XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Week 6 begins with another one of these incredibly thrilling island game matchups as the Commanders visit the Bears. The game has a not-super-exciting total of just 38 points with Chicago favored by 1. What fun. But there’s money to be won!
Chicago
We’ll start with the Bears and the guy who is in contention for the best skill position play in the game in David Montgomery. Montgomery returned from missing the last two weeks and stepped back into a 72% snap rate, seeing 16 running back opportunities compared with just four for backup Khalil Herbert. I was expecting Herbert to be a little more involved than this, but it seems this is still Monty’s backfield. Montgomery is a home favorite three-down running back with a 51.1% route participation rate so far, and a solid 1.65 yards per route run, which is higher than Saquon Barkley, Breece Hall, and even Christian McCaffrey! The only downside is the matchup, as Washington ranks 6th in run defense DVOA but just 29th against the pass, creating a strength-on-strength matchup (or . . . I don’t know . . . stoppable force meets movable object?). Chicago wants to run the ball and that’s the strength of their offense (such as it is), while the Bears are ill-equipped to take advantage of the weakest parts of the Commander D. If we expect a low-scoring game, even a modest line like 60 rushing yards with a couple of catches could put Monty in the optimal lineup. Behind Monty, Herbert will mix in for a handful of touches, and he’s shown the ability to break big plays, so despite the high price he’s at least worth considering in your MME player pools.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
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In the passing game, the Bears will run out Darnell Mooney and Cole Kmet as full-time players, with Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis, and Ihmir Smith-Marsette in rotational roles. It’s hard to get excited about anyone on this low-volume passing attack in which Justin Fields is averaging just 17.6 pass attempts per game (lol), but at least Mooney has big per-play upside. Yay? Kmet is coming off his best game of the year with . . . wait for it . . . a 4/45/0 performance. And that’s his best game, really. At some point, he’ll probably find his way into the end zone. If there’s a time for the Chicago passing attack to get going, it’s here, against one of the league’s worst passing offenses, but we know volume is going to be low even if the Bears are playing from behind. Of the rotational guys, St. Brown saw his snaps drop down to 62% last week while Smith-Marsette saw his most playing time of the year, bouncing up from a previous high of 10% of the snaps to a new high of 38%. Because he didn’t do much with him, he’s still priced at just $600, but this does appear to be a player whose role is on the rise; that still isn’t likely to lead to much in the way of target volume but I’d view him as just as viable as St. Brown or Pettis, who are all basically GPP dart throw options. Fields himself, of course, has his floor buoyed by rushing upside, which gives him a strong chance of landing in the optimal lineup even if he has a poor game (like all of his games so far this year).
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Overview:
- Both teams are implied for just 19 pts
- Using these parameters for the following trends, “16 Thursday games with totals under 40 since 2014”
- Only 3 of the 32 QBs have scored 20+ DK pts: Wilson (21.4) // Dak (27.4) // Trubisky (27.9)
- Fields has maxed out at 17 DK pts this year, while Wentz has scored 25+ DK pts three times already
- 111 WRs have scored 2.46 fantasy pts below expectation (determined by salary), and have met expectation with just a 29.7% consistency
- Only 8 of the 111 WRs have scored 20+ DK pts
- Mooney has 27.5 DK pts total, while WAS WRs have games of 20+ DK pts: McLaurin (0), Samuel (2), Dotson (0), Brown (1)
- Only 6 of the 72 RBs have scored 20+ DK pts
- Monty has 0 games of 20+ DK pts in 2022, Gibson has scored fewer pts every week since his 20 in W1, and WAS is still sorting backfield touches between Robinson, Gibson, & McKissic
Justin Fields:
- WAS has allowed the 7th most points through five games
- Pts allowed by WAS: 22 // 36 // 24 // 25 // 21
- CHI pts: 19 // 10 // 23 // 12 // 22
- Fields has thrown between 11 & 22 pass att in every game
- QBs vs WAS: Lawrence (275:1:1) // Goff (256:4) // Hurts (340:3) // Rush (223:2) // Tanny (181:1)
- WAS ranks 29th in def pass DVOA
- Hurts was held to just 20 yds on 9 rush att
- Fields rush yds by game: 28 // 20:1 // 47 // 52 // 47
Darnell Mooney:
- Mooney leads CHI with 21 tg (3, 2, 6, 5, 5)
- Top WRs vs WAS: Kirk (117) // St Brown (116:2, 68) // Smith (169:1), Brown (85:1) // Lamb (97:1) // Westbrook (72)
- Mooney production: 8 // -4 // 23 // 94 // 52
- WAS has allowed the 5th most completed air yds
Cole Kmet:
- Kmet’s targets: 1 // 1 // 3 // 3 // 4
- Kmet’s production: 0 // 0 // 40 // 16 // 45
- TEs vs WAS: Engram (28) // Hock (26) // Goedert (26:1) // Schultz (0) // Hooper (7)
CHI RBs:
- RBs total yds vs WAS: JRob (69:2), Etienne (65) // Swift (87:1), JWill (60) // Sanders (44) // Zeke (81) // Henry (132:2)
- Montgomery to Herbert rushes in games together: 17 to 9 // 15 to 4 // 12 to 4
- Montgomery to Herbert targets in games together: 4 to 1 // 2 to 1 // 4 to 0
- Montgomery’s full games: 50 // 136 // 82:1
Carson Wentz:
- QB passing vs CHI: Lance (164) // Rodgers (234:2) // Mills (245:1:2) // Jones (71) // Cousins (296:1:1)
- Wentz in 2022: 313:4:2 // 337:3:1 // 211:0 // 170:1:2 // 359:2:1
- Pass def DVOA of WAS opponents: 9th // 30th // 3rd // 4th // 28th
- JAC, PHI, & DAL all rank in the top-10 in pressure rate, while DET & TEN do not
- CHI ranks 15th in pass def DVOA and 7th in pressure rate (PFR)
- WAS pts: 28 // 27 // 8 // 10 // 17
- CHI pts allowed: 10 // 27 // 20 // 20 // 29
WAS WRs:
- McLaurin has 75+ yds in 3 of 5 games
- Samuel has 6-8 rec in 4 of 5 games, but 75+ yds just once
- In relief of the injured Dotson, Brown caught 2 TDs for 105 yds on his 4 tg
- WRs with 50+ yds vs CHI: Jennings (62) // Watkins (93) // Moore (63) // Jefferson (154)
- CHI has allowed the 3rd fewest completed air yds in the league
- Bates & Turner each received 3 tg in the absence of Logan Thomas, but Bates led in yds 39 to 0
WAS RBs:
- Touches in Robinson’s first game: Robinson (9, 0) // Gibson (3, 4) // McKissic (0, 7)
- RB yds vs CHI: SF (71) // GB (237:2) // HOU (131:1) // NYG (180) // MIN (161:2)
- WAS RBs yds by game: 158 // 104:1 // 80:1 // 119 // 98
- 5 RBs have 20+ rec yds vs CHI
- 4 RBs have 80+ rush yds vs CHI
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