XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Sunday Night Football has the Bengals visiting the Chargers for a 47.5 total game in which Los Angeles is favored by a point and a half. This should be a really interesting game. I think people are coming around to the Chargers as more of a passing offense, finally, as they’ve been top-10 in pass rate over expectation (PROE) in their last four games. The Bengals are first in PROE in their last few games and also for the entire season. The Chargers started as an incredibly run-heavy team but they’ve been opening up the playbook more, which adds a lot more potential excitement to this game. Their defense has also been insanely good, allowing only 13.1 points per game (Pittsburgh is next at 16.2). Early in the season, it felt like something of a mirage because they weren’t getting after the quarterback (the surest way to stop drives), but in their last three games they’ve racked up an insane 18 sacks . . . admittedly against the Saints, Browns, and Titans, but still. That’s what you need to do in order to be an elite defense.
Los Angeles
On the Chargers side, Gus Edwards made his return last week and immediately ate into J.K. Dobbins’ role. Dobbins played 66% of the offensive snaps, lower than any game during Edwards’ four-game absence. He still handled 18 opportunities, right around the normal range for him so there’s no need to panic about Dobbins, but Edwards’ return does take a bit of the ceiling off of his opportunity count. He’s generally going to be in that 17-21 opportunity range, and as a home favorite that looks pretty solid, but there are some warning signs here. First, the Bengals are (slightly) above average against the run, allowing 4.2 yards per carry on the season. Second, despite Edwards missing four games, he has 9 red zone carries to Dobbins’ 17. On a per-game basis, they’re about equal – roughly two per game. This is a small sample, but we’d like to see Dobbins out carrying Edwards near the goal line. Third, while Dobbins’ full-season efficiency numbers look strong, most of that is due to three games (against the Raiders, Panthers, and Browns). In his other six games, he’s been inefficient, averaging 3.8 yards per carry or under. Home favorite running backs with decent passing game roles are always going to look good on paper, and Dobbins is certainly not a bad play by any means, but there are more yellow flags than I’d like to see for a $10k guy who is certainly going to come in at high ownership. I’ll play him but will be underweight. Edwards has no passing game role and will likely only see a handful of carries in a competitive game so you’ll need at least a touchdown for him to be relevant.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
In the passing game, the Chargers are running out Ladd McConkey and Quentin Johnston as their full-time wide receivers with Josh Palmer and Jalen Reagor splitting the WR3 role. Of note is that D.J. Chark is finally off of injured reserve and played his first snap of the season last week. And that was it, just 1 snap. McConkey has shown himself to be talented and NFL-ready with a couple of strong games so far. The ceiling is a little dodgy because he’s a short aDOT slot receiver, but at $8,200 we don’t necessarily need 100 yards and a touchdown like we do on main slates. The Bengals pass defense has been suspect all year and McConkey is the surest way to attack it. Johnston is being used more as a deep threat, and after an incredibly disappointing rookie season, this year he has 5 touchdowns in seven games played. He’s the opposite of McConkey in that the floor is questionable but the ceiling is robust. Then we get into some interesting stuff. Palmer hasn’t really shown himself to be a strong NFL wide receiver at this point in his career but the Chargers haven’t given up on him. Jalen Reagor has absolutely shown himself to not be a strong (or even mid-tier) NFL wide receiver. So, does Chark get more run this week? My guess is that Chark is clearly one of the Chargers’ best four wide receivers (and is probably top 3), so I expect his role is going to grow. My guess is that he splits reps with Palmer this week and Reagor fades away. Palmer is, to me, too expensive for a not very talented wide receiver playing roughly half the snaps. You’d need a long touchdown for any real shot at relevance. But, at just $1,200, Chark in a split WR3 role would profile similarly to Palmer, just much, much cheaper, and that would be quite interesting. It’s all speculative of course, and depending on how projection systems approach it, we could see Chark being largely ignored by the field or being heavily owned, which affects my level of interest but assuming ownership doesn’t become outlandish (say, in the 10% range or so), I think it’s a good tourney option.
At tight end, Will Dissly continues to roll in his all floor, no ceiling role. It’s tough to find a ceiling at 8 yards per catch and his price has crept up to where just a few empty catches aren’t likely to make him a winning tournament play. You’ll need double-digit points, which means something like 6 catches or you’re hoping he finds the end zone. Since he has 1 target all season instead the 10 yard line, it’s certainly possible, but he’s not being heavily utilized when the Chargers are close in. Hayden Hurst recently made his return from injury and has played just 14% and 15% of the snaps in his two games back. Since his snaps didn’t increase last week my guess is that while they might slowly creep up, Dissly has really stolen the TE1 role. He can be viewed as a touchdown-or-bust option (Hurst does have 3 targets inside the 10-yard line despite playing only half the snaps of Dissly on the season, however). Finally, Stone Smartt should play a handful of TE3 snaps but has just 3 targets on the season.
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