Patriots (

20.5) at
Bills (

28)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Sunday Night Football brings the Patriots to Buffalo for a 49.5 total game with the Bills favored by a massive 8.5 points. Josh Allen and crew have scored at least 30 points in every game this season. And on defense, after a shootout with Baltimore to start the year, they held their next three opponents to just 50 points total. Those three opponents weren’t great offenses, but neither are the Patriots, who put up a ton of points against Carolina and Miami but struggled to score against Pittsburgh and Las Vegas. This should be a fun game with a wide range of outcomes, especially on the New England side, giving us a lot of ways we can build.

BUFFALO

On the Buffalo side of things, James Cook has been absolutely wrecking the league to start the season, scoring at least 1 touchdown in every game, at least 21.2 DK points in every game, and handling 18+ touches in every game. Those are the kinds of workloads we hadn’t seen from Cook previously, and that’s what held him back from a fantasy perspective. Josh Allen is still a big threat to vulture touchdowns as they are tied with 8 carries each from inside the 10 yards line, but with Buffalo scoring as much as they have, and with Cook’s workload as robust as it is (18, 22, 22, 26 touches this season which is 20+ touches in every game they’ve led start to finish – Buffalo isn’t holding back on him like they used to), he’s an elite play. Ty Johnson will get some RB2 snaps, but that has only led to a total of 8 carries and 5 targets through four games – you’ll almost certainly need a touchdown for him to pay off – and then Ray Davis got some garbage time carries against the Jets but is otherwise uninvolved. I’d only really consider playing him in 5-1 Bills onslaughts. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

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In the passing game, good freaking luck. Curtis Samuel returned last week and that led the Bills to have SIX wide receivers plus three tight ends play material snaps. Good grief. The wide receivers, in order of snaps from last week, were Keon Coleman, Kalil Shakir, Samuel, Elijah Moore, Josh Palmer, and Tyrell Shavers. The only guy in anything really close to a full-time role is Coleman, who has played 73% or more of the snaps in three weeks (and the one week he didn’t was a blowout in which even Josh Allen sat by the end of the game). Coleman also has one very nice ceiling game this season of 28.2 DK points, and has then failed to surpass 7.5 DK points in the other three games. At $8k, that’s a really difficult profile to invest in, but he does have a ceiling. Shakir brings a bit more floor with shorter, safer routes and a high catch rate. He’s still a tough sell at his price. The rest of the wide receivers are all pretty dart throw-ish. Palmer’s snap rate has declined in every game since Week 1. Moore is not playing a lot, but has at least gotten a carry in every game so far. Samuel was only active for the first time all season last week. All of these other four guys feel extremely fragile. Gun to my head, I’d prefer Samuel and Moore as their prices are cheap and Moore has some carry upside, but they’re all really weak options.

At tight end, Dalton Kincaid is the guy everyone thinks of, but Dawson Knox is leading him in snaps so far. The problem for Knox is that it’s only translated to 8 targets for the season. Kincaid is much more involved when he’s on the field (18 targets), and he’s leading the team in red zone targets as well, but he’s also $7,400 – far above what we see for most TEs in Showdown, and his role doesn’t really justify that level of pricing. TE3 Jackson Hawes has exactly 1 target and 1 catch in every game. This offense just spreads the ball around SO much – the most dependable options are priced far too high for their floors and median outcomes, but they do bring ceilings to the table. The entire pass catching corps are volatile tournament-only options. I’ve grown to really hate the Bills when they’re on Showdown slates.

NEW ENGLAND