Bucs (

24.25) at
Lions (

30.25)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

The first of our Monday games has the Bucs visiting the Lions for a 52.5 total game with Detroit favored by 6. The big deal for our purposes is injuries: Mike Evans is expected back, while Emeka Egbuka looks more doubtful (though apparently has a “real chance” to play per beat reporters/coaches). I’m going to assume Evans is in and Egbuka is out, but obviously, if Egbuka plays, that changes things. General note with injury stuff: unless we have concrete information that says otherwise, I assume if a guy’s playing, he’s in his normal role. I’m not a doctor; I have no edge in guessing at medical stuff. You can certainly make bets that Egbuka plays, but isn’t in a full role (or even the same for Evans).

DETROIT

On the Lions side, they face a Bucs D that has been difficult to run against and faced one of the highest pass rates over expectation for years now. So far, they’ve looked the same as they’ve only allowed over 100 rushing yards in 1 of 6 games on the season. The Lions are one of the best rushing teams in the league, so I won’t just write them off, but it’s going to be tougher sailing than usual for Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery. We also have a split backfield situation that isn’t really priced like it, with Gibbs at $10.4k and Montgomery at $7.4k. That’s the single most expensive backfield (as in, RB1 + RB2) we’ve seen this season in Showdown, and it’s not even particularly close. It’s very reasonable to say they’re objectively overpriced. Gibbs has only reached the 20+ opportunity mark once on the season and is averaging 18.6 opportunities per game, while Monty is at 12.5 opportunities per game. Gibbs is the better on paper play here: he’s more talented, he gets more touches, and he gets more passing game work. He’s still overpriced for his role in this matchup, but his ceiling is much higher. Monty’s a much tougher sell as he’s now priced above the level where something like 50 yards and a touchdown is likely to get him into the optimal lineup. Both are somewhat contrarian, except I expect that Gibbs will be one of the highest owned plays on the slate (as he usually is). I would argue the “right” play over the long term is to fade him, but it’s scary given his ceiling. Totally viable to play him, totally viable to fade him, also totally viable to just play in line with expected ownership and figure that you’ll take your stands elsewhere.

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, the primary wideouts are Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams. ASRB is the best skill position play in the game, in my opinion: he fits the pass funnel nature of the Bucs D, he has 6 touchdowns on the season with an awesome 11 red zone targets (2nd in the NFL), and he has an elite 30.5% target share. His role is massive, and he’s an elite player. I personally think he’s a much better play than Gibbs (or Egbuka, or Evans, or anyone). Williams is much more volatile as the offense’s primary deep threat. He’s also priced all the way up to $8k, which is historically expensive for him in Showdown. He’s still a fine play to me and I think his price will keep people off of him. If we believe the Lions are going to have trouble running the ball, we have to decide if we think their offense just fails or if it succeeds through the air. If the former, play the Bucs D in onslaughts and win all the money if you’re right. If the latter, an increased pass rate would be a boost to Williams. He doesn’t project all that well from a median perspective, which, combined with the price, should make him quite underowned (anything under 25% or so is a gift). Kalif Raymond had the WR3 earlier in the season but suffered a neck injury and missed Week 5. He came back last week but only played 2 snaps, and it’s unclear if he’s lost his job to the more talented Isaac TeSlaa or if they were just eating him back in after the injury. TeSlaa is the better player and the one I’d rather play of the two, and since they’re competing for snaps, I definitely wouldn’t play them together, but regardless, they’re both fairly thin punt options as the WR3 in this offense has historically not been very involved with how stud-heavy the Lions are.

At tight end, Sam LaPorta actually leads all pass catchers in snaps, and then Brock Wright is in roughly a half-time role. LaPorta is the very definition of “fine.” He’s a little on the expensive side at $6,800, but as already mentioned, the matchup leans to attacking through the air. He’s almost certainly going to need a touchdown to pay off because his target share is fairly modest, but he’s 2nd on the team in red zone targets behind ASRB, so he has a decent chance of getting one. You can take a stand here if you want, but I’m probably just going to play right around the ownership on him and try to win elsewhere. Wright has some really funny game logs in that he has exactly 3 targets in two games, and he scored a touchdown in each game, but otherwise has 0 targets on the season. He oddly has more red zone targets than Williams and as many as Gibbs, and at $1,600, he deserves to be in player pools, but it’s likely we’ll have better overall value on the Bucs side of things. 

tampa bay

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::

