XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Sunday Night Football has the Broncos visiting the Commanders for a 43.5 total game with Denver favored by 5.5 points. The Broncos are road favorites largely due to the Commanders injury situation, as Jayden Daniels is still hurt and out (though, shockingly, he’s expected to return this season? Which…wow). That leaves Marcus Mariota quarterbacking the Commanders against one of the league’s top 3 defenses…yikes.
WASHINGTON
We’ll start with the Washington backfield, where Chris Rodriguez out-touched Jacory “Bill” Croskey-Merritt 15 to 9 last week and also ran more pass routes than RB3 and passing down back Jeremy McNichols. Rodriguez has the most robust role of this split backfield, but he still only played 45% of the offensive snaps (against 27% for Bill and 25% for McNichols), so it’s not like he’s a bell cow. At $6,400, he’s probably somewhere between appropriately priced and maybe a bit too cheap – that’s just a low price for a starting RB with mid-teens touch upside – even though it’s a really tough matchup. He’s a reasonable play, while Bill and McNichols both look overpriced for their shrinking roles. I’d max 1 Commanders running back here as it’s just an awful spot (or if you don’t want to be quite so restrictive, you could max 1 of Bill and McNichols while letting Rodriguez be paired with either of them).
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In the passing game, the matchup doesn’t get much better as Denver is allowing the 2nd fewest yards per pass attempt in the league, but at least the Commanders will be getting Terry McLaurin back. We also need to note that under Mariota the Commanders have been an extremely low volume offense with pass attempts of between 21-30 in all of his full games (four of those games were losses in which we might normally expect elevated volume). That low volume makes it tough for any Commander to find a ceiling, but it’s Showdown, which means we need to play at least 1. With full practices under his belt, I expect he’ll be close to a full normal role, which at $8k puts him firmly in play. If he comes back to a full role, he’s underpriced compared to his peers and is my favorite Washington pass catcher, and though there is some risk here that he might not have a full role immediately, I hope that ends up keeping the field off of him a bit. Deebo Samuel is a really tough click at $10k as he’s priced up for life without McLaurin, and while he is (and should be) the highest projected Washington skill position player, the gap between him and McLaurin isn’t worth $2k salary. He’s a pay-up to be contrarian option who will likely at least be very low owned (and he does have plenty of upside with the ball in his hands). I will note I’m not sure who star Denver cornerback Pat Surtain will spend most of his time on – it might be more on Deebo, it might be more on McLaurin, which would boost the profile of the other. As such, given the low pass volume and difficult matchup, I’m personally going to be using a max 1 rule of Deebo and McLaurin. With McLaurin back, I expect that pushes Chris Moore, Jaylin Lane, and Robbie Chosen all into rotational roles. I’d max 1 of these guys as they’ll all be competing for snaps, and they’re all pretty thin punt options. Moore would be my favorite here as he’s a deep threat guy and can pay off his modest $2,800 salary in a single catch.
Tight end Zach Ertz has a lot of involvement in the offense, and thus a high floor, but at this point in his career has fairly modest per-target upside, and his price is inexplicably $7,000, the highest we’ve seen for him in a Showdown this season. At a cheaper price, I’d be much more interested, but at $7k, I’m not very high on him. TE2 John Bates has 10 targets on the season, most coming lately, but with McLaurin returning, that is likely to ding his involvement in the passing game some. He can still be played as a dart throw, but he’s a thin one.
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