XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Another week, another London game as the NFL is really pushing its product over there. This time we have the Patriots and the Jaguars in a 42 total game with Jacksonville favored by 6. Both of these teams are 1-5 and yet Jacksonville is a huge favorite. That kind of tells you everything you need to know about Vegas’ perception of this New England team.
Jacksonville
On the Jags side, Travis Etienne is listed as questionable with a hamstring injury and there’s some complexity in the reporting here. Early in the week, Etienne was described as being “week to week,” which would imply he would miss Week 7, but then after getting in limited practices all week, he was described as “progressing” and the coaching staff “hadn’t made a decision yet.” So, who knows . . . if you want me to guess, I’d say he misses because there’s little incentive for a 1-5 Jags team to push him when Tank Bigsby has looked capable as a backup while Etienne’s workload was already being constrained this year (a high of 13 carries in any game, even close ones). If Etienne plays, he’s hard to trust for meaningful volume given what we’ve seen from him all season, but he would at least be in a solid spot as a large favorite and with material passing game work. If he misses, the backfield would be split between Bigsby and D’Ernest Johnson. Bigsby had been playing ahead of Johnson in Weeks 4-5, which were weeks that Etienne saw his snaps and touches scaled back. In those two weeks, Bigsby played a total of 40 offensive snaps and saw 21 opportunities, while Johnson played 25 snaps and saw just 6 opportunities. Both of those were close games, however. In Week 6, the Jags were stomped by the Bears and Etienne left after just 11 snaps, Johnson played 56% of the snaps and saw 8 opportunities while Bigsby had 7 carries on 27% of the snaps. So, what happens in this game? My best guess is that Bigsby starts and is the primary 2-down back. Bigsby only has 1 target all season, indicating they don’t really trust him in a passing down role yet – that role most likely belongs to Johnson. If I’m right, that means these roles are highly game script dependent, and you’d want to lean more on Bigsby in builds based around the Jags winning/playing from ahead while using more of Johnson in builds predicated on the Patriots winning or at least the Jags playing catch up. One final note: I think this will likely be the industry consensus and there is some volatility around the roles here. We could be wrong so flipping this on at least a handful of rosters may make sense in tournaments.
The Jacksonville passing game has been absolutely atrocious so far this season. I did see a stat on Twitter this week that the Jags lead the league in dropped passes by an absolutely enormous margin, so maybe it isn’t fair to pin this all on Trevor Lawrence, but regardless of whose fault it’s been, they have been really, really bad. They do have some very talented pass catchers on their roster with a primary wide receiver trio of Christian Kirk, Brian Thomas Jr. (BTJ!), and Gabe Davis. BTJ is the main guy for me here. He’s quickly shown that he’s ready for the NFL level and he leads the team in targets, yards, and touchdowns. He’s the most expensive Jacksonville skill position player but deserves to be and I’m happy to play him in any format. Kirk is interesting as the perception of him is as a short-area yardage kind of guy running out of the slot, but his aDOT is actually 13.1 yards which is the highest of any of the four main Jags pass catchers (I know, this surprised me too). Feels gross but I actually really like Kirk. He’s 13th in the NFL in air yards, has the 15th most deep targets, 20th in the league in aDOT but just a 71.8% catchable target rate. Obviously, all of the Jags are a bit low on that last metric with Lawrence throwing to them, but Kirk is the lowest. He’s tied with BTJ in expected fantasy points per game, and we should see his season start to turn around as results regress toward expectations. I think he’s likely to be meaningfully lower owned than BTJ, and if that’s the case, I’ll cross my fingers and load up here. Gabe Davis has the WR3 role and he’s no longer just a deep threat. In fact, his aDOT is the lowest of the WR trio. I think he’s clearly third in the pecking order (and he’s third of the trio in targets). He could hit, of course, he had two touchdowns last week and is leading the WRs in red zone targets, and he’s also priced very fairly at $6,600 so I think he makes a solid mid-range play. I just prefer Kirk in rosters where I can find the extra $1k salary. Parker Washington and Tim Jones will play rotational WR roles and can be used as punt plays.
At tight end, Evan Engram returned from a four week injury and immediately stepped into a huge role, catching 10 of 10 targets for 102 yards. Remember last year that the knock on Engram in this offense was the almost complete lack of a red zone role, so we need yardage to really pile up for him to hit (so far he doesn’t have a red zone target, but of course, our sample is awfully small with just two games played this season). You could bet on that role changing, but otherwise, Engram needs either a long touchdown or a lot of volume in order to hit, and while I really like him as a player, I’m concerned that this isn’t the ideal matchup for a lot of volume. He fits best in rosters built around the Pats winning or at least the game being highly competitive throughout. TE2 Brenton Strange showed himself as a capable pass catcher in Engram’s absence and even scored two touchdowns, making him slightly better than a pure MME punt, and then TE3 Luke Farrell can be used if you’re feeling really spicy.
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