XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
In what might be one of the toughest Showdowns to build for of the year, Week 12 begins with the Bills visiting the Texans. This game has a 43.5 total with Buffalo favored by 6, and oh boy, it’s a tricky one. Buffalo, of course, is always tough because of how they spread the ball around on offense, while the Texans are a struggling offense but an elite defense. The way to beat Buffalo is on the ground, except Houston’s run game has been terrible. Let’s see if we can figure this one out.
HOUSTON
We’ll start on the Houston side, where Woody Marks has very clearly passed Nick Chubb to become the lead running back. In the last two weeks, Marks has handled 17 and 19 opportunities to Chubb’s 6 and 5, respectively. He has not looked particularly explosive, but part of that is running behind one of the league’s worst offensive lines. The role looks solid, and teams have been trying to beat Buffalo on the ground, where their defense has been significantly more vulnerable…or has it? We’ve seen four running backs really exploit the Bills, and those have been Derrick Henry, Bijan Robinson, Devon Achane, and Sean Tucker. All of those running backs have something in common: they’re really, really explosive and capable of breaking big plays. I’d still say the matchup is positive, but Marks isn’t exactly in that same category. He’ll also face game script risk against one of the league’s best offenses, and so he’ll need the Texans to keep things close in order to maximize his odds of finding a ceiling. At $9,200, he’s priced a little less than a bell cow RB role should dictate, so he looks like a value, but I’d personally very much prefer playing him with the Texans defense as the likeliest way he gets to ~20 touches is if Buffalo’s offense is held in check. Chubb is an RB2 dart throw.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
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In the passing game, Davis Mills has injected at least a little bit of life into this offense, winning a shootout against the Jaguars two weeks ago before struggling against the Titans last week. Encouragingly, he’s thrown 45 and 41 passes in his two starts (and the Texans as a whole threw 40 in Week 9 when Stroud got hurt), and that kind of volume sure makes things look a lot more favorable for Houston’s pass catchers. Nico Collins has double digit targets in all of those three games (after reaching that point just twice in all of Stroud’s full games). It seems odd to say Davis Mills has unlocked him or saved his fantasy season, but it sure looks that way. Nico is an elite receiver, but in a really tough matchup, though, as Buffalo has really clamped down on opposing WR1s, with only three WR1s (Drake London, Stef Diggs, and Zay Flowers) having good games against them. Nico is just as good as any of those guys, but his QB isn’t. A tough matchup and an $11.2k price make it tough to play Nico, but should also result in lower than normal ownership for an elite pass catcher in Showdown – he’s a solid play and perhaps a contrarian one if his total ownership comes in under the 50% mark.
The other wide receivers are rotating with Christian Kirk, Jayden Higgins, and Xavier Hutchinson all playing 50-60% of the snaps, and Jaylin Noel playing a smaller WR5 role. Kirk has been legitimately awful this season, topping out at 64 receiving yards in a game and only seeing 7 targets combined in the last two games (out of 86 pass attempts, for a sub-10% target share). At just $2,800, I think you could reasonably try to bet on his longer-term track record of talent, but it requires some real faith. Higgins looks like the emerging WR2 with 14 targets and 9 catches in the last two games, and at $4,600, he’s pretty cheap for that role. Hutchinson is playing the most snaps of the tertiary wide receivers but has shown only modest upside, only reaching double-digit DK points twice on the year, but he’s also quite cheap. Finally, Noel has looked quite talented at times this year, but is playing only around 30% of the offensive snaps. If he got more playing time, he’d be a really strong option, but as it is, he’s still a reasonably cheap value play who has put up scores you’d be happy with at his $1,600 salary four times on the year (not bad). I’d rank these guys as Higgins, Kirk, Hutchinson, and Noel.
At tight end, Dalton Schultz is really the 2nd option in the passing game with 20 targets in Mills’ starts for an elite-for-a-tight-end 23.5% target share. The Bills have absolutely eliminated opposing tight ends, but I’m always a little wary of how I use that data point, as different teams use their tight ends very differently in the passing game. It’s a tough matchup, but hardly an impossible one, and at the end of the day, Schultz is just not priced for his target projection. At $6,200, he looks like a very strong value option.
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