XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Time flies. It’s already Week 5, and we have the 49ers visiting the Rams to start us off. The 49ers are just crushed by injuries here: George Kittle is on IR, and all of Brock Purdy, Jauan Jennings, and Ricky Pearsall were ruled out on Wednesday (which is why I was waiting to write this!). Oh, and on defense, Nick Bosa is out as well. Yikes. Because of that, the game total is all the way down to 45.5 (opened at 47.5) and the Rams are 7.5-point favorites.
SAN FRANCISCO
We’ll start with what remains of the 49ers. Christian McCaffrey has probably the best overall role in football. Here’s a fun stat: if we only looked at CMC’s receiving work and pretended he wasn’t a running back, he would be a top-10 wide receiver. Lol. But here’s the problem: San Francisco may just be deciding to punt away this game. There are two ways this could go: if the game stays close and the 49ers think they might be able to pull off an upset, maybe they ride CMC, and he gets one of his 30-touch games with 9 targets. Or, they go down big early because they’re missing too many key pieces and decide there’s no reason to risk CMC’s health, and they just eat the loss and focus on getting healthy. I really don’t know which way it’s going to play out. CMC’s ceiling is sky-high in this one, and he probably has the best overall raw projection on the slate, but that projection comes with a lot more risk and fragility than normal. That could mean that RB2 Brian Robinson gets more work than normal, or it could mean that San Francisco goes all the way down the depth chart to give Isaac Guerendo some run if the game is truly hopeless. I think both Robinson and Guerendo can be included in player pools, though I would not play them together. And given this whole situation, there’s a fair argument that every roster should include one 49ers running back. If CMC has his full role, it’s going to be monstrous, whereas if Robinson or Guerendo get meaningfully larger roles, they just aren’t priced for it.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
In the passing game, the OWS crew is super disappointed because we’ve been hoping to play Kendrick Bourne all year…and now it’s a Showdown when everyone will play him. Keep in mind, Bourne played with backup quarterback Mac Jones in New England, and that familiarity could help him. The San Francisco wide receivers should be Bourne, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, OWS fan favorite and bane of Xandamere’s DFS existence, Demarcus Robinson, and Skyy Moore. Inspiring, eh? This is a mess, and I don’t know what to make of it. Bourne is the most expensive at just $4,600, and everyone else gets cheaper from there. Bourne’s my favorite play of the group based on his depth chart position and that he’s played with Jones before, but this entire situation is super volatile.
We can guess at how snaps and routes will play out, but we’ve never seen this situation before, so good luck projecting target share. Just recognize that any projections for the 49ers passing game are making some wild-ass guesses, but those guesses drive ownership, and thus, there’s some value in simply going another direction. A couple of years ago, the 49ers had another similar situation with two backup WRs starting. One was projected really well, the other wasn’t, and while I cannot for the life of me recall their names, the guy who was projected really well did nothing and the guy who wasn’t projected well at all had a huge game of over 20 fantasy points – just going for the “what if it’s the other guy instead?” approach won some Showdown players a huge amount of money at miniscule ownership. And yes, I know one of our industrious readers is going to DM me on Discord and tell me who the two guys were. Finally, the 49ers may call up Russell Gage or Malik Turner to serve as their WR5, and if so, they can also be included in the merry-go-round of options.
Tight end Jake Tonges is the other guy who I’m highly confident will be on the field, as he’s already a backup, and while he isn’t a super talented pass catcher, he’s a very viable play here – I’d probably rank him 2nd after Bourne in median projection. TE2 Luke Farrell is also playable as a punt option.
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