XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Saturday night’s game has some drama involved as the Ravens take on the Packers with Green Bay currently favored by 4.5. Baltimore is missing Lamar Jackson, while Green Bay’s Jordan Love is questionable (as is Malik Willis, his backup!). Love is going through the concussion protocol, and while he has resumed practicing, as we discussed last week with Quinnen Williams, he still has to clear the protocol, and it’s been a real challenge for a player to get through the entire protocol in a single week…and now it’s a short week. I would guess Love is more likely to miss this game, but we’re unlikely to get news today (Friday), and so the Packers will be hoping Love gets approval from the league’s independent neurologist on Saturday before the game. I’m guessing Love misses while Willis plays, but if Willis also misses, it’s…uh…Clayton Tune, I think? Yikes. But in all likelihood, Willis is available – we’ll see. The Packers have clinched a playoff spot, while the Ravens are hanging on by a thread and absolutely need to win this game to keep their hopes alive. What’s important here is that the Packers have a Wild Card seed, but they could still win their division if they win out while Chicago loses both of their remaining games, so even though they’ve locked in a playoff spot, they still have a lot of motivation to win this game.
GREEN BAY
The Packers backfield is also a bit of a mess. Josh Jacobs played through his longstanding knee injury last week but only managed 12 carries, 3 yards per carry, and a fumble while playing just 39% of the snaps, the lowest he’s seen in a game this season, in which he didn’t get injured mid-game and leave. It really looks like they tried to play Jacobs through injury, and he wasn’t really up for it. That left Emmanuel Wilson to pick up the pieces, handling 14 carries on 46% of the snaps, while Chris Brooks handled a single carry. The last time Jacobs missed a game, Wilson played 56% of the snaps and handled 28 carries and 2 targets (wow), while Brooks had 8 carries and 1 target in a game the Packers won handily. Jacobs is off the injury report this week, and it makes sense he would try to play no matter what, but man, this feels like a tricky situation. He got in some limited practices earlier in the week before being removed from the report on Friday, but given that this has been a multi-week thing for him, it feels tough to have a lot of confidence that he’s fully healthy. So, what do we do here? Personally, I think the smart way to play this is to see what the projections and ownership say. If Jacobs has a full projection, he’ll attract a lot of ownership as a home favorite bell cow, and so it makes sense to consider an underweight position. If Jacobs has diminished projections around the industry, that will result in lower ownership, leaving him as more of a contrarian play. We’ll just have to see where projections land on Saturday. Wilson is basically unplayable as an RB2 at $7k except as a highly contrarian play. If Jacobs were to miss, Wilson would project as an elite value, but with Jacobs in, he’s just not likely to get enough work to pay off that tag. Brooks at $2k could potentially pay off with just a couple of touches if he finds the end zone, giving him more dart throw appeal than Wilson due to the value price.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
In the passing game, Christian Watson is listed as questionable with an illness, but he appears to be over his shoulder injury as he practiced in full this week. I expect he will play, which leaves him and Romeo Doubs as the Packers primary perimeter wide receivers. Jayden Reed will mostly play out of the slot, and then Dontayvion Wicks and Matthew Golden will round out the wide receiver position with some secondary snaps. Finally, the Packers are annoying as hell, and so one (or even both!) of Savion Williams and Bo Melton might play a couple of snaps. I will say what I always say about Doubs: he’s boring and so nobody ever really wants to play him, because they want the flashy guys, but Doubs is the most consistent of Green Bay’s wideouts. He’s not flashy, but his red zone role is crazy (he has more red zone targets than ALL of Green Bay’s other wide receivers combined). Last game, I said this, and he put up a 5/84/1 line at relatively modest ownership. Will he do that again? I have no idea, but given that he’s perpetually underowned, he’s a good on-paper play. Watson ostensibly has the highest ceiling amongst the Packers wideouts as he has some serious big-play ability, but it’s worth noting he has yet to reach 100 receiving yards this season and has just one game with over 7 targets, and he’s the most expensive of the Green Bay pass catchers. He’s still a solid option, in my opinion, because he’s on the field a lot, but I expect him to pull significantly more ownership than Doubs (thus Doubs is my favorite when price and ownership are considered). Reed is fine – he’s a great player, and he’s played a robust 64% and 65% of the snaps the last two weeks, but I worry that we’ve also seen his snaps drop off from game to game when the Packers run fewer 11 personnel sets. Reed is also a “brand name” guy who tends to be over-owned because people just really want to believe in him. He’s a really good player, to be clear, but the Packers just don’t tend to use him like we DFS fans wish they would (he’s averaging just 4.5 targets/game in healthy games this season). Wicks and Golden are dart-throwy options who are priced below the kickers but project worse than many other players priced down in that range, which at least should keep their ownership in check.
At tight end, Luke Musgrave’s role has become outstanding with John Fitzpatrick’s season-ending Achilles injury. Last week, Musgrave played a season-high 76% of the snaps. At $2,800, he’s probably the best on-paper value play on the slate. Just be aware he’s not exactly sneaky, and his ownership is likely to be fairly high, though not extreme, given the plethora of other cheap options on this one as well as a lack of other high-end options (Jacobs and Derrick Henry are the only other players at $10k+, assuming Love misses).
You must be logged in to view collective notes about a game.
You must be logged in to add notes about a game.