Bengals (

18.5) at
Broncos (

26)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Week 4 comes to a close with the Bengals traveling to Denver, where they’re 7.5 point underdogs in a 44-point total game. While Jake Browning looked like a reasonably capable backup in 2023, last week he was absolutely atrocious against Minnesota’s pressure-heavy defense, taking 3 sacks and throwing 2 picks while only passing for 140 yards. Things won’t get easier for him traveling to high altitude to take on the Denver defense. While Denver’s defense has not exactly been on fire to start the season, it’s worth noting that they’ve shut down the Titans (anyone can do that) and then gave up solid-but-not-elite offensive performances to the Colts (who’ve been putting up points on everyone) and the Chargers, who have looked like a top-tier offense so far. It’s a bit early to read much into Denver’s defense, and I think they’re still one of the best in the league. They’re leading the league in sacks through three games, which is what we want to see. I think Browning’s in for a tough time in this one. 

denver

We’ll start on the Denver side of things, where J.K. Dobbins has seen a solid role to start the year. Denver has only really controlled one game so far, and Dobbins had 18 touches in that one, with 16 and 13 touches in the other two. He has the team’s only carries in the red zone and has scored in every game. As a massive home favorite, this game shapes up most like the Tennessee game, and I think we can expect 17+ touches for Dobbins here in a great matchup, which puts him very firmly on our radar at a reasonable $8,800 price. RB2 RJ Harvey is pretty spendy at $4,800, and while I generally like to play RB2s in Showdown, I also generally like them to be priced much lower than this. He’s still in play because an RB2 can always find his way to a touchdown and then has upside beyond that if the RB1 gets hurt, but it’s a tough price to want to go heavy on him. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

The Denver pass catching corps is Courtland Sutton and Troy Franklin in full-time roles, then a smattering of rotational wide receivers and tight ends. Sutton has a somewhat modest 23.6% target share but very strong 47.7% air yards share – he’s a guy who can hit without a ton of volume and the matchup is solid. Sutton’s projection is probably right around the highest skill position player in the game, with Ja’Marr Chase and Chase Brown being hobbled by having Browning at QB, and at $9k, that’s a very reasonable price. WR2 Troy Franklin had a major breakout in Week 2, putting up an 8/89/1 line against the Colts. He appears to have clearly carved out the WR2 role for himself instead of sharing it with Marvin Mims, and while he’s not going to usurp Sutton any time soon, he’s shown that he’s a capable NFL-caliber receiver. At $6,600, he’s priced in the no man’s land where players often get lost in the shuffle. My guess is that leads him to be something like 25-30% owned, which is lower than it should be. Mims popped up on the injury report on Saturday after practicing in full on Thursday and Friday, which is obviously concerning – he’s a deep threat who can get it done on just a couple of targets (last year he had two games of 100+ receiving yards on 3 catches) and should be viewed as a volatile boom/bust option. If Mims misses, it means more opportunity for some combination of Trent Sherfield and Pat Bryant, neither of whom can really replace his role, but they would get more field time. As it is, both are fairly thin dart throws as guys who are on the field a modest amount but have not shown an ability to earn targets in this offense (2 and 3 targets on the season for Sherfield and Bryant, respectively). If Mims is out, that would vault them up into more playable territory. I’d prefer Sherfield absent any news about who would start for Mims.

At tight end, the Broncos will get Evan Engram back after missing Week 3, but Engram’s usage has been super strange to me so far this season. Engram is a really good pass catching tight end, but so far he’s played just 34% and 43% of the snaps in two games. One could argue they need blocking more and thus are playing Adam Trautman a lot, but if that’s the case, why bother picking up Engram in the first place? He’s not cheap at $23M/2 years. The contract and his talent make me want to believe that his role will spike at some point in Denver, and if you want to bet on it being this week, I wouldn’t blame you. But just to be clear, there’s really no indication of that happening this week. It’s just one angle you could play. If he plays full snaps, his upside is significantly greater than his salary and his likely ownership. Otherwise, good luck with all of Trautman, Engram, and Lucas Krull playing snaps at tight and having 4, 6, and 4 targets amongst them, respectively. I’d easily pick Engram if asked to name my favorite, but they’re all fairly thin options. 

