Week 3 NFL Preseason DFS Picks for Thursday (8/27/2026)
Kyle Shanahan is holding San Francisco’s starters out of the preseason finale because his team opens the regular season in Australia, and that one sentence is why Adrian Martinez is my top play on Thursday’s four-game NFL preseason DFS slate. He already led the 49ers in pass attempts last week with the starters around him, the two quarterbacks in front of him have nothing left to prove in August, and DraftKings has priced him the same $5,500 as every other player in the pool for the sixth straight preseason slate. Behind him I want Bills running back Ian Wheeler, Buffalo rookie receiver Skyler Bell and Rams tight end Max Klare.
This is the last week of exhibition football before the cut to 53 on Sunday, so almost everyone worth rostering is playing for a job rather than for reps. One thing has changed since last Friday’s three-game board, though, and it matters: two of these four coaching staffs are not sitting everybody. Jim Harbaugh is starting Justin Herbert, and Joe Brady said out loud that he cannot rest every Buffalo starter. Read each game on its own instead of applying one blanket preseason rule to all four.
One 7:00 Lock, Three Games That Kick Off After It
The DraftKings main slate locks at 7:00 PM ET, and only one of the four games has started by then. Steelers at Bills kicks at 7:00 from Highmark Stadium. Patriots at Browns and 49ers at Raiders both go at 8:00 PM ET, and Rams at Chargers does not begin until 10:00 PM ET at SoFi Stadium. Three of the four games on your roster are frozen before anybody warms up for them, and the late Los Angeles game locks three hours early.
Pricing is flat for the sixth preseason slate in a row. All 256 players in the pool cost exactly $5,500, which puts a nine-man roster at $49,500 against the $50,000 cap and leaves no value tier to hunt. The pool leans hard toward pass catchers again: 106 receivers, 58 running backs, 55 tight ends and 29 quarterbacks, plus the eight team defenses. Roster counts are close to even across the four games, from 36 49ers down to 29 apiece for the Bills and Rams.
Weather is a non-issue this week, which is a change from the storm watch we carried into Jacksonville last Friday. Allegiant Stadium and SoFi Stadium are enclosed, so the two 8:00 and 10:00 games have no exposure at all. The National Weather Service forecast for Orchard Park has 73 degrees and a 3 percent chance of rain at kickoff with a 13 mph west wind, and Cleveland is even calmer at 76 degrees, mostly clear and nearly windless. Nothing about the conditions should change a lineup.
What the Market Says About Thursday’s Four Games
The market has all four games inside a field goal, which is exactly what you would expect when nobody knows how long anyone plays. DraftKings has the Bills at -3 with a 34.5 total, the Patriots at -2.5 with a 35.5 total, the Raiders at -3 with a 38.5 total and the Chargers at -3.5 with a 38.5 total. Splitting each game total by its spread gives you the implied team totals below. In August these numbers describe coaching plans more than talent, and the two Los Angeles teams sitting at the top of the board is the market pricing in Herbert taking the first snaps.
| Game | Kickoff (ET) | Total | Implied Team Totals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steelers at Bills | 7:00 PM | 34.5 | BUF 18.75 / PIT 15.75 |
| Patriots at Browns | 8:00 PM | 35.5 | NE 19.0 / CLE 16.5 |
| 49ers at Raiders | 8:00 PM | 38.5 | LV 20.75 / SF 17.75 |
| Rams at Chargers | 10:00 PM | 38.5 | LAC 21.0 / LAR 17.5 |
Lines via DraftKings, captured Thursday morning. Implied totals are the market’s numbers, not projections, and they move.
Best NFL Preseason DFS Quarterbacks for 8/27
Adrian Martinez is my top quarterback, Drew Allar and Taylen Green are the next two I want, and Trey Lance is the dart I would fire in tournaments. Quarterback and defense are always the safest spots on a preseason board because they are the two positions where you can actually read the plan, and the ones we have real information on will carry heavy ownership. That is fine in cash games and it is a lever in tournaments.
