XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
The 49ers travel to Buffalo to take on the Bills on Sunday night in a 44.5 total game with the home team favored by 6. The big question is if Brock Purdy will return from his 1-game absence. As I write this on Friday afternoon, he just got in a full practice, and coach Kyle Shanahan said it looks likely that he will play. I’m going to assume he is playing. We may see the spread get closer between now and game time due to this news, and I definitely hope that’s how it plays out because it will sure make things more interesting.
Buffalo
On the Bills side of things, James Cook is in one of the weirder running back rolls in the league, as he’s only reached even a modest 60% snap count once this season and yet he’s gone over 20 touches four times. His carry counts are odd – 17+ four times, but 12 or fewer every other game. That’s probably just random distribution, but it’s kind of strange seeing how there’s no middle ground. What I think we can count on him for is 11 carries and 3 targets – that’s been about his floor, and so at $9,600, he’s clearly overpriced for his floor. But we also know there’s a ceiling well beyond that (he has two games of 28.5+ DK points this season). He also, finally, is a Bills running back with a solid goal-line role who is not giving way to Josh Allen all the time – Cook has 14 carries inside the 5 while Allen has 3. There’s still some vulture threat here, of course, but not as significant as we’re used to seeing from Buffalo. Cook makes me nervous as a play because for $9,400 his floor is much lower than most other running backs who we see priced around here, but the ceiling is elite, and as a large home favorite that boosts his likelihood of reaching it (The Bills winning has not been a guarantee of lots of work for Cook, but all four of his 20+ touch games have come in Bills wins and three of them have come in fairly close wins). Backing him up are Ty Johnson and Ray Davis, with Johnson playing the larger role but Davis having performed better and having more per-touch upside. I would definitely only play 1 of the backup RBs in a lineup.
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In the passing game, it’s a story of “who even knows” with the Bills. Dalton Kincaid has been ruled out and rookie Keon Coleman is questionable, though he got three limited practices this week so he at least has a chance to return from his 2-game absence. Without those two we saw Buffalo deploy a wide receiver corps of Amari Cooper, Khalil Shakir, Curtis Samuel, and Mack Hollins. Shakir led the team in snaps last week as Cooper is eating into Hollins’ workload – he’s primarily a slot receiver so his per-target upside is most but the volume is solid for him, averaging 9 targets per game over Buffalo’s last five games. Shakir also has double-digit DK points in all but one game on the season. You have to feel good about the floor here, the price is reasonable, and if the ceiling is only decent at least he doesn’t have to compete with a full slate of players. Shakir is the epitome of a “fine” option – he isn’t super exciting, and you’ll almost certainly need a touchdown in order for him to really help you win a tournament, but he’s also extremely unlikely to hurt you. I’d be tempted to just lock him in smaller field tournaments, but you could consider an underweight position in large field and hope he doesn’t end reaching the level needed to be optimal. Amari has now played three games with Buffalo (while missing two others), has topped out at 51% of the snaps, and has a total of 10 targets. I have to think his role will grow (why else did they bother acquiring him?) and with a full week after his 2-game absence, perhaps he’s ready to step into a larger role. This is, in my opinion, the spot to buy on him – he’s just $7,200 and you’re taking some risk by being early rather than waiting to see a bigger role first, but being early on players is how you win DFS tournaments. There’s risk here but also tourney-winning upside and he’s way too cheap. Samuel and Hollins both seem playable as value options. After basically doing nothing all season, Samuel (finally) has 14 targets in the last two games. At just $4,400 he’s underpriced – he’s almost like a cheaper Shakir, really, with similar per-target production but at roughly half the price. Hollins fills a deep threat role and while he’s had a couple of productive weeks in Amaris’ absence, his snaps are the most clearly impacted by Amari playing more, which pushes him more toward punt territory.
At tight end, Dawson Knox is back in a nearly full-time role with Kincaid out. That resulted in 6 targets last week, a very nice number for $4,000. Quintin Morris can be used as an MME punt option as can Zach Davidson if he gets called up from the practice squad again. The TL;DR here is that while the Buffalo running game is a bit overpriced, the entire passing game is underpriced.
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