Cincinnati

The Deuce

Strategy Ideas and Things To Consider for Monday’s 2-game Slate:

Overview::

It is important to understand the big picture of these teams both in terms of their inner workings and their perceptions entering this week::

• Jets – New York enters Week 4 with a 0-3 record, but had narrow losses to the Steelers and Bucs – two teams with strong records through four weeks – and have shown they can compete. Starting QB Justin Fields returns to the lineup this week for a terrific matchup against the Dolphins 31st ranked defense. Miami has given up 30+ points in all three games so far. New York’s offense has been incredibly concentrated around RB Breece Hall and WR Garrett Wilson.
• Dolphins – The last time we saw Miami in action they were staying surprisingly competitive with the Bills in a Thursday night game. Miami is working on 11 days of rest after that game as they try to turn their season around after their 0-3 start. The Dolphins host the Jets tonight and then face the Panthers in Week 5. If they can’t turn things around now, head coach Mike McDaniel will likely be out of a job. The offense has been extremely concentrated with RB De’Von Achane and WRs Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle dominating the team’s usage. Rookie RB Ollie Gordon’s role has also been growing and he seems to be their short yardage back going forward. Hill is expected to draw shadow coverage from all pro Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner in this matchup, which should put an additional emphasis on Waddle and Achane.
• Bengals – Jake Browning hopes to have a better second run of it as the Bengals QB after getting destroyed in Minnesota last week. Denver’s defense has struggled a bit the last two weeks, however, and plays a high rate of man coverage as opposed to the complex blitz and zone schemes Minnesota showed. Ja’Marr Chase should draw shadow coverage from Patrick Surtain II, leaving Tee Higgins likely to see an increase in targets after some discussion about his lack of involvement this week. The Bengals running game has been unable to get going this season as their run blocking has been among the worst in the league. Look for them to place an emphasis on the short area passing game to avoid the long third downs that plagued them in Minnesota.
• Broncos – The Broncos offense has struggled a bit this season, but has a “get right” matchup on tap with the Bengals struggling defense. Wide receiver Courtland Sutton and running back JK Dobbins have been the team’s focal points to date, but we could see rookie running back RJ Harvey start to carve out a bigger role soon and wide receivers Marvin Mims Jr. and Troy Franklin will have opportunities to make plays downfield against this Bengals secondary. Denver loves to run up the score when they get out ahead of weaker opponents, so if Browning struggles again for the Bengals this one could get ugly.

QB Thoughts::

• The quarterbacks on this slate are all priced within $800 of each other on Draftkings. Justin Fields and Bo Nix will be, by far, the most popular QBs on the slate and for good reason. Both have rushing ability and terrific matchups as Miami and Cincinnati have two of the least talented defenses in the league. The slate’s pricing is loose and the outlook for these two is so much better than their counterparts that there is a strong case to be made to not overthink it.
• It is a short slate, so funny things happen. If I were going to play Tagovailoa or Browning, I would probably try to do so in a creative way. While on the surface they are probably going to be owned at a much lower rate than Nix and Fields, the rosters built around them will all be built very similarly due to the nature of their offenses.

My guess on final ownership::

• Justin Fields and Bo Nix ~30-40%
• Tua Tagovailoa and Jake Browning ~10-20%

RB Thoughts::

• De’Von Achane (MIA) is going to carry insane ownership on this slate (probably around 80%) and it makes sense. His workload is massive and the Jets have given up 29+ points in all three games this year. Simply not playing Achane would be a strong leverage stance on this slate, with three main ways to play it:
  • 1) Play Ollie Gordon and bank on him taking more of the workload, stealing TDs, Achane getting hurt, or some combination of the three.
  • 2) Play a Tua double stack with Tyreek / Waddle (or just both WRs without Tua, maybe with Fields at QB)…..basically betting on Achane being bottled up a bit and the offense moving things through the air.
  • 3) Play the Jets defense as a bet that the Dolphins offense struggles.
• Breece Hall (NYJ) had a couple of rough outings against the Bills and Bucs, but now that Fields is back under center and he faces the Dolphins defense I am all in on him for this slate. Miami has allowed an individual running back to put up 98 or more yards from scrimmage in each game this year and I expect Hall to easily extend that streak with his explosive skill set and receiving ability. 
• JK Dobbins has operated as the lead back for Denver and played very well. This week he draws a Bengals defense that has given up four touchdowns to opposing RBs in the last two weeks. He should have a nice game here and I have a sneaky feeling this could be the week RJ Harvey bursts onto the scene. Harvey is one of my favorite “off the board” options on the slate.
• Chase Brown is perhaps the lone overpriced player on this slate. I don’t think the Bengals run blocking issues are going to be fixed by a matchup with Denver’s front seven and considering the high blitz rate of the Broncos, we could see Brown blocking a lot on passing plays tonight. He is an easy fade for me in this spot. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see rookie Tahj Brooks play a little bit more (though not enough to consider playing Brooks) given how ineffective Brown has been through three weeks. Maybe this will be the week Brown gets it together, but I will be betting it isn’t. I would prefer to play Achane, Hall, Dobbins, Harvey, and Gordon over Brown.

