XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Sunday Night Football is a game that old-school fans will likely love as the Jets visit the Steelers. This game has a total of just 38.5 (bet down from 43 at open!) with the Jets favored by 1.5. The big news is Russell Wilson seems likely to start for the Steelers. Justin Fields has done a reasonably capable job, but Pittsburgh wants to see if Wilson has anything left after acquiring him only for him to miss the first six games of the year. Meanwhile, on the Jets side, they’re coming off of a painful loss to Buffalo in which their offense finally woke up (sort of – they had three skill position players with 100+ yards and 393 total yards of offense but couldn’t convert it into touchdowns), and of course, now they have Davante Adams joining the team after his hamstring “injury” miraculously healed upon news of the trade to New York.
Pittsburgh
We’ll start with the Steelers and their run game. Najee Harris finally had a strong game last week, running for 106 yards and a score against the Raiders, but he’s likely to find much tougher sledding here against a very strong Jets defense. Najee is an inefficient runner with a strong role. Even after his big Week 6, he’s only averaging 3.9 yards per carry on the season, and just over 3 targets per game. Jaylen Warren is back to eat into the passing game work that he enjoyed while Warren was out, but on the plus side, he has at least 13 carries in every game. Najee always feels like more of a floor play than a ceiling play to me. You’re basically relying on either some outlier performance or for him to fall into the end zone despite being on one of the NFL’s lowest-scoring offenses. The one additional mark in his favor is that a QB swap from Fields to Wilson gives him a bit of extra touchdown equity. His snaps have peaked at 59% with Warren active vs. 72% with Warren out, so we can see the impact of the role that Warren’s return has on him. He’s fine, I guess? He’s not the kind of guy we’re ever really excited to play, but at the same time, it’s tough to ever just X out a running back with a strong goal line role in Showdown. Warren resumed his normal role upon his Week 6 return, playing 37% of the snaps and handling 9 opportunities (6 carries, 3 targets). Despite Najee’s goal line role, I’m more interested in playing Warren here as I think he has more per-touch upside and a stronger ceiling on a point-per-dollar basis.
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In the passing game, the Steelers are basically George Pickens, Pat Freiermuth, and then everyone else. Pickens is always in play for a lot of big play upside and $8,400 is the cheapest he’s been all season. What remains to be seen is how effective Wilson can be (Fields, at least from a fantasy standpoint, did pretty well for the Steelers this year), as well as if Pickens can beat this matchup against Jets top cornerback Sauce Gardner. In the most directly comparable matchup he’s had this season, Pickens caught just 2 of 4 targets against Denver and Patrick Surtain. I view him as an upside play but with a terrifyingly low floor. Van Jefferson is the other full-time receiver but he has just 13 targets on the season and is really just a punt play. Calvin Austin is the other WR who brings at least some semblance of upside – he’s fast and while his floor is equally low to Jefferson, we saw him flash a ceiling with a 55 yard touchdown against the Chargers in Week 3. Scotty Miller will play a few snaps and then rookie Roman Wilson played his first snaps of the season last week after missing several games with an ankle injury. Wilson may be a factor at some point and the Steelers certainly need some help at wideout, but for this week, I’d guess they bring him along slowly and leave him in punt play territory.
At tight end, Pittsburgh has been running 12 personnel sets at one of the league’s highest rates, with Pat Freiermuth the lead pass catching tight end and then Darnell Washington and Connor Heyward serving primarily as blockers. Freiermuth is second of the pass catchers in targets on the season with 26 (Pickens has 44) and has an easier matchup than Pickens. Overall, he’s my favorite Pittsburgh pass catcher as I can see him getting some easier work over the middle while Pickens gets locked down by Gardner. Washington and Heyward are “hope for 1 catch and a touchdown” plays. This is not exactly an inspiring receiving corps.
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