Packers (

24.5) at
Saints (

27.5)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT ::

This week’s island Showdowns are exciting games, and Sunday sees the Packers visit the Saints in a game with a total of 52.5. The line opened at 51.5 with the Saints as 6.5 point favorites, but while the line has gone up, the Saints are down to three-point favorites; there has been a tremendous amount of movement toward the Packers here. This makes sense to me given how abysmal the Saints looked on Monday against the Raiders and how good the Packers have looked. Injuries will play a key part here, as at the time I’m writing this (Friday morning), both Michael Thomas and Davante Adams seem likely to miss this game. I’m going to write this assuming they both miss and will update if we get a surprise. After a very softly-priced Thursday night game, the pricing on this game is much tighter (as we’re becoming used to in Showdown play), meaning even if both Thomas and Adams miss the game we’ll need to find some value plays.

On the Packers side, Aaron Jones won people a lot of money last week with a massive 48.6 fantasy point performance; he was rolling even before Adams got hurt. 18 Carries, eight targets, 168 rushing yards, 68 receiving yards, and three touchdowns resulted in the highest score of the week. He’s a strong play and with Davante out he will be a focal point of the offense, but the Saints have a very strong run defense, having held Josh Jacobs to 88 yards on 27 carries last Monday. Jones’ pass game work boosts him here, as does his red zone usage (Aaron Jones is leading the NFL in red zone targets after two weeks – not carries, targets), but the matchup on the ground is tough and if he’s the second or third highest owned player on the slate there is merit to considering being underweight. This backfield is also still a timeshare; Jones will lead in touches, but he’s only played 54% and 48% of the snaps in the first two games. Jamaal Williams is still playing 40% of the snaps and should see both carries and targets and he’s second on the team in touches inside the 10-yard line and only $2,000. Tyler Ervin and AJ Dillon will be on the field enough to make them non-crazy MME dart throws. 

In the receiving game, after Davante left the game in Week 2, no new receiver stepped in; only three Packers wide receivers have seen any snaps through the first two weeks of the season. With a full week of practice, I would expect that to change, and my guess is that it’s Equanimeous St. Brown who sees a modest role, but I would temper expectations here. (UPDATE: I did not notice that St. Brown was actually put on IR earlier on 9/19 (thanks to hde0703 for pointing this out in Discord!), so he’s obviously not an MME dart here unless you’re cool taking a zero. As for the Packers’ next man up here, you’ll have to watch inactives. Malik Taylor is listed on the depth chart but did not see a snap last week according to the data I’m looking at, while Robert Foster was signed from Buffalo and could be an interesting punt play if he’s active; I don’t know why the Bills let him go, but that guy is legitimately good. We should get more clarity on this situation sometime on Sunday, but as of now Foster is not in the player pool, so news would have to come early enough for DK to add him.) When Davante left the game, the Packers simply ran more two-wide sets and that is likely what they will largely do here. That leaves Allen Lazard and Marquez Valdes-Scantling as the primary wideouts. I prefer MVS, whose aDot in the last two seasons has been one of the highest in the NFL, but both are viable plays here against a Saints secondary that has really struggled to begin the season. Both also appear to be priced as if Adams will play and represent strong sources of value. The Packers tight end situation is gaining clarity as Robert Tonyan has led the position in both snaps and targets through two weeks (that said, we are only talking about three total targets here), but at $2,200 he is a very reasonable play. Mercedes Lewis and Jace Sternberger have seen three total targets between them so far and are purely MME punt plays (and fairly weak ones at that). I’ll rank the Packers receivers as MVS, Lazard, Tonyan; when added to Jones, Williams, and Rodgers himself only really gives six Packers I am that interested in outside of some modest MME exposure to the backup guys. 

On the New Orleans side, Alvin Kamara absolutely smashed on Monday against the Raiders, as we all expected him to do with Thomas missing the game; he led the team in touches, targets, touchdowns, receiving yardage, rushing yardage. We can expect him to be the focus of the offense in this one as well and I expect he will be the highest owned captain play, deservedly so. There isn’t much else to write about Kamara, he’s a fantastic play and he’ll be highly owned; but there are always game theory cases for fading highly owned guys, but I believe he’s the strongest on-paper play on the slate. Behind Kamara, Latavius Murray was game scripted out of the Raiders game with the Saints rapidly falling behind and only saw three carries after having 15 in Week 1. If you believe the Saints play with a lead in this one, Murray is a strong play at $2,800, but there is definitely a usage risk if the Packers get out in front. Murray is second in the team in opportunities inside the 10-yard line with four and belongs in “Saints win” builds, but I will be using rules to minimize or eliminate my exposure to him in builds that predict a Packers win. 