Adrian Martinez Is Good Chalk, and I Am Fine Eating It
Martinez is the play because the 49ers have told us the rest of the room is done. Kyle Shanahan said he does not think you will see many starters in this game, and San Francisco has a short runway to its Week 1 opener in Australia. Brock Purdy gave way after the opening possession last week and is almost certainly finished for August. Mac Jones is the one variable, since he is a backup rather than a starter and could take a series before Martinez comes on.
Even with Jones in the picture, Martinez has led the 49ers in pass attempts in the game we can measure. In the 41-17 win over the Chargers on August 20 he threw 17 passes to Mac Jones’s 13 and Purdy’s 6, went 8-of-17 for 57 yards, ran in a 9-yard touchdown and threw a 17-yarder to Jordan Watkins on three second-half scoring drives. He is a dual threat in an offense that has no reason to protect him, and he is playing for a roster spot. I expect him to be popular, and I would still get to him in most builds.
The Steelers Are Splitting Their Game in Half Again
Mike McCarthy said Pittsburgh will focus on the two young guys in Buffalo, which means Will Howard and Drew Allar take the whole game between them for a second straight week. Aaron Rodgers has not played a preseason snap all summer at 42 years old, and McCarthy has hinted that Mason Rudolph will sit as well. Both young arms are viable at a flat price for the simple reason that each is close to guaranteed two quarters, and that is more certainty than most of this board offers.
Allar is the one I want. He was excellent in his pro debut and then a mess last week, when NFL.com summed up Pittsburgh’s shutout loss by calling both quarterbacks subpar. He was sacked three times and finished with a 56.5 percent adjusted completion percentage. The Steelers have a quarterback decision to make before Sunday’s cuts, so a long look at the rookie is part of their process, and the version of Allar we saw in game one has more ceiling than anything else in the Buffalo game. Howard is the same bet a half earlier if you want the cheaper share of the ownership.
Taylen Green Is the Pivot Nobody Has Seen Yet
Cleveland has the cleanest quarterback plan on the slate and the most interesting name attached to it. Todd Monken does not anticipate playing starters, Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders are both sitting, and Dillon Gabriel starts with rookie Taylen Green behind him. Gabriel belongs in the pool on playing time alone, though he lacks the rushing upside that makes preseason quarterbacks pop.
Green is my favorite tournament quarterback on the board. The Browns have not put him in a game yet this summer, he has genuine rushing ability, and a half of work against New England backups is a real possibility with cuts three days away. Nobody has a data point on him, which is usually where the low ownership lives. He is my preferred pivot away from Martinez in guaranteed prize pools.
Lance, Simpson and the Rooms Still Deciding Something
Trey Lance got a boost this week. Harbaugh confirmed on Tuesday that Justin Herbert starts the finale and the Chargers starters are capped at about six to nine plays, with Khalil Mack and Derwin James Jr. held out. That is a much shorter window than “Herbert is starting” makes it sound, and Lance tends to produce in this format. The catch is DJ Uiagalelei, who has pushed Lance for the backup job all offseason and takes a share of whatever is left.
Ty Simpson is the last name on my board and the most interesting job battle. The Rams took him 13th overall out of Alabama, and he is still fighting Stetson Bennett to be Matthew Stafford’s understudy, one of the few roster questions Los Angeles has left. Sean McVay has not said how the reps split. Both quarterbacks are playable, and Simpson is the one I would rather have.
Two more rooms are worth a mention without a card. Buffalo is playing both Kyle Allen and Shane Buechele behind a resting Josh Allen, which caps how much either gets and is why neither made my board. New England is in a similar spot: Drake Maye has not played all preseason and the Patriots already know what Tommy DeVito is, so I expect DeVito and Behren Morton to split the halves. Morton at low ownership is defensible if you want a fourth quarterback in the mix.
