Rams (

28) at
Falcons (

21)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Monday Night Football has the Rams traveling to Atlanta to take on the Falcons in a 46.5 total game with Los Angeles favored by 3. Notably, this has dropped significantly. The Rams were initially touchdown favorites, and the game total was 49.5, so the total has come down and it’s almost all on the Rams side. I would guess that is partly due to Davante Adams being ruled doubtful while Drake London is technically questionable but seems a lock to play, but it also feels a bit disrespectful for one of the best teams in the league to only be 3-point favorites against a 6-9 team that’s just playing out the stretch. The Rams still care about this game as the NFC West is a super competitive division, and they’re currently tied with the 49ers (before Sunday night’s game is played). This one is important for playoff seeding. Let’s dig in.

LOS ANGELES

In the backfield, Kyren Williams’ role has been shaky of late. Going back to Week 10, he’s bounced between 12-15 carries per game until a massive 23 (plus 6 targets) last week, while RB2 Blake Corum has 7-14 carries per game in that window, including double-digit carries in each of the last 3 games. Corum’s role is real, and he’s been more efficient than Kyren the entire season. Somewhat humorously, he also has three times the number of carries over 20 yards on the season. Kyren is “fine” – mainly because the Rams are a very good team – but it’s hard to get excited about him when it seems clear they’re trying to stat-pad Matthew Stafford’s MVP case with an extremely high passing rate in the red zone. At $9,600, Kyren almost certainly needs at least one of A) a touchdown, B) 100+ yards, or C) a pile of catches in order to pay off. Given that he’s only reached the 100 rushing yard mark once on the season and has only gone over 3 catches once, we’re basically drawing for a touchdown here. I don’t mean to hate on Kyren here – but the role has looked shaky, and it’s hard to justify his salary when there are so many other high-end options in this game. Corum is much more appealing to me as a value play. If he breaks one long TD (or even gets a short one along with enough other carries), he could easily find his way into winning lineups. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, Puka Nacua is a national hero. I don’t know what else you want me to write about this dude. He’s, what, a top-3 WR in the league along with JSN and Chase. Dude’s a boss, and the matchup here is absolutely not scary against a Falcons defense that has given up a ton of high-production games to opposing WR1s. Without Davante, Puka saw 16 (!) targets last week and put up a 12/225/2 line (!!!). Not bad. After that, the WR position gets icky. Konata Mumpfield (yes, that’s his real name) led the non-Puka WRs in snaps and routes last week and also had a whopping 8 targets. At $2,200, he’s going to project as a really solid value option, and on a slate with a lot of high-end plays, he’s likely to pull a bunch of ownership as a result. He is, though, objectively a very solid play. The rest of the WRs are a mishmash: Jordan Whittington, Xavier Smith, and Tutu Atwell all played a few snaps last week. I’d rank these guys as Smith, then Atwell, then Whittington for tournament upside, and I would max 1 of this group because they’re all directly competing for a very small pool of playing time.

At tight end, Colby Parkinson and Terrance Ferguson were both on the field a ton last week, nearly matching each other in snaps and routes, and each seeing 4 targets. Most projection services around the industry seem to think this isn’t sticky and have Parkinson materially higher than Ferguson. I’m not so sure, as the Rams have not shown much confidence in their other WRs behind Puka and Davante all season long, while Ferguson is talented, and his role has been growing for several weeks. I could be wrong, but I like to bet on Ferguson’s talent if his ownership is suppressed due to being underprojected. You can also take shots on TE3 Davis Allen, who will be on the field plenty, but he’s primarily a blocker. He did see 5 targets last week and caught a 27-yard pass (his longest of the season), but he has yet to reach double-digit DK points this year. 

ATLANTA