limited reps this weekend.

While the AFC playoff picture still has a lot up in the air, the NFC is bit more set in stone. Specifically, the Saints already clinched the number one seed in the NFC and are expected to rest their stars, although Sean Payton hasn't confirmed whether or not that will be the case. Both Jerry Jones and Jason Garrett have suggested the Cowboys will play their starters, but they can't move up or down from the number four seed, so they could conceivably sit players too. The eliminated Panthers have also hinted at the possibility of resting their stars. With so much uncertainty, following the news and chatter this week is even more important than usual to navigate who's on and off the table.

We'll dig into that and more in our weekly FanDuel primer, where we give you an overview of the Sunday main slate to help you get started on your research. As always, we recommend checking out all of numberFire's premium tools at your disposal. In particular, the heat map is a great way to get a general overview of the slate's implied totals, and every team's strengths and weaknesses. You also have access to numberFire's weekly projections, which can assist you in nailing down who might be the slate's top scorers and best values.

Be sure to also pay attention to inactives prior to Sunday's games, which can often completely change the makeup of a given slate. After all, injuries can have a huge impact on playing time, where an otherwise low-priced backup can suddenly find his way into a feature role and become an excellent play.

Now, let's run through some of this week's top plays on the FanDuel main slate.

Quarterbacks

Patrick Mahomes ($9,500 on FanDuel): The Chiefs can clinch the number one seed in the AFC with a win over the Raiders, so we needn't worry about motivation for Patrick Mahomes and friends. Mahomes is pricey as usual, but he's rarely disappointed all year long, averaging a monstrous 27.4 FanDuel points per game that easily outpaces everyone else on the board. At home with the slate's highest implied total (33.75), Mahomes shouldn't have any trouble carving up a Raiders defense that ranks 31st in Adjusted Defensive Passing Net Expected Points (NEP) per play. He's numberFire's top projected overall player this week.