49ers (

26.5) at
Cards (

16.5)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Monday Night Football has the 49ers visiting the Cardinals to close out Week 11 in a game with a modest 43-point total and San Francisco favored by 8 (yes, this means the Cards are projected for just 17.5 points – yikes). We’ll start with some key injury situations. Based on practice participation this week, I’m expecting Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins both to play, but it looks like Marquise Brown will not be activated off of injured reserve just yet and Zach Ertz is out for the season. The 49ers have a clean injury report. 

Arizona

On the Cardinals side, James Conner is fully healthy and coming off of a massive 96% snap share last week, while backup Eno Benjamin was just released seemingly out of nowhere, leaving Keontae Ingram as the most likely RB2 candidate. Conner saw by far his largest snap share and touch count of the season last week, but I expect that was more about having Colt McCoy starting at quarterback than any significant role change for Conner. I would bet he settles back into the 70% range, which is still a very healthy RB1 role but not a full-on bell cow. Behind him, Ingram’s role is going to be very up in the air but we know that “RB2 in Showdown” is a viable spot. If Conner’s usage last week keeps Ingram’s ownership way down (say, under 10%), it’s a spot I would want to be decently overweight on. The matchup here is awful as the 49ers are 8th in overall defensive DVOA with no real weak point to attack, but all rosters have to have at least one Cardinal, and despite being significant underdogs, it’s obviously very unlikely that they get completely shut down here. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, we can expect DeAndre Hopkins and Rondale Moore to be the two full-time pass catchers. Both are dynamic talents and both get short-area work that is hard to defend, so even in a tough matchup, I think they both rate as strong plays (even if DHop is a bit expensive). I prefer Moore here due to price as $6,600 is a bit too cheap for his talent and role without Marquise Brown and Zach Ertz. Dusty A.J. Green will run some routes and probably not do much with them, Greg Dortch might see a bit of the field, and Robbie Anderson should suck up a deep target or two (it’s weird that Robbie only played 12% of the snaps last week with Ertz leaving early; he played over 80% the week before so something’s strange here). Robbie is the biggest wild card given how his snaps have wildly varied, which makes him an interesting tournament option. At tight end, Trey McBride played 91% of the snaps last week after Ertz departed early, but that only resulted in one target (lol). Stephen Anderson might be the better receiving option here, but really anyone outside of Hopkins or Moore is a tough sell for me in a really difficult matchup and with a lot of role uncertainty . . . I’d take Robbie next, and then Anderson, then McBride, then Green, then Dortch.