Running Back Is Where the Injuries Do the Work
Ian Wheeler is my top running back, Eli Heidenreich and Raheim Sanders are the next two, and Kaelon Black is the one whose Week 2 usage nobody seems to have noticed. Running back is more volatile than quarterback because so few rotations get spelled out, so my rule is simple: cross off anybody with a cemented role, then follow the injuries and the cut lines to whoever is left.
Ian Wheeler and the Emptiest Backfield on the Board
Buffalo’s running back room thins out fast. Ty Johnson is carrying a questionable tag, James Cook should not be anywhere near this game, and I doubt Ray Davis sees a heavy workload with a job already secured. That points to a lot of touches for Frank Gore Jr. and the explosive Wheeler, both of whom show up on Bills roster projections as cut or practice-squad candidates rather than locks. Name recognition will push Gore Jr.’s ownership up, so Wheeler is the one I prefer at the same price.
The role, the narrative and the athleticism line up here better than anywhere else at the position. Wheeler has real speed, he is running out of chances to convince Buffalo it would be making a mistake by cutting him, and this is the game where a couple of long runs change his week. One caveat worth respecting: Joe Brady said some Bills starters will play and would not name them before practice, so treat Cook as a lineup-card check rather than a settled absence.
Heidenreich, Miller and the Rooms Cleared Out by Injury
Eli Heidenreich keeps landing on my radar and keeps testing my patience. There is real speculation he does not make the team, which is exactly the profile I chase in a preseason finale, and he is a highly athletic, versatile Navy product who could break the slate if the snaps show up. His problem is that Pittsburgh is loaded with bodies at the position, so his value hinges on the Steelers sitting their top backs.
New England has a similar shape with more certainty. The Patriots should not play Rhamondre Stevenson or TreVeyon Henderson, who is questionable anyway, and Lan Larison is also carrying a tag with Myles Montgomery on injured reserve. That leaves the room wide open, and Jam Miller is the one to target after he broke off a 20-yard run against the Eagles. Hassan Haskins and JaMycal Hasty are still around, though, so New England could run four backs through this game and Miller is not a lock for me.
Cleveland and San Francisco Already Told You Who Plays
Raheim Sanders is the safest volume projection at the position because Monken named him. When a head coach lists a running back among the players getting bulk work in a game where no starters dress, that is as close to a guarantee as August produces. Sanders is a bigger back who was in the Cleveland backfield throughout the Buffalo game, and I see no reason to expect anything but a heavy workload behind Gabriel and Green.
Kaelon Black is the one people are undervaluing. He is being written up as a boom-or-bust flier, and his Week 2 usage says otherwise: he took eight carries in the first quarter alone and finished with 33 rushing yards. That is a featured role, not a spot duty, and San Francisco is sitting the guys ahead of him. Both Sanders and Black are in play, and I would not chase either into big ownership.
The Raiders and Rams Backfields Need a Closer Read
I like the Raiders room, with one correction to the popular take. Ashton Jeanty is out with what is believed to be a low ankle sprain, and Klint Kubiak says he is on the mend, which is good news for September and irrelevant for Thursday. The instinct is to assume that opens the floodgates for Dylan Laube and Roman Hemby. It does not, quite. Rookie Mike Washington Jr. operated as the clear top back against Houston, ceding only three snaps to Laube with the second team, and Washington took the first-team practice reps once Jeanty went down. Washington is the volume here.
Laube is still the one I want in tournaments. He went for 37 yards and a touchdown on six carries last week with a 14-yard catch on top, he is not guaranteed a roster spot, and he plays like it. Hemby and Dare Ogunbowale round out a room that should produce plenty of carries once the game gets late.
