Bengals (

23.5) at
Ravens (

29.5)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Week 10 begins and we’re into the second half of the season for real. The Bengals will be visiting the Ravens on Thursday for a game with a 53-point total and Baltimore favored by 6. The Ravens have been an absolutely elite offense this year, scoring at least 20 points in every single game while averaging 31.4 points per game, but their defense has not been as strong as we’re used to seeing, allowing 24.3 points per game (just the basic Baltimore numbers say we get into a shootout most of the games). Cincinnati isn’t far behind, scoring 26.2 points per game while allowing 25.2. The last time these teams met was in October when the Ravens won a 41-38 game, while two games last year ended 34-20 and 27-24. Will we see a high-scoring game this week? Probably, though of course nothing’s guaranteed. 

Baltimore

On the Ravens side, they finally have a running back they trust to give significant workloads to with Derrick Henry averaging 18.7 carries per game, 117 rushing yards per game (!!), and 1.4 touchdowns per game. Wow. Henry is averaging an insane 6.3 yards per carry as part of the league’s best rushing offense. The Bengals defense has been a bit above average against running backs at 4.2 yards per carry allowed, but the Ravens can run on anyone. Henry is not very involved in the passing game (11 targets on the season) so he faces game script risk should the Ravens play from behind, but the whole “he’s an expensive 2-down back who needs a huge score to bury you for not playing him” that we would talk about on a main slate doesn’t really apply in a Showdown. He’s very clearly one of the top overall plays though he definitely fits better in “Ravens win” builds. Behind Henry, Justice Hill is averaging 3.2 carries and just over 3 targets per game in an RB2 role. His goal line role is modest with 3 carries and 2 targets inside the 10-yard line (21 combined for Henry) which makes it hard for him to find ceiling, especially at $5,200. He’s a play who belongs in player pools but for me, it’s just a sprinkle in MME as he’s going to need a touchdown or some kind of unexpectedly large passing role in order to have a strong shot at paying off. Fullback Patrick Ricard can be included in player pools as a touchdown or bust MME punt play. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, the Ravens have picked up Diontae Johnson which should push Nelson Agholor into an even smaller role. Agholor had been playing around half the snaps previously, coming off the field in 12 personnel sets. Now Baltimore has Diontae, Zay Flowers, and Rashod Bateman as their 3 primary wideouts, with Agholor and Tylan Wallace in backup/rotational roles. They’ve been running 11 personnel at the lowest rate in the league (just 29% of plays) so it’ll be interesting to see how playing time shakes out. Tight end Isaiah Likely is questionable with a hamstring injury and is coming off of a season-low 31% of snaps played, so perhaps we see Baltimore play more 3-wide sets if Likely misses or is limited. It’s also unclear how many snaps Diontae will play in his second week with the team after being eased in with a 30% role in his first game. Flowers and Bateman are clearly going to play a lot, as is TE1 Mark Andrews, but past that I think there’s a lot of uncertainty. Flowers is obviously the main guy here but he has a below-average 26.3% target share on an offense that is passing at the league’s 3rd-lowest rate (just 47.8%). The data here is really spiky though. He has three games of 4 or fewer targets which really drags down the average but then five games of 9+ targets (Lamar threw 15, 18, and 22 passes in the low volume games). If you think the Bengals force Baltimore to pass more, Flowers has one of the higher volume projections in the game. If you think Baltimore handles business and plays from ahead the entire time, his volume becomes a lot less certain. Bateman is only averaging a little over 4 targets per game with an extremely elite 14.8 aDOT. He’s your typical low volume deep threat receiver, but on what is probably fair to say is the league’s most efficient offense, he has higher odds of hitting than most guys of his profile. As for Diontae, we’ll have to see how Baltimore uses him. He’s generally been used as a modest aDOT guy both in Pittsburgh and in Carolina – not quite a no-upside possession receiver, but his aDOT is generally right around 10-ish yards at best. That hasn’t historically been a role that the Ravens have had for a wide receiver – their WRs normally run deep and they use their tight ends for shorter area stuff. Diontae doesn’t really profile as a fast deep ball kind of guy and it would seem kind of weird for Baltimore to try and shove him into a role that he’s not made for – they’re generally a smarter team than that – so my best guess is they use Diontae as we’ve generally seen him used and they run more 3-wide sets to accommodate him (as noted previously, this seems even more likely this week if Likely misses or is limited). If that’s the case, that limits his upside somewhat but he’s also $4,800 whereas normally we’re used to seeing him in the $8k+ range in Showdowns. I think he’s priced appropriately for an uncertain role but I’d want to be over the field here. Similar to DeAndre Hopkins this past Monday, I think he plays a whole lot more in his second week with the team and really starts to become integrated with the offense. Should Likely miss that would increase my interest in Diontae even more. The other WRs, Wallace and Agholor, are just MME punt plays (preference to Agholor here as the guy more likely to be on the field). 

At tight end, Mark Andrews has finally been coming out of his early-season slumber with 4 or 5 targets in four of the last five games, three games of 14.6 or more DK points in that span, and 4 total touchdowns. The volume is modest as Andrews has yet to see more than 5 targets in a game and has generally been playing around 50% or so of the snaps most weeks. Much like Diontae there’s more upside if Likely misses, but the days of Andrews as one of the leading volume guys in this offense seem to have disappeared (somewhat unexpectedly). If Likely plays, Andrews is still absolutely playable for his ceiling as his price has sunk all the down to $4,200, while if Likely sits, he becomes a much more attractive play. Finally, Charlie Kolar appears to have carved out something of a TE3 role – it’s only led to an average of 1 target per game but he did have 4 targets when these teams met in Week 5. This is just conjecture but maybe the Ravens saw something they liked in that matchup? I don’t know. He’s another punt play. There’s some push/pull between the Ravens tight ends and either Diontae or Bateman as one of those 2 WRs has to come off the field in 2-TE sets, and while the almost ludicrous efficiency of this offense makes me wary of outright excluding guys, I’ll use rules to be wary of how often I pair the Ravens TEs with the non-Flowers WRs. 

Cincinnati