xandamere’s showdown slant ::
Ooh, a divisional grudge match! The other Saturday game has the Packers and Bears battling in Chicago, with Green Bay installed as 1.5-point road favorites. We have a lot of questionable tags in this one, so let’s pick those apart. Josh Jacobs has been playing through a knee injury that he’s played through multiple times this season, but he hasn’t practiced at all this week, which makes it feel like it might be more than maintenance…this one has me a bit concerned. Christian Watson returned to practice on Thursday, while Dontayvion Wicks came back on Wednesday, and both seem likely to play. On the Chicago side, D’Andre Swift was added to the injury report with a groin issue on Wednesday – he’s been dealing with this issue for weeks, but being off the injury report at the start of the week and then being added is concerning. Cole Kmet is also questionable but got in a full practice on Thursday, so he should play, which is relevant with Rome Odunze and Luther Burden both ruled out. Ok. Whew. That’s a lot of injuries. I’m going to write this up as if all of the questionable guys play, and the pass catchers all seem likely to, but it’s possible the running backs miss, and I’ll touch on those situations.
chicago
The Chicago backfield has been a timeshare for most of the season, with Swift and Kyle Monangai splitting work. It really started splitting in Week 7 and then got closer in Week 12. Since that Week 12 game when Monangai out-snapped Swift (though it’s the only time that’s happened with them both healthy and it was probably due to Swift fumbling), Swift has 16.3 opportunities per game while Monangai has 16. Pretty close. I’d lean towards Swift a bit here as I think he has a clearer path to 20+ touches and has been seeing more passing game work, but once price is factored in, Monangai looks like a slightly stronger play given the massive $3k discount we get by playing him. The matchup’s fine here as the Packers have been a great pass defense, but only okay on the ground. If Chicago pulls off a win here, it’s extremely likely that at least one of the running backs is involved and shows up in winning lineups. They can be played on the same roster, even, but I wouldn’t play them with Caleb Williams, as well, as it’s extremely unlikely there are enough touchdowns to go around for all three of them.
In the passing game, with Odunze and Burden out, we’ll see DJ Moore in the unquestioned WR1 role with Olamide Zaccheaus and Devin Duvernay backing him up. Zaccheaus was a full-time player the last two weeks without Odunze, while Duvernay played a very modest role (10 offensive snaps) last week as the Bears leaned on a lot of heavy personnel sets. Zaccheaus has never been a prolific target earner in his career, but does have multiple games of 6-8 targets early in the season, and at just $3k, he projects as a solid value option, though with a bit of a questionable ceiling and what is likely to be high ownership. My interest in Zaccheaus actually ties somewhat to Swift’s status: if Swift misses, ownership will flood to Monangai and away from Zaccheaus, making him a stronger tournament option. If Swift plays, Zaccheaus projects as the best value on the slate (by a really wide margin), and while he’s solid on paper, he’s likely to be overowned relative to his likelihood of appearing in winning lineups. Duvernay is pretty thin as it’s extremely difficult to see him getting to even a 50% snap rate, and he’s unlikely to earn many targets when on the field, but he does have good per-target upside and you can pray for a kick return touchdown that would benefit him as well (which means he has some positive correlation with the Bears DST).
At tight end, we’re likely to see a lot of Colston Loveland and Kmet on the field, though that’s resulted in a combined 17 targets in the last two games sans Odunze – not especially exciting, but Loveland is extremely talented and the kind of player I like to bet on in tourneys, especially if he projects for modest ownership. Kmet at $2,800 makes for a nice straight pivot from the similarly-priced Zaccheaus at what should be significantly less ownership.
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