XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
We get not one but two Monday games this week. Extra Showdowns! This one has the Jags visiting the Bills for a 45.5 total game with Buffalo favored by 5. The Jags, of course, have struggled immensely in the early going, scoring just 30 points in their first two games on the way to an 0-2 record, while the Bills won a shootout against the Cardinals before curb-stomping the Dolphins in a game in which Tua Tagovailoa left early.
Jacksonville
We’ll start with the Jags and their run game because holy wow this is weird. Travis Etienne is the most expensive skill position player on the slate and the second most expensive player overall at $11,000. He’s seen just 15 and 17 opportunities so far and would have scored single-digit DK points in each game had he not found the end zone. He’s played 70% and 72% of the snaps (good!) but he just isn’t getting the work you’d expect when he’s on the field (bad!). In Week 1, RB2 Tank Bigsby saw 12 opportunities despite playing just 32% of the snaps, while in Week 2, D’Ernest Johnson played the backup role (as Bigsby was hurt) and saw 5 carries. In terms of the percentage of RB workload, Etienne’s role was more robust in Week 2 but the challenge here is that he’s being priced like a bell cow despite the modest workloads we’ve seen and that the Jaguars are significant road underdogs. So what do we do with this? As I see it, we want to play Etienne on builds predicated on the Jags winning or keeping the game close. I do think we’re going to see his workload get back to normal, as snap counts are more predictive of future RB workload and scoring than past touch counts. It feels like a spot where we can perhaps pay up to be contrarian, as I expect a lot of people will be hesitant to roster Etienne at this price. To be clear, he’s not an awesome play, and I think he’s at real risk of being game-scripted out quickly if Buffalo plays from well ahead, but if the game stays close he could surprise us with his workload and the matchup is very favorable.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
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In the passing game, the Jags have looked pretty broken so far with Trevor Lawrence completing just 26 passes in two games for 382 yards and a single touchdown. Yikes. Keep in mind how high expectations were for this offense last season after T-Law’s 22-23 breakout, but then 23-24 was pretty bad for him, so this isn’t necessarily just a small two-game blip – it’s a continuation of a trend of mediocre performance that went on for most of last season. The pass catcher talent is there with a wide receiver corps of Christian Kirk, Gabe Davis, and Brian Thomas Jr. (or BTJ as we affectionately call him over in the props world), and Evan Engram at tight end (Engram is hurt and will miss this game) but the results have just been poor. But at least one Jag is going to be on the winning build and this team sure does seem more talented than they’ve shown . . .
Alright, so what we’ve seen so far is Kirk, Davis, and BTJ play almost all the wide receiver snaps, with Parker Washington in a very modest WR4 role (I’ll save myself time and note now that he’s a thin MME punt play if you want to go there). Through two games, Davis leads the group with 10 targets for 105 scoreless yards, BTJ has 8 targets and a 6/141/1 receiving line, while poor Kirk has 2 catches for 29 yards on 7 targets. And yet they’re priced in the exact opposite order as their production to date – this is because pricing at this point is largely based on last season’s numbers and “brand name” more than on what they’ve done through just the first two games of the season. Davis has the “revenge game” narrative, but more than that, he’s leading the team in targets and snaps, and yet he is the cheapest WR option. It’s hard not to like him at just $5,400. But, my favorite overall Jags pass catcher is BTJ – he’s still a very cheap $6,600, he’s leading the team in receiving yards, he’s been used on shorter routes and deep ones, and I feel confident that by the halfway point of the season, he’ll be the team’s clear WR1. It’s a spot to buy an ascending player who isn’t priced like one yet. Kirk is a tough sell – much like Etienne, we haven’t seen the workload or the results yet, but we know he’s a talented player and it feels like those results should come at some point. They have to . . . right? I thought Week 2 would be good for him with Engram out, and he would soak up more short area work but he only saw 3 targets. Yikes. I’m going to trust the longer-term sample. Given their prices, it’s hard to build rosters without any Jags pass catchers (which, I will note, makes it a nice contrarian play to do so). Still, overall, I want to invest here and bet that the Jags are not as bad as they’ve shown so far (plus the Bills have challenges of their own when it comes to roster construction, which we’ll get to).
At tight end, Brenton Strange (who?) took over the primary role in Engram’s absence and turned 6 targets into a 3/65/0 receiving line. He’s still going to share the field some with Luke Farrell, but that was a pretty eye-opening performance for the 2023 second round pick in his first real, significant NFL opportunity. At $3,000, he feels like a reasonable value play, while Farrell looks like a player whose role is more likely to shrink than to grow and I’ll relegate him to the MME punt pile.
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