49ers (

22) at
Rams (

25.5)

Xandamere is one of the most respected and consistently dominant Showdown players in DFS, breaking down strategy thoughts and rules for every TNF, SNF, and MNF game

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

The football gods smile on us with an extra island game Showdown in Week 1 as the 49ers travel to take on the Rams. This game has a nice 48.5 total with Los Angeles favored by 3.5. The 49ers are an incredibly hard team to project because of their turnover and injury situations — not just right now, but over the last couple of seasons, the team has so rarely been at full health. What we do know is the coaching staff and scheme are absolutely elite, one of the best in the league if not the best, and the offense is full of weapons — especially with George Kittle being reported as “looking good” for Week 1 just a couple of days ago. The Rams, meanwhile, were an absolute powerhouse last year, especially on the offensive end (30 points per game last year!) and there’s no real reason to expect that to change. Yeah, they’re all a year older, generally QB and WR production declines gradually with age, it doesn’t tend to fall off a cliff like RBs.

LOS ANGELES

We’ll start with the Rams at home and their backfield. Kyren Williams is the RB1 but as the season went on Los Angeles really started pulling back on his workload and splitting things more with Blake Corum. Kyren started off in a bell cow role last year, but from Week 3 onward, he only saw more than 15 carries twice. Just twice. He had a couple of big spiked-target games, but generally speaking this passing offense flows through its wide receivers and tight ends, not the running backs. Kyren had three or fewer targets in all but four games while averaging right about three per game. He’s not priced as a bell cow back at $8,600, but he has almost no shot at the 100 yard bonus (just once last year and it took 25 carries) and with a modest passing game role, you basically need a touchdown from him. He could get one, obviously — the Rams are an elite offense with a high team total — but just know that they also passed in the red zone at one of the highest rates in the NFL last year. I’m actually a little more interested in Blake Corum at his $4,600 price, because I think there’s a decent chance the workload split could shift closer to 50/50, and if that happens, he’s a major value. You still need a touchdown to find ceiling, but it’s easier to bet on that at $4,600 than it is at $8,600.

In the passing game the Rams will roll out Puka Nacua and Davante Adams as their primary guys with Jordan Whittington in the WR3 role and some combination of Konata Mumpfield, Tutu Atwell, and Xavier Smith rotating through. Worth noting: the Rams, as per our team preview, have been at the front of the league in using heavy personnel sets with multiple tight ends on the field, which significantly reduces the appeal of their WR3 role. Whittington’s viable — but he’s more of a dart throw than a “normal” WR3 in Showdown. Puka is Puka, a no-doubt top five receiver in the league who finished as the WR1 last year in points per game. There’s literally nothing I could write about him that would be meaningful. He’s awesome, he’s expensive, he has a very good chance of showing up in optimal lineups. Adams at $9,200 looks a little overpriced to me at 34 years old — the yardage upside is mostly gone (he broke 100 yards just once last season) and last year he found ceiling via an almost comically good red zone role, both in terms of targets and efficiency, that seems like an extreme statistical outlier. He’ll have his good games, of course, and I love him as a player, but at his salary in this particular Showdown it’s really, really hard to justify clicking him when it makes it harder to pay for options like Puka, Stafford, Purdy, or CMC. I’m also extremely interested in the Rams tight end group. Colby Parkinson and Terrance Ferguson look like the main guys, though Tyler Higbee is still lurking around and will see snaps. I’d prioritize Parkinson and Ferguson personally — they both look like really good value options down in the $3k range and I vastly prefer any of the Rams TEs to Whittington, who is also priced right around there. My conviction play for this Showdown is “a Rams tight end will be relevant,” and while it’s aggressive, I think you could make a case for including one on every roster.