XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Week 5 and we get a London game! More Showdowns! I love all the extra island games the NFL has been scheduling these past couple of years. This one has the Jets and Vikings playing in a 40.5 total game with Minnesota favored by 2.5. The Vikings have raced off to a 4-0 start, with three extremely convincing wins and then a close win against the Packers in which they ran up a huge lead and then sat on it, allowing the Packers to come back and almost steal it from them. The Jets, meanwhile, are 2-2 with losses to the 49ers (no shame there) and the Broncos (ok, a fair bit of shame there). Anything can happen in football, but man, the Vikings really do look like a team to beat and have somewhat unexpectedly looked absolutely elite on defense, while the Jets have been pretty good on defense (13 sacks is nice) but have really struggled to move the ball and score. The Vikings sure look like the better team, but I also expect the field to realize that and build Vikings-heavy rosters. Let’s dig into this one.
New York
On the Jets side, Breece Hall has looked shockingly bad as a runner this season. He has 56 carries through four games, going for just 3.1 yards per carry. He’s still a good pass catcher, but we’ve been seeing him slowly lose snaps and rushing work to Braelon Allen (1 carry in Week 1, but then 7 // 11 // 8 in Weeks 2 through 4 to go along with 4 // 3 // 1 targets). Since Week 1, Breece has a total of 40 carries and 18 targets while Allen has 26 carries and 8 targets, giving Breece a 63% share of the overall opportunities and 60% of the rushing work. That’s decent but hardly bell cow level (sorry, round 1 Breece drafters). Hall has kept up his fantasy scores with his receiving work and touchdowns in three of four games but this looks kind of shaky. His price has dipped below $10k for the first time all season, so it’s adjusting for the role and the performance. It’s hard for me to get excited here given the matchup against a Vikings defense that has absolutely stuffed opposing rushing attacks, allowing just 3.8 yards per carry (3rd best in the league). As we saw on Monday with Kenneth Walker, good players can succeed in bad matchups and running backs can always find their way to a multiple-touchdown game, but if Hall looks like he’s going to be one of the highest owned plays on the slate I’m probably going to take an underweight position here. Allen is a classic “RB2 in Showdown” play – generally underowned compared to their likelihood of ending up in the optimal lineup, but also a risky tourney only kind of play. If the matchup were better I’d be really interested in Allen, but as it’s really bad, I’m only lukewarm.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
The Jets passing game should find its way to more success as the Vikings have been a pass funnel defense so far – they’re not bad against the pass at 6.2 yards per pass attempt allowed, but that’s just slightly better than league average vs. being elite against the run. The Jets passing attack has been led by Garrett Wilson, Allen Lazard, and Mike Williams at wide receiver, with Tyler Conklin as the primary tight end. Wilson has been off to a very slow start by his standards with just 191 receiving yards in four games but the volume has still been there: 34 targets represent a solid 26.5% target share and 8.5 per game is nothing to sneeze at, especially at $8,600. I have to think a breakout game is coming for him. The Jets best wide receiver so far this year, surprisingly, has been journeyman Allen Lazard (206 receiving yards and 3 scores). His volume has been more up and down than Wilson’s with target counts of 9, 4, 3, and 8, but at $6,600, I think he’s priced reasonably for his median outcome but a little underpriced for his ceiling. I see him as a solid mid-range option and my favorite play in the $5k – $7k price range. Mike Williams hasn’t gotten it going just yet, but he’s been ramped up to over half the snaps coming off of last season’s injury and his performance has been trending up: lines of 1/19, 3/34, and 4/67 in consecutive games. Williams is obviously a boom/bust kind of player but in a matchup in which we should expect the Jets to be throwing at an elevated rate, I think he makes for a really outstanding tournament play. I’m hoping his lack of production so far will keep him in the 20%-ish range for ownership, a number that I think is too low. To be clear: at similar prices, I think Lazard is the stronger on-paper play (and I expect projections will agree with me), but I think Williams is a really smart play to be overweight on in tourneys. WR4 Xavier Gipson is barely involved and can be left in the MME punt pool.
Tight end Tyler Conklin looks mispriced at $3,200 (somehow down from last week’s $5,200 Showdown price). He’s played 90%+ of the snaps in every game and has seen 6 and 8 targets in his last two games – even if a more reasonable projection is around 5, that’s a lot of volume for somebody this cheap. He’s an awesome value play. TE2 Jeremy Ruckert can be viewed as a touchdown-or-bust tourney option.
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