NFL DFS Prop Picks for Week 1 Thursday Night Football - Monkey Knife Fight

Kipp Heisterman presents his expert NFL DFS prop picks for Week 1's Thursday Night Football of the Fantasy Football season. Use these prop picks to win money on Monkey Knife Fight, our partner for all DFS prop picks games.

Welcome to the season opener between the defending Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Dallas Cowboys! The season kicks off Thursday night and that means our friends at Monkey Knife Fight are offering some fantastic props for us to play.

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As always, there are some solid props we can look to take advantage of in tonight's game, so let's get to the picks!

• 2025 fantasy football rankings
• Running back (RB) rankings
• Wide receiver (WR) rankings
• Quarterback (QB) rankings
• Tight end (TE) rankings
• Defense (D/ST) rankings
• Kicker (K) rankings
• FLEX rankings
• Dynasty rankings

Cowboys @ Bucs More or Less Contest

Recommended Prop Pick:

Mike Evans more than 56.5 receiving yards and Michael Gallup less than 50.5 receiving yards

Mike Evans is one of my favorite plays in this game and he should be in a great spot against the Cowboys on Thursday night. The Cowboys not only allowed running backs to torch them in 2020, but wide receivers lit them up to the tune of averaging 175.4 receiving yards per game, which ranked fifth-worst in the league. They also allowed a whopping 27 receiving touchdowns to the position, which was worst in the league by five scores. This is where Mike Evans should make his hay on Thursday night. In 2020, Evans was targeted 19 times in the Red Zone and came away with nine scores. He also scored 13 times overall on the season. The fact that he averaged nearly seven targets per game will also help his receiving yard totals and makes for a solid play in this one.

Michael Gallup and the Cowboys have a tough matchup all around on Thursday night as the Bucs ranked first in terms of rushing yards allowed to backs and third in terms of receiving yards allowed to wide receivers. While the Cowboys are eight-point underdogs in this one and will likely be forced to throw the ball more often, it is likely that Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb see a large share of that volume. In 2020, both Cooper and Lamb outpaced Gallup in targets and yards.

Play the More or Less Contest Now on Monkey Knife Fight

Cowboys @ Bucs Touchdown Dance

Recommended Prop Pick:

Mike Evans, Ronald Jones II, and Amari Cooper to combine for more than 1.5 touchdowns

You can make a case for almost any player to score a touchdown in this game, especially for the Bucs, but Evans and Jones make a ton of sense. Evans' stats are mentioned above and his ability to score going up against this Cowboys Defense makes him a must-play for me.

If the Bucs get the lead, they will likely move the ball o the ground with Jones and Fournette, so both of these players should be in play in this contest. Jones was a machine last year as he averaged over five yards per carry and will be facing a Cowboys team that allowed the second-most rushing yards in the league to running backs and also gave up over 4.8 yards per carry. They also allowed the sixth-most rushing touchdowns to backs as well, which is where Jones certainly fits into this play as he ran for seven on the season in 2020.

Cooper was the Cowboys' leading receiver in 2020 albeit most of that production came without Dak Prescott at the helm. In 2019, Dak looked his way 119 times and they hooked up for 1,189 yards and eight touchdowns. The eight touchdowns were the most of Cooper's career and he is likely to pick up right where he left off with Dak in this one. While the Bucs do have a strong pass defense, the Cowboys offense is more than capable of finding the end zone a couple of times in this game and Cooper could certainly be the beneficiary of one of those.

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