WR Thoughts::

• The Jets face a Dolphins team that leads the league in blitz rate which should force the ball out quickly. Garrett Wilson is the primary read on most passing plays and should be targeted frequently in this matchup. He is my favorite wide receiver on the slate.
• There is an interesting dynamic on this slate as the top two wide receivers on the slate (Ja’Marr Chase and Tyreek Hill) are likely to be shadowed by two of the top cornerbacks in the game (Patrick Surtain II and Sauce Gardner). I don’t usually pay much mind to these types of things, but on this slate and in these situations it seems relevant. Each of these receivers has a more than capable second wide receiver behind them that is in position to see more targets than normal. People will want to play Chase and Hill because they can on this slate, but Higgins and Waddle each have a clear path to big games at far lower salaries and ownership than their respective WR1s.
• Courtland Sutton bounced back in a big way in Week 3 and has a great matchup with a Bengals defense that is relatively weak. The interesting thing with Sutton is how the Bengals defense has played thus far, limiting the opposing WR1 in all three games. This is a structural thing as they blitz at a very low rate and sit back in coverage trying to prevent big plays and force things underneath, which has resulted in opposing RBs, TEs, and underneath type WRs playing very well against them. This could be a bounce back game for Troy Franklin, who followed up his Week 2 breakout with a down week against the Chargers in Week 3. To be clear, I am not “off” Sutton tonight – I am simply pointing out that the simple answer most people will have on Franklin is that Week 2 was a fluke and he can’t be trusted, when the reality is his role is still very, very good and this matchup suits him well.
• Marvin Mims Jr. popped up on the Broncos injury report Saturday with a hip issue. It is unclear if he will play tonight, but he is the type of player who can be the X-Factor on a slate like this. If Mims were to miss this game, rookie Pat Bryant would be an interesting large field dart throw.
• Malik Washington is one of the more interesting cheap and low-owned options on this slate. His role is ascending and he has speed and a good matchup, as he should also benefit from the attention Hill will draw from Gardner.

Strategy and Game Theory::

• Salary is extremely loose on this slate. If you take the highest possible salary player at every position on Draftkings, it puts you $3,300 over the maximum salary. If you swap from Chase to Higgins and Hill to Waddle, it puts you $100 under the cap. From that lens, it is kind of a “play whoever you want” type of slate. 
• De’Von Achane will almost certainly be the highest owned player on the slate, with the next six highest owned skill players likely to be some order of: Ja’Marr Chase, Chase Brown, Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, Courtland Sutton, and Tyreek Hill – all of whom I expect to be on over 50% of rosters. Specifics on these slates are always hard to guess, but the important thing will be to be creative with how you put things together.
• This slate has a unique nature to it in the sense that three of the teams have extremely concentrated offenses, while the Broncos are infamous for rotating their players and involving a lot of different personnel. This is exaggerated by the fact that the Broncos have pretty clearly the best on-paper matchup. The result is there are likely going to be a LOT of rosters that look very similar on a night like tonight, which means that there is likely to be one off the board play who steals the show and is a “must have” in order to separate yourself and win a tournament. 

Positional Rankings::

(My favorite plays on the slate at each position when considering all elements, including salary/ownership)

RB::

1. De’Von Achane
2. Breece Hall
3. Chase Brown
4. JK Dobbins

WR::

1. Garrett Wilson
2. Tee Higgins
3. Jaylen Waddle
4. Ja’Marr Chase
5. Courtland Sutton
6. Tyreek Hill
7. Troy Franklin

TE::

1. Mike Gesicki
2. Evan Engram
3. Mason Taylor

SHORT SLATE-ONLY OPTIONS::

• Here are a few cheaper options that I’ll be considering on this slate that can help you make a unique lineup, but you wouldn’t be playing on the Main Slate::
  • RJ Harvey
  • Ollie Gordon
  • Malik Washington
  • Marvin Mims Jr.
  • Pat Bryant
  • Braelon Allen
  • Arian Smith

Good luck and see you in the lobby at 7:15 pm ET Monday!!

-Mike (MJohnson86)