The Rams look enviable until you read the depth chart. Los Angeles is signaling that its top three backs are set, and that third name is Ronnie Rivers, not a bubble body, so he is more likely to sit than to soak up work. Kyren Williams and Blake Corum should play very little, if at all. The genuinely open competition is Jarquez Hunter, Dean Connors and Jordan Waters for a fourth spot the Rams may not even carry. Connors is my preference on the strength of his receiving work, and I am starting to think he is the likelier of the two headliners to make the final cut, though the beat writers see no clear favorite between him and Hunter. Both are in play.
Wide Receiver Is the Deepest Position and the Hardest to Trust
Skyler Bell is my top receiver, and the rest of my exposure goes to the rooms that lost bodies this week. Receiver is easily the most volatile position in preseason DFS, and with 106 of them in the pool you are not short on choices. What you are short on is information, so I am working from injuries, trades and releases rather than from Week 2 box scores.
| Receiver | Team | Why He Plays |
|---|---|---|
| Skyler Bell | Bills | Preseason debut after missing two games hurt |
| Jordan Watkins | 49ers | Healthy in a receiver room missing six names |
| Luke Floriea | Browns | Named to play, scored in Cleveland’s last game |
| Efton Chism III | Patriots | Four catches on four targets vs. Philadelphia |
| Germie Bernard | Steelers | Second-round rookie catching passes from Allar |
| Max Hurleman | Steelers | Bubble player with more to prove than Bernard |
| KeAndre Lambert-Smith | Chargers | Four of the room’s receivers are questionable |
| Malik Benson | Raiders | Athletic rookie with a strong camp behind him |
| CJ Daniels | Rams | 13 targets last week, may have proved enough |
Skyler Bell Has Two Preseason Games to Make Up
Bell is the strongest receiver call on the slate, and I would not be surprised if he is chalky. He should be. Buffalo took him 125th overall in the fourth round, he has missed both preseason games with an injury, and Bills beat reporting has him making his debut on Thursday. A fourth-rounder with no film and one game left before cuts is exactly the player a team wants to see in a live setting.
He was ultra productive in college and profiles as a strong athlete, so the talent case holds up on its own. What I cannot tell you is how long a leash Buffalo grants him. That uncertainty is the price of admission on a slate where the alternative is a receiver whose role is safe enough that he does not need the snaps.
The Steelers and Browns Rooms Behind the Top Guys
If you like Allar, the Pittsburgh pass catchers are the natural pairing. Germie Bernard is the second-round rookie the Steelers traded up for at No. 47, and Max Hurleman has more to prove in terms of expected playing time, which I like at this stage of August. One wrinkle from last week is worth knowing before you lock: Bernard was moved to outside receiver duties after working the slot in game one, while Roman Wilson handled the slot as the favorite for the WR3 job. Wilson belongs in the conversation too.
Cleveland is gaining clarity in its receiver room after releasing Cedric Tillman, and Luke Floriea is the beneficiary. He caught an 8-yard touchdown from Shedeur Sanders in the Buffalo game, Monken named him among the receivers playing Thursday alongside Malachi Corley and Gage Larvadain, and he has not earned anything yet. He stacks naturally with Gabriel or Green. Keep in mind that the Browns spent their first two 2026 picks on KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston, and both are competition for those same snaps.
Chism, Watkins and the Two Banged-Up Receiver Rooms
New England traded Kayshon Boutte to Houston on Monday for a safety and a 2028 seventh-rounder, a move that followed Kyle Williams’s 69-yard touchdown catch from DeVito against the Eagles. Williams is a great play if he is active, though the breakout makes me think we see less of him. That puts the onus on Efton Chism III, who caught four passes on four targets in that same game. Boston-market roster projections now have Chism among the six receivers likeliest to make the initial 53, with the Boutte trade credited for saving his spot, so he is a bubble player on the right side of the bubble.
