XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
We get a Black Friday game, so listen up, people who want to avoid going shopping: tell your partner there’s a Showdown and that you need to play it so you can make some extra spending money for Christmas. This one has the Bears visiting the Eagles for a 44.5 total game with Philly favored by a touchdown. This is something of a battle of two often-dysfunctional teams that both still have winning records, with the Bears luck-boxing into an 8-3 record despite having given up more points than they’ve scored, and the Eagles also at 8-3, mostly on the back of a very solid defense. Let’s see if we can figure this one out.
PHILADELPHIA
On the Eagles side, Saquon Barkley has an elite role, but he himself has been far from elite this year. He only has three games over 4 yards per carry and just one game of reaching the 100-yard bonus while scoring just 6 touchdowns in 11 games. Last game against Dallas, Philly basically gave up on running the ball fairly early on, despite playing from a lead, because Saquon was getting stuffed over and over again. This is a much more forgiving matchup as the Bears have been one of the worst run defenses in the NFL, giving up more yards per attempt than even the Bengals. If there was ever a get-right spot for Saquon, this is it. Brand name alone has kept his price above $10k despite mediocre production for almost the entire season, so we aren’t exactly getting a discount, but on paper, this is a great spot as a big home favorite who is one of the few true bell cow backs in the league. RB2 Will Shipley and RB3 Tank Bigsby are both barely seeing any work, usually playing single-digit snaps per game. Dissly hasn’t even seen an offensive touch since Week 10 and has a grand total of 11 carries and 6 targets on the year, while Bigsby got some blowout run in Week 8 and seems to at least have some upside if the game gets out of hand. They’re both very thin plays.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
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In the passing game, we know the deal with Philly: DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown play almost every snap, Jahan Dotson is a half-time or so player, and some guy named Darius Cooper has played a handful of snaps. Smith and AJB are 1A and 1B, with Smith having consistently been better, but only by a relatively modest difference. We know that we generally look to AJB when playing teams that use heavy-man coverage schemes, and the Bears are pretty close to league average there, so that makes me lean towards Smith. Smith is also $1k cheaper, which is likely to make the field lean his way as well. They’re both solid plays. Smith is probably the slightly better play but will also come with slightly higher ownership. Dotson is a dart throw who has a season-high of 3 targets and has only reached double-digit DK points once.
At tight end, Dallas Goedert is another core part of the offense, but I remember the last time I wrote up an Eagles Showdown, I said something to the effect of “I don’t like guys who usually see only a few targets per game and only tend to find ceiling by scoring touchdowns.” Since then Goedert has failed to score touchdowns and has flopped in three straight games. Imagine that. This is a slightly different situation as his price has come down significantly to a season-low of $5,200, and at this point I’m much more willing to take the risk. He’s much more appealing when priced near the kickers than when he was at a season-high price of $7,400 the last time I had to write up the Eagles. He probably still needs a touchdown, but at this price and in a great matchup, I’m game here (I like the two primary wideouts more). TE2 Grant Calcaterra is another dart throw option. The Eagles run a really condensed offense: it’s Saquon, Smith, AJB, and Goedert, and that’s basically it.
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