I’m pretty proud of my call of Tre’Quan Smith as the WR1 instead of Emmanuel Sanders against the Raiders.  Smith both out-snapped and out targeted Sanders against Las Vegas and is also significantly more expensive in this one. We did see Sanders play very close to a full-time role at 78% of the snaps, up from 49% in Week 1, which tells me he has now been more integrated into the offense and is ready to go. Smith ran more routes out of the slot than Sanders, which is the best matchup against the Packers, though the pricing has flip-flopped and Smith is also now significantly more expensive. Return specialist Deonte Harris was also thrust into action, playing 52% of the snaps and seeing five targets, and he is very much in play at $1,600. There’s a lot of volatility in playing a Saints receiver beyond the very top guys, but Harris looks to me like one of the best sub-kicker value plays on the slate. Marquez Calladay and Bennie Fowler are your Saints dart throws this week, both will play a modest percentage of the snaps and we know how the Saints like to spread things around and get tricky, especially in the red zone. Jared Cook failed last week while not connecting on a couple of deep targets that could have resulted in a very different box score. His price may well cause people to overlook him here, but he is one of the few Saints receivers who have a strong connection with Drew Brees. He is leading all tight ends in market share of targets, along with a positive matchup in a game in which the Saints’ perimeter receivers are likely to struggle. Backup tight ends Josh Hill and Adam Trautman join the fairly large “MME dart” pool that we have in this game. My ranking of the Saints’ receivers, price considered is Cook, Smith, Sanders, Harris with Cook out in front by a fairly significant margin, and the other three clustered pretty tightly. Oh, and Taysom Hill, one of the banes of my Showdown existence, is around as well and will play 20% or so of the snaps with a disproportionate influence in the red zone. Ugh.

It’s also worth thinking about the overall passing attack here with Drew Brees looking, frankly, not very good in his first two games. Brees has only completed 64% of his passes so far, which includes struggling against the Raiders not-very-good pass defense; the Packers pass D is much better. I’m not one to generally bet against a Hall of Fame quarterback, but one thing we can clearly tell is that Brees has been struggling with making accurate deep throws. His short-area accuracy still seems to be there, which favors Kamara, but the lack of deep passing accuracy limits the Saints ability to stretch the opposing defense and create more space. Aaron Rodgers is the clearly superior on-paper QB play in this one and the Packers passing attack is also more condensed. 

Based on the Vegas line, the most likely way this game plays out is a close, high-scoring affair, with both teams able to drive and score effectively. The key pieces to me are Kamara, Jones, Rodgers, Cook, and MVS, with Brees and the rest of the plays discussed to mix in at lower exposures. I say “based on the Vegas line” because there are other ways we can see this play out…

OTHER WAYS THIS GAME COULD PLAY OUT:

• I’m not a line bettor, but if I was, I would bet on the Packers to win this game outright (and I imagine the early Packers moneyline when the Saints opened at -6.5 was pretty nice). They’ve been playing better as a team, they are more equipped to deal with the lack of their top receiver, they have the better QB, and their defense has been stronger. Drew Brees has looked….I don’t want to say bad, because he’s still an NFL-caliber QB and I’m sure he still has some big games left in his future, but he hasn’t looked like Drew Brees. Maybe that turns around, but I’m on the Packers here. That would mean more work for Jones and Williams, and it would make all of the non-Kamara Saints less attractive as we saw New Orleans just focus entirely on Kamara when they were way behind against the Raiders. This scenario also takes Murray almost entirely out of consideration. 
• Maybe the game goes under by a significant margin. Whenever two high-powered offenses meet in a Showdown slate, we know that the majority of our opponents’ lineups will be built around the idea of a shootout, giving us some major leverage if we want to “bet the under” in our lineup construction. This isn’t the likeliest way that the game goes, but it’s more likely than the field will realize. If this game disappoints and lands in the 40-45 point range, it’s likely that only one QB is in the optimal lineup, and possibly neither of them make it given the pricing on this slate. In games that go way under, QBs are the ones that suffer the most, and we want to look for guys who can “get there” purely through receptions and yardage; that means Kamara, Jones, Cook, Smith, Sanders, MVS, and Lazard, with the kickers also being more attractive. Defenses in shootouts and bad matchups are also always under-owned, but this is the highest variance position in DFS, so I always want to be overweight on defenses when they are “bad” plays on paper (just look at what the Dolphins D did this Thursday). 

The pricing in this one is tricky for cash games, as there’s no way to fit all of the QBs and RB1s without punting at captain, which I generally prefer to avoid (you can’t even do it with a kicker captain, sadly). Kamara is the play I feel safest with, followed by Rodgers, then Brees, then Jones (factoring price into these rankings). The best value plays that I’d feel good with in cash are the kickers, Williams, Harris, and Tonyan. 

In tournaments, my favorite overall captain is, to no one’s surprise, Alvin Kamara. His usage is going to be massive here, and while Jones is also a strong play with Adams out, we can feel more confident in Kamara’s volume. I also want captain exposure to MVS, Jones, Cook, Trequan, and maybe a bit of Sanders for the value. 

SOME GROUPS TO CONSIDER:

• At most 1 kicker and at most 1 defense, as always
• Pair captain receivers with their QBs (or consider boosting the QB if using a captain receiver if you don’t want 100% exposure to this pairing – discussed in further detail in the 2020 update to my Advanced Showdowns course)
• Pair captain QBs with at least 2 receivers
• If captain Aaron Jones, negatively boost Jamaal Williams and the opposing DST and kicker
• If captain Alvin Kamara, negatively boost the opposing DST and kicker
• Both teams have a lot of ancillary MME dudes; at most 1 of all of these guys (Dillon, Ervin, Montgomery, Callaway, Fowler, St. Brown, Sternberger, Lewis, Trautman, Hill)
• At most 2 of Kamara, Brees, and Taysom Hill unless building a full Saints onslaught (If Taysom hits, he’s vulturing TD equity from Brees and/or Kamara) 

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