San Francisco’s receiver situation is the most extreme on the board. Brandon Aiyuk is out, Ricky Pearsall is on injured reserve, and Christian Kirk, Jacob Cowing, De’Zhaun Stribling and Mike Evans all carry questionable tags. Jordan Watkins has been soaking up targets and caught the Martinez touchdown last week, so he should be in for a big role again. The Chargers are in a milder version of the same bind with Quentin Johnston, Tre’ Harris, Brenen Thompson and Luke Grimm all tagged, which is why KeAndre Lambert-Smith is shaping up as a rock-solid pick. He was a preseason success story a year ago and had four catches for 58 yards in the opener.
Two rookies round out the group. Malik Benson is very appealing on athleticism and camp performance, and CJ Daniels drew an absurd 13 targets last week, turning eight of them into 68 yards and leading both teams in catches, yards and targets against New Orleans. Either could get pulled early after already proving his worth, which is the honest risk with both. On role and ability alone, they are guys I want exposure to.
Tight End Is Brutal, So Take the Chalk
Max Klare is my top tight end and the one piece of chalk I want in almost every lineup. Tight end is the worst position on this board by a distance. Too many of these teams carry too many bodies, and the prospects worth chasing are thin, so the usual preseason recipe of narrative plus talent plus opportunity produces exactly one name that has all three.
Max Klare Is the One Piece of Chalk Worth Eating
Klare is the play, and locking him in and moving on is a perfectly logical strategy at a position this bad. He caught seven passes on eight targets for 37 yards in the Rams’ Week 1 win over Kansas City, which is more volume than anyone else at the position on this slate has seen, and Los Angeles has kept feeding him because they need to know what they have.
The room helps him too. The Rams carry a pile of tight ends, but Terrance Ferguson missed a little over two weeks with a groin injury this month and was working off to the side this week with soreness, and DraftKings has both Ferguson and Davis Allen questionable. Los Angeles has no reason to run Tyler Higbee or Colby Parkinson out there. That points straight at Klare, who is still proving he deserves early-season work. You can always dig for a random third-string tight end, but I want a consolidated target share or a talented player with a good narrative, and Klare is the only name here offering both.
Raridon, Gadsden and the Riskiest Tight End on the Board
Eli Raridon is my second choice and the only other tight end I feel good about. He is an impressive rookie athlete who should play a good amount for a Patriots team that is resting Drake Maye and the rest of the starters, and he offers a nice ceiling in a position group where ceilings are scarce.
Oronde Gadsden II was quite good a year ago, and it sure looks as though the Chargers do not know what to do with him now. He did not see the field until the third drive last week and finished with two catches for 24 yards, which reads like a player sliding toward TE3. If that is really where he sits, he should keep drawing preseason snaps as he works on his blocking, and those snaps have value at a flat price.
Brayden Willis is the natural stack with Martinez, and he is also the riskiest name on the card. San Francisco is not playing George Kittle, but Willis has produced almost nothing in the snaps he has had. He is in play. He is not a name I want in a small number of lineups.
Building Winning NFL Preseason DFS Lineups on 8/27
Playing time is the whole obstacle in preseason DFS, and it stays the obstacle in Week 3. Do the work to confirm the guys you are using are active, then dig further and get a real sense of how much of the field they will actually see. I have done a chunk of that above, and there are still plenty of names in this pool with no defined expectation at all, where you are rolling the dice on talent or a narrative.
The players who see the field in the finale are almost always the ones competing for a roster spot or fighting to make the team at all. Cuts land Sunday, so that pressure is at its peak this week. Capitalize on it, then factor in what everyone else is likely to do. Klare is the only chalky pick I love on this slate, and rostering him and moving on is fine. That does not mean you have to avoid popular guys like Martinez, who is a good play regardless of ownership. Preseason is simply not a great spot to eat a lot of chalk, because seemingly great plays fail here all the time.