• Bucs – Tampa Bay has battled through a litany of injuries this season, but Baker Mayfield has just kept producing as the Bucs have scored 25+ points in four straight games. Now they are likely to get Mike Evans back on the field, with an outside chance for Emeka Egbuka to play through his hamstring injury. Whoever is on the field at receiver for the Bucs is likely to have success, as Detroit has the 5th ranked run defense in the league and will be without four of their top five defensive backs due to injuries and suspension. 
• Lions – Detroit returns home after a tough loss to the Chiefs last week. Jared Goff’s home/road splits have been massive during his time with the Lions and the Bucs are one of the bigger “pass funnel” teams in the league. We have seen this movie before with the Lions defense when they were decimated in the second half of last season and their games were all shootouts. For what it is worth, this week Dan Campbell said the team wants to split the running back work more evenly. The reality is this matchup suits Gibbs in the passing game far better than the between the tackles style of Montgomery.
• Texans – Houston emerges from their bye week with a 2-3 record and a grueling upcoming schedule. They will be without veteran WR Christian Kirk, which further emphasizes the role of Nico Collins while also bringing some value WRs into the mix in this spot. The team played Week 1 and 2 without Kirk as well, but Justin Watson played a lot of snaps those weeks and is now on injured reserve. This makes the secondary Texans receivers a spot that will likely have a big impact on the slate. Also, there are not great running back options on this slate and the Texans RBs are cheap. 
• Seahawks – Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been awesome this season, but this is easily his toughest matchup to date with the Texans pass defense that is ranked third in DVOA. Houston has been a lot easier to run the ball against than to pass it. Unfortunately the Seahawks running game has not been dependable this season and they split the work. Seattle will likely depend heavily on their defense giving them good field position to create points.

QB Thoughts::

• I am not really overthinking things here, as the salaries of Mayfield and Goff are higher than Stroud and Darnold, but their range of outcomes is so much different as well. Both TB and DET have pass funnel defenses and it feels fairly likely that at least one of the QBs there goes over 25 points, with the potential for both doing so or one of them getting to 30….while in the HOU/SEA game it feels like we’ll be somewhat lucky if either QB gets to 20. 

My guess on final ownership::

• Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff – 25 to 35%
• Sam Darnold and CJ Stroud – 15 to 22%

RB Thoughts::

• Jahmyr Gibbs and Rachaad White are the top running backs on the slate by a wide margin.
• David Montgomery’s coach wants to give him the ball more but this is a matchup where he is least likely to be efficient with those touches and Detroit seems likely to have to throw the ball a lot more. I think my favorite way to play him might be WITH Jared Goff as a bet on Detroit scoring five or six TDs.
• Kenneth Walker III has played better than Zach Charbonnet, but still splits the backfield with him. Very few rosters will have three RBs, while Gibbs and White will likely both be well north of 50% ownership, which means Walker will probably settle in the 25% range. Seattle has a bye next week and part of the reason they have been doing the committee is seemingly to preserve Walker’s health, so you could make a bet on them letting him off the leash a little bit in this one which would make him a player with one of the higher ceilings relative to salary on the slate.
• Coming out of the bye it wouldn’t be shocking for Woody Marks to have a bigger role, but the team obviously respects veteran Nick Chubb. The Texans offense looked great against the Ravens backups the last time we saw them play, but are likely to have a much tougher time without Kirk and playing in a hostile road environment.

WR Thoughts::

• Amon-Ra St. Brown should be extremely busy in this one and is the primary read on most passing plays for Detroit, while this is a spot with the state of their secondary where they are likely to enter the game and continue through it knowing they need to score a ton of points.
• Jameson Williams was used on a more diverse route tree last week and I expect his role to grow again this week, with the potential to break the slate. Let’s not forget that the second half of last season is when Williams really went bonkers.
• Mike Evans is in an absolute smash spot to return to. Sterling Shepard, Tez Johnson, and Kameron Johnson are all likely to have a role if Emeka Egbuka is unable to play. Hard to imagine at least one Bucs WR/TE isn’t in winning lineups with the state of the DET secondary.
• Jaxon Smith-Njigba is too integral to the Seattle offense to have a truly “bad” game, in my opinion, but his salary around $8k makes it so a “good” game from him keeps you from winning. He is likely to be 60% owned, I don’t expect his team to be pushed, the matchup is really tough. All of that is enough for me to not play him. DFS is hard and you have to make choices. I’m just not playing JSN this week and living with whatever happens.
• If not playing JSN, taking shots on Cooper Kupp, Tory Horton, or AJ Barner is reasonable. I prefer them in the reverse order of that listed, but also expect Kupp to post a bigger game at some point this season so if it happened here I wouldn’t be totally shocked. Just in general with the Seattle passing game I expect JSN to have decent production but disappoint for his salary and ownership, the backfield to soak up a decent amount of the offense, and then these “other” guys to split whatever is left…..and if betting on that last chunk I would prefer to do it in the cheapest and lowest owned way possible.
• This Texans offense looked broken to start the season without Christian Kirk on the field and playing against good defenses, which is the situation they find themselves in this week. I am not looking to bet on Nico Collins in this spot, but he is talented enough to overcome that. Really the nature of the slate is tough to justify playing him at such high ownership because of how many points and yards are likely to come from the other game.
• After Collins, the “next” WR appears to be veteran Xavier Hutchinson who scored two touchdowns in their last game against the Ravens. However, I kind of like playing one of the Texans rookie WRs (Jayden Higgins or Jaylin Noel) in this spot in large field tournaments. 

