XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Sunday Night Football has what looks like an awesome game: the Eagles visit the Rams for a 49-point total game with Philly favored by 3. This should be a fun one. The Eagles have been awesome on both sides of the ball, scoring 25.9 points per game while allowing just 17.9, and while the Rams have been below average on offense so far at 21.3 points per game, they’ve also spent much of the year missing at least one (and often both) of their top wide receivers. Since Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp both returned in Week 8, the Rams have scored 26 or more points in three of four games (with a flop against the Dolphins mixed in). I do feel like the game total and the spread are giving the Rams a lot of credit. They’ve been more “solid” than “great” on offense even when healthy, their defense has been emphatically below average, while the Eagles defense has been an underrated unit that has done an excellent job all season long. And that’s one way you could choose to play this one, but let’s dig into the teams first before we talk too much about strategy.
Los Angeles
On the Rams side, Kyren Williams continues to have one of the best running back roles in the NFL, playing at least 79% of the snaps every single week. They’ve used two backup running backs and they’ve combined for just 43 opportunities in 10 games while Kyren is averaging 22.2 opportunities per game! For the mathematically inclined, that means Kyren is handling 84% of the backfield workload. Yikes. His workload is monstrous, his red zone role is huge (2nd in the league in red zone rush attempts behind only Joe Mixon, who is amazingly #1 despite only playing 7 ½ games), and the only knock against him is that his passing game role is only okay at about 3 targets per game on average (worth noting: it’s been spikey, with games of 0 but also games of 6 and 7 targets). The downside for Kyren is that Philly has been very good against the run, allowing just 4.2 yards per carry and 100 rushing yards per game. With running backs volume trumps matchup, and while the matchup isn’t great, Kyren’s elite volume still makes him a strong play. There are a lot of strong high-end plays in this game and we’ll talk about that more in detail a bit later, but for now, I’ll just note that I think there’s a decent chance of Kyren getting a little bit lost in the shuffle of all of the other top options. Blake Corum is the RB2 which, as I noted, is barely getting any work. You can play him as a contrarian option in hopes of a fluky touchdown or just in case Kyren gets hurt, but those are about the only scenarios in which we can see him paying off his salary.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
The passing game matchup isn’t much better with the Eagles holding opponents to a league-low 5.5 yards per pass attempt, but there aren’t many better WR1/2 duos in the league (I’m not sure there’s a single one, in fact) than Kupp and Puka. The passing offense really flows through these two, with Kupp averaging 11 targets per game and Puka 8. They’re each rocking a 34% target rate, which is like…yikes. It’s generally really tough to pick between them as they’re both awesome and their roles are so strong. In this game, I have a slight lean toward Kupp because against the elite pass defense of Philly, I just think he tends to run harder to defend routes, and if Philly plays from ahead as Vegas expects, that gives more opportunity for volume to pile up for him (and he tends to need volume more than Puka in order to hit his ceiling games). Both are strong plays despite the tough matchup. With both Kupp and Puka back, the rest of the Rams passing attack takes a backseat. DeMarcus Robinson is playing a ton of snaps but has just a 13.8% target share on the season and that includes games without Puka and Kupp; he’ll get a couple of targets but really at his price, I just view him as a punt play (the kickers he’s priced around are clearly stronger options). You can take MME shots on Tutu Atwell, Tyler Johnson, and Jordan Whittington, all of whom saw a small handful of offensive snaps the last couple of weeks, but these are extremely thin plays.
At tight end, Davis Allen has taken over the role from Colby Parkinson, and while he was an awful play last week on a main slate, on a Showdown, he’s more attractive. Allen got 0 targets last week as chalk (lol) but had 6 the week before while Parkinson got 1 target last week and scored a touchdown on it, tilting all the Allen players. Neither of these guys are “good” plays but I would rather play Allen at a very cheap $1,600 than any of the Rams wide receivers playing behind Puka and Kupp. Parkinson is still in play as well. Allen is the favorite to lead in snaps and routes, but Parkinson’s per-target upside is higher. I wouldn’t pair them together as they’re directly competing for work.
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