Play Klare, stick to the pool above, and go against the grain somewhere in the build. One extra source of leverage is worth more here than it is in the regular season: consider rostering a defense that is lined up across from the chalk. If the field is piling into Martinez and Raheim Sanders, the Patriots and Raiders defenses give you the other side of that trade for the same $5,500. If you want the full framework for when to take the safe floor and when to reach for the lower-owned ceiling, our guide to NFL DFS cash games versus GPPs lays it out.
Multiple lineups remain the right approach in August, when surprise inactives and unexpectedly short outings are the norm rather than the exception. The step I would not skip is the final news check before 7:00 PM ET, because everything after that is frozen, including three games that have not kicked off. More breakdowns for every slate live on our daily fantasy sports hub.
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Frequently Asked Questions
A preseason finale with four games, three staggered kickoffs and two coaches who are not resting everybody raises questions I do not get on a normal DFS night. Here are the ones readers keep sending in about this slate.
Why does the whole DraftKings slate lock at 7:00 PM ET when three of the four games kick off later?
Because a DraftKings classic slate locks with its first kickoff rather than game by game. Steelers at Bills starts at 7:00 PM ET, Patriots at Browns and 49ers at Raiders both go at 8:00, and Rams at Chargers does not begin until 10:00, so three of your four games are frozen before anyone runs onto the field. Inactive lists arrive roughly 90 minutes before each kickoff, which means Buffalo’s is the only one you get to read in time. If you want to act on the late Los Angeles news, DraftKings runs a separate Rams-Chargers Showdown that locks at 10:00 PM ET, plus a Patriots-Browns Showdown and a three-game late classic slate that both lock at 8:00.
If every player on the slate costs the same $5,500, how am I supposed to decide who to roster?
Let certainty of playing time decide, because salary cannot. All 256 players in the pool are priced at $5,500 for the sixth straight preseason slate, so a nine-man roster costs $49,500 against the $50,000 cap and there is no value tier to find. That turns the whole exercise into a snap-count question. Cleveland has told you Dillon Gabriel starts and Taylen Green follows with no starters dressing, Pittsburgh is splitting the game between Will Howard and Drew Allar, and San Francisco is sitting its starters entirely. Weight your lineups toward the rooms where a coach has already explained the plan, and treat everything else as a tournament dart.
Are any starters actually playing on Thursday, or is this whole slate backups?
Two of the four games have real starters in them, which is unusual for a Week 3 finale. Jim Harbaugh confirmed Justin Herbert starts for the Chargers and that the healthy starters get about six to nine plays, with Khalil Mack and Derwin James Jr. held out. Bills head coach Joe Brady said he cannot sit every starter and that some will play, though he would not name them before practice. The other two games match the usual pattern: Todd Monken does not anticipate playing any Cleveland starters, and Kyle Shanahan does not expect to use many for San Francisco with a Week 1 trip to Australia ahead. Read each game separately instead of applying one rule to all four.
Which quarterback should I build around on this slate?
Adrian Martinez is the top play. San Francisco is sitting its starters, Brock Purdy is almost certainly finished for August after giving way on the opening possession last week, and Martinez led the 49ers in pass attempts in that game with 17 to Mac Jones’s 13 and Purdy’s 6. He runs the ball, he is playing for a roster spot, and he costs the same as everyone else. Drew Allar is the second play on a guaranteed half of football against Buffalo. If you want the lower-owned angle, Taylen Green has not appeared in a game this summer and follows Gabriel for Cleveland, so nobody in the field has a data point on him.
Does rostering a defense actually matter in a preseason DFS lineup?
It matters more here than it does during the regular season, mostly as a leverage tool. All eight slate defenses cost $5,500, the same as every skill player, and preseason offenses are made of backups and roster hopefuls playing behind patchwork offensive lines, so sacks and takeaways come cheap. The angle worth using is pointing a defense at the chalk. If most of the field is rostering Adrian Martinez and Raheim Sanders, the Patriots and Raiders defenses are the other side of that trade at no extra cost, which is a cleaner way to differentiate a tournament lineup than guessing at a fourth-string running back.