TE Thoughts::

• The Lions have been a concentrated offense this season and last week we saw the two running backs, ARSB, Jameson, and Sam LaPorta as the only Lions to touch the ball. LaPorta is by far the best tight end option on the slate and it will be hard for me to make any rosters that don’t have at least one of him or Jameson Williams in it.
• AJ Barner has shown an ability to make big plays and has had plays designed for him near the goal line. Among the “non-LaPorta” tight ends, Barner has four games of double digit PPR points while Schultz and Otton have combined for three. Despite that, he is likely to be the fourth highest owned TE on the slate. My main build is looking like it will be a Goff triple with Barner in the Flex.
• Cade Otton didn’t get in the end zone last week with all the Bucs WR injuries. This week, considering how beat up the Lions secondary is and at least one of Tampa’s star WRs being back, it is a little harder to see him posting a big stat line. That being said, he will play the whole game and it should be high scoring.
• Dalton Schultz may see an uptick in targets as the safety valve with Christian Kirk out. Hard to count on a touchdown, so the ceiling seems kind of low here, but should be good for a few catches and 40 to 60 yards.

Strategy and Game Theory::

• Relative to last week’s slate, salary is much tighter for this week’s two game slate and there is a clear ideal way to play these two games with TB/DET appearing so much more appealing than HOU/SEA.
• If you select the most expensive active player for each of your nine roster spots on DraftKings, you will be $7,600 over the salary cap. 
• Each team has one elite WR (assuming Evans plays and Egbuka does not). The quickest way to come down from that salary listed above is to pick the one you like the least and drop down to a cheap alternative from the same team. You can then toy around with a couple other positions to get below the salary cap, but it isn’t as simple or straightforward as last week’s two-game slate was. 
• The early game is going to be by far the more popular spot to build around and in these instances many people think the way to handle it is to flip that and build around the other game. For this particular slate, I don’t really have an interest in doing that. 
• Most people will probably build in a very specific way, with 5 or 6 players from TB/DET and then one player from each of HOU and SEA or two from one of them and one from the other…..and using HOU or SEA defense. That might work out, but I think that betting on one of the offenses from the late game playing very poorly (or both) is a solid strategy. So maybe we have 6 or 7 players from the early game, but then one or two players from SEA plus their defense and fade HOU completely (or vice versa). The natural tendency on these slates is always to “cover your bases” and most people will have one player from every team on their rosters. Not doing so might be the most +EV thing you can do.
• The defenses here are interesting, as probably 60 to 80% of the rosters will have either SEA or HOU defense. I think the Seahawks defense might destroy the Texans terrible offensive line, but there is also a chance the game is low scoring and boring while with all the pass attempts in the early game there could be a pick-6 or something that really sets things off. Something like Bucs Defense on Goff rosters or Lions Defense on Baker rosters could have a lot of value here.

Positional Rankings::

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

RB::

1. Rachaad White
2. Jahmyr Gibbs
3. Kenneth Walker III
4. David Montgomery
5. Woody Marks
6. Nick Chubb

WR::

1. Amon-Ra St. Brown
2. Mike Evans
3. Jameson Williams
4. Jaxon Smith-Njigba
5. Nico Collins
6. Emeka Egbuka (if active)
7. Cooper Kupp
8. Tez Johnson
9. Jayden Higgins
10. Sterling Shepard

TE::

1. Sam LaPorta
2. AJ Barner
3. Cade Otton
4. Dalton Schultz

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::
  • Sean Tucker
  • Elijah Arroyo
  • Tory Horton
  • Jaylin Noel

Good luck and see you in the lobby at 7:00 pm ET Monday!!

-Mike (MJohnson86)