XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Sunday Night Football has a fun looking game with a huge 52.5 total as the Bears visit the 49ers, with San Francisco installed as 3.5-point home favorites. Both teams have clinched playoff spots, but there are still seeding implications, mainly for the 49ers in a tough NFC West. If the Packers win on Saturday night, the Bears will also need another win in order to lock up the division. If the Packers lose, the Bears will have the division locked, but it’s still unusual for teams to do significant rests before the last week, so my guess is Chicago plays it pretty straight up regardless of the outcome of Saturday night’s game.
SAN FRANCISCO
On the 49ers side, Christian McCaffrey has one of the most elite roles in the NFL. He routinely plays ~80% or so of the running back snaps, he has over 1k rush yards and is closing in on 1k receiving yards on the season with 16 touchdowns and ~25 DK points per game…the role is just monstrous. After writing up quite a few 49ers Showdowns this year (and in previous years), I’ve kind of run out of things to say about CMC. He’s an awesome play every slate. He’s also really expensive, and while this is a slate without a ton of high-priced guys, he does take up a lot of salary and will also command massive ownership, so it IS possible for him to not make it into optimal lineups. RB2 Brian Robinson is a punt play who is unlikely to get enough touches to be relevant unless he happens to steal a touchdown or CMC gets hurt.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
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In the passing game, Ricky Pearsall and George Kittle are both questionable, which makes this write-up all sorts of fun for me. Pearsall got in some limited practices this week, and so I’d guess he’s better than 50/50 to play, while Kittle did not practice at all but doesn’t necessarily need to. I’d put him at under 50/50 to play. Keep in mind that while the 49ers surely care about seeding, I expect they care about having Kittle and Pearsall healthy more. They’re 11-4, as are the Rams, who don’t play until Monday, but they probably care more about Seattle. If Seattle loses, San Francisco could match them at 12-4 with a win, and the 49ers won their matchup in Week 1. At the end of the day I expect the 49ers to be cautious with their players, but if Seattle gets upset by the Panthers in the morning, it’s at least possible that San Francisco will push a bit harder to try to win this game and catch them in the standings, and that could potentially lead to a riskier decision about Kittle and/or Pearsall. That’s a lot of conjecture, but that’s the time of the year we’re at!
Assuming Pearsall is active, we’ll see him, Jauan Jennings, Kendrick Bourne, and Demarcus Robinson as the four main wide receivers. Jennings has the highest floor of the bunch and comes with end zone targets galore, but I’m not sure Pearsall is really that far behind in terms of ceiling, and he’s $1k cheaper. Most projection systems are strongly in favor of Jennings, and he is absolutely a solid play, but I think that makes Pearsall a very intriguing overweight position in tournaments. Behind those two, Robinson and Bourne are likely to split snaps pretty evenly, but Robinson both runs out of the slot (where Chicago has been exceptionally vulnerable) and has a very healthy 14.2 yard aDOT to Bourne’s 10.9. They’re both viable, but I definitely lean towards Robinson. Should Pearsall miss, last week we saw Bourne get the biggest boost in snaps (70% vs. 44% for Robinson), and would flip my preference.
At tight end, George Kittle is an elite option if he plays. He always has a bit of a scary floor, but one of the highest ceilings of any tight end in the NFL, even on limited volume, and this is not a matchup that should scare anyone. If he misses, however, expect backup Jake Tonges to be a very, very chalky play. Tonges ran routes on ~70% of dropbacks when Kittle missed earlier, and at just $3k, he would project as the best value play on the slate. I would be cautious playing Tonges in CMC captain lineups, because he will be such a strong salary saver that the pairing will be incredibly popular. I would not rule it out, but I would make sure any CMC captain lineups that also have Tonges find some other way to be different.
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