XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Sunday Night Football has the Bucs taking on the Rams in a 49.5 total game with Los Angeles favored by 6.5. On the Bucs side of things, they’re getting Chris Godwin back from a lengthy absence, and they really need some support after going 1-3 in their last four games, while the Rams are humming at 8-2 and coming off of beating the 49ers and Seahawks. Los Angeles is somewhat sneakily (at least from what I’ve seen chatted about), a legit Super Bowl contender, while the Bucs seem like they’re trending down a bit after a couple of really strong seasons. Baker Mayfield is still playing very, very well overall, but their defense has slipped and is a bit below average overall this season. Should be a fun game, let’s dig into it.
LOS ANGELES
On the Rams side of things, Kyren Williams has maintained a solid-but-not-elite running back role with Blake Corum getting more run than we saw last season. Kyren is not a bad running back, but he’s not an elite talent, and his performance has generally been more a function of a very robust role and a team that scores a lot of points. Unfortunately, the role has been fading a bit. In the Rams last five games, Kyren has only gone for 18+ touches once, while Corum has averaged 10.8 touches in those games. It’s not just garbage time, either, as Kyren has continued to get fourth quarter run even in blowouts while Corum is mixing in consistently early in games. This points to a tough spot for Kyren. At $10k, he probably needs at least either the 100 yard bonus or a touchdown in order to be optimal, and he’s only reached the bonus once while scoring six rushing TDs on the year. The touchdown equity is still solid, of course, with a 28 point team total, but at $10k, I generally want my running backs to have more upside to get into the 20+ touch range. Corum is a solid RB2 play at just $3k with high odds of reaching double digit touches. He gets almost no passing game work, so he needs a touchdown, but if he can manage to vulture one from Kyren, his odds of being optimal are very strong. We still see teams pass at a ~60% rate against the Bucs, 8th highest in the league, which also somewhat dampens my interest in Kyren. They aren’t as good against the run on a per-carry basis as we’ve gotten used to seeing from them over the past few seasons, but teams are still choosing to pass at a high rate.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
In the passing game, the Rams are heavily focused around Puka Nacua and Davante Adams, with Jordan Whittington playing a half-time WR3 role and then Konata Humpfield and Xavier Smith playing very small rotational roles. The duo accounts for ~56% of Matt Stafford’s pass attempts with Puka being more of a move-the-chains guy (9.2 yard aDOT, fewer deep targets than Adams) while Adams sees fewer targets but more deep balls as well as the league’s best red zone role (24 red zone targets, highest in the league). Puka has the higher floor, but worth noting that Adams actually has more air yards on the season by a wide margin and more red and end zone targets… their ceilings are pretty comparable. Against an exploitable Tampa secondary in a matchup that tilts towards the pass, they’re both awesome plays, but I have a slight lean towards Adams at $2k cheaper and probably a bit lower ownership just due to the brand name difference. Whittington has topped out at just 3 targets in games in which Puka has played the full game, and has just 1 target in the last three games. Despite being the clear-cut WR3 by snaps and routes, he’s a very thin dart throw as this passing offense is extremely condensed.
At tight end, Tyler Higbee, Davis Allen, Colby Parkinson, and Terrance Ferguson are all splitting work. Parkinson is the most talented and most involved pass catcher by a fairly wide margin, and it’s worth noting he jumped up to a season-high 69% of the snaps (nice) after Tyler Higbee suffered an ankle injury. Higbee is out, and we are likely to see Parkinson in the leading TE role once again. At $2,400, he is a much stronger play than the $3k Whittington. Terrance Ferguson is the next most involved pass catching TE, and while Parkinson is clearly the better on-paper play, Ferguson has 5 catches this year, but every single one is for at least 21 yards. The floor here is zero, but on a per-target basis, Ferguson’s upside is quite high. It’ll be interesting to see how projection systems handle him (and thus how his ownership is projected), because if he comes in really low, he makes for a very compelling dart throw in tournaments. Allen is mostly a blocker who has some floor due to consistent involvement and a high catch rate but a very modest ceiling. Allen is basically the opposite of Ferguson, where every one of his catches has been for 20 yards or less, so he basically needs a touchdown to have a chance of being optimal, and even if he gets one, he still may not make it to optimal lineups given his low yardage upside.
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