XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Oh boy, this should be a fun one. Sunday Night Football has the Lions traveling to Philly for a 46.5 total game with Philly favored by 2.5. The Lions team total feels oddly low given that they’re averaging 31.4 points per game and have scored over 22 points in 7 of 9 games, while Philly has been only a slightly above average defense this year. I don’t really bet sides and totals, but I’d be tempted to take the over here, either on the game or on the Lions. The big news is Detroit is missing Sam LaPorta, and when this elite offense is missing one of its main five guys, we have to take notice of A) it might just result in the other four soaking up work, but B) there’s also opportunity for someone else to fill in.
PHILADELPHIA
On the Eagles side, Saquon Barkley has not looked like himself this year. He’s averaging just 3.9 yards per carry (after 5.8 last year with the Eagles), and he’s averaging just 64 rushing yards per game as Philly has only let him go over 20 carries twice on the year. The matchup here is slightly below average, but not awful, as the Lions allow 4 yards per carry, but the real concern is the volume. Saquon averaged 21.5 carries per game last year and is at just 16.5 per game this year. Averages aren’t everything, and Saquon still has ceiling as he showed two weeks ago against the Giants, but this is not the ideal spot for him, and there are other high-end plays who are going to project much more strongly. The good news is his price is as low as I can remember at just $9.6k. You could take a stand here one way or another, and betting heavily on a stud RB who’s a home favorite is not a bad position to be in, but he sure looks a lot riskier than he did last year. Will Shipley beat out Tank Bigsby in snaps last week after the prior game had things swinging the other way, with Shipley handling 4 carries and 2 targets while Bigsby had 3 carries. It looks like the Bigsby surge in Week 8 was purely driven by game script as the Eagles blew out the Giants. Bummer for Bigsby, who was expected to open the season as the Jaguars lead back, then was traded and is now a 3rd stringer. Life comes at you fast. Shipley is a thin punt option.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
In the passing game, we successfully identified that the last Eagles Showdown was a DeVonta Smith game. This one looks more like an A.J. Brown game. Brown’s numbers against man coverage are still elite, with 4 yards per route run and a 36% target rate, while the Lions play man coverage at the league’s fourth highest rate. Smith is still absolutely, positively viable here. As I wrote up in the last Eagles Showdown, it really looks like the torch has passed, but AJB has still shown plenty of ceiling in the right matchups. We just have to be more strategic about where we target him, and this is the kind of spot in which he has historically gone off. At a bargain-basement $8k price, I’m all the way in. I’ll probably try to roughly match the field on Smith exposure and be way over on AJB. WR3 Jahan Dotson is a dart throw, as is WR4 Darius Cooper. Dotson has 15 targets on the season, so you basically need him to catch a long touchdown.
For tight end Dallas Goedert, I could copy/paste what I wrote about him last game: it’s really tough to rely on a guy who’s been finding ceilings with 3-4 catches and a touchdown (or two). I want volume. The one thing in his favor is that his price has tanked from $7.4k last Showdown to $5.6k in this one. He’s certainly more appealing as a cheaper price (duh), and I’m more interested this week than last week (as in, in week 10, I just X’d him out entirely, whereas in Week 11 I’ll let him show up in my runs). TE2 Grant Calcaterra and TE3 Kylen Granson can also be included in the punt player pool, with Dotson clearly the strongest of the Eagles punts, then Calcaterra, then Granson, then Cooper.
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