Panthers (

21) at
49ers (

28)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Our week comes to a close with the Panthers visiting the 49ers for a 49.5 total game with San Francisco favored by 7.5. But, never fear Showdown aficionados, for the best week of the season is upon us with Thanksgiving coming! In the meantime, let’s dissect this one: San Francisco has surpassed expectations with a 7-4 record so far despite Brandon Aiyuk not returning yet and Brock Purdy missing quite a few games. They’ve gotten there despite ranking exactly in the middle of the league in both points scored and points allowed, having benefited from a bit of a soft schedule as well as winning several really close games against good teams. They’re certainly not bad, but the defense in particular is a concern, averaging just over one sack per game on the season (yikes). Maybe Carolina will be able to score here? The Panthers, meanwhile, have stunned the league with a winning record so far despite having one of the league’s worst offenses (28th in the league at 18.8 points per game) but have shown signs of life lately since handing the run game to Rico Dowdle, and then Bryce Young is coming off of what is probably his best game to date as he shredded the Falcons for 448 and 3 through the air. It should be a fun game.

SAN FRANCISCO

On the San Francisco side, Christian McCaffrey is the engine of the offense. He’s one of the few true bell cow backs in the league, and his receiving production alone would rank him in the top 10 wide receivers in the NFL in PPR scoring, and that’s if he never took a single carry. The role is absolutely elite. The risk is that he hasn’t been all that efficient on the ground, as despite having both George Kittle and Kyle Juszczyk to block for him, he’s averaging just 3.7 yards per carry. The Panthers run D looked elite to start the year, but has been sprinkling leaks lately, sinking all the way down to 21st in the league at 4.4 yards per carry allowed. A few weeks ago, this would have looked like a nightmare matchup, but the Panthers have allowed strong performances to most of the backs they’ve faced lately. CMC’s an awesome play, and it just comes down to game theory and risk tolerance. He’s going to be massively owned. Do you want to just play him and differentiate elsewhere, or fade him and hope he drags ~80% of the field down with him if he fails? Either approach is valid, but he’s clearly the best play on the slate by a wide margin. RB2 Brian Robinson is seeing minimal work even in blowouts, and since he barely sees any receiving work (8 targets on the year), he almost certainly needs either a touchdown or a CMC injury in order to have a shot at finding the optimal lineup. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, Brock Purdy is finally back in action and looked as good as ever last week, completing 19 of 26 passes for 200 yards and 3 scores in a blowout win. He also got Ricky Pearsall back last week, who played 75% of the snaps in his first week back (snap count? What count snap count?). He probably would have played his full normal role if the game had been competitive. That gives the 49ers Pearsall and Jauan Jennings as their primary wideouts with my nemesis Demarcus Robinson and Kendrick Bourne playing rotational roles (the 49ers also run 11 personnel at a fairly low rate; they run a lot of heavy sets with either 2 TEs or a TE + fullback to help block). Jennings and Pearsall are both solid options, and they’re obviously going to be compared to each other as they’re right next to each other in price. I don’t have an exceptionally strong lean here, but I will just note that Pearsall was off to a red-hot start early in the year before his injury. If he hadn’t gotten hurt, who knows what his stats would look like. My (weak) lean is towards Pearsall – they’re both viable, but I think Pearsall could have been in a real breakout season if he hadn’t gotten hurt, and I want to be out in front of that if he continues to smash to finish out the year. Given that most projection sources have Jennings ahead of Pearsall and he’s $600 cheaper, I expect Pearsall to come with a material ownership discount, which is part of why I want to lean his way. Robinson and Bourne are dart throws given how little they’re on the field, and I’ll give the edge to Robinson as he’s been playing a few more snaps.

At tight end, George Kittle is really the second pass catcher in this offense after CMC, but he tends to need to get there via efficiency rather than volume, with just one game over 6 targets on the season. He’s one of the best pass catchers in the NFL on a per-target basis, so he’s absolutely capable of doing it. He also has an awesome matchup against a Panthers D that has given up big performances to opposing tight ends all season long. He’s volatile, which makes me nervous given that he’s going to come with significant ownership, but his ceiling is as high as any non-CMC player on the slate. TE2 Luke Farrell is a punt option, while Jake Tonges, who filled in nicely for Kittle during his injury, has all but disappeared from the offense with single-digit snap percentages in the last three games. 

CAROLINA