Steelers (

25) at
Bengals (

20)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Week 7 begins with the Steelers at Cincinnati to take on the Bengals in a 43.5 total game with Pittsburgh favored by 5.5. The Bengals have ditched Jake Browning and brought in Joe Flacco, who wasn’t exactly elite last week but did keep them competitive against a very good Packers team. The Steelers definitely deserve to be the favorites here, but the Bengals didn’t exactly look awful last week, and it wouldn’t be a huge shocker to see them put up a fight in this one. 

Cincinnati

On the Cincinnati side, poor Chase Brown has been the victim of awful game scripts ever since Joe Burrow got hurt. In the last four weeks, he’s seen 10, 10, 8, and 9 carries as the Bengals have been playing from behind every game. He has seen 18 targets in those four games, keeping his floor intact, and his role is still excellent as he’s seen 72% of the team’s running back opportunities, but in order to find a ceiling, he’s almost certainly going to need to score a touchdown, which is something that’s eluded him since Week 1. The Steelers defense started the year poorly, allowing over 30 points in back-to-back games (including against the Jets), but has since played much better against the Patriots, Vikings, and Browns. Not exactly a murderer’s row of offenses, but neither are the Bengals. About the biggest positive for Brown is that his price has been sinking, and at $8k, he’s cheap enough that his role keeps him in consideration. RB2 Samaje Perine at $4,400 is too expensive for me. I’d want to see him down in the $2-$3k range for him to be attractive. He’ll be in my player pool, but I’m not going out of my way to play him even though I normally like being overweight on RB2s in Showdown.

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, Joe Flacco brings inefficiency, but he also brings volume, having attempted 45 passes last week (as well as twice in four games with the Browns earlier this year). Flacco’s going to chuck it, and he doesn’t really throw deep much anymore, which can let his receivers rack up PPR points via easy completions. Ja’Marr Chase saw 12 targets last week, leading the team, and caught 10 of them. He’s $12,000, and that’s a tough price to pay with a backup QB, but given Chase’s ability to score from anywhere and the massive volume we can project for him, he still seems firmly in play to me. WR2 Tee Higgins saw 8 targets, and at $10k, he’s a tougher sell to me. Higgins is also a very good receiver, but he doesn’t have Chase’s ability to take a slant to the house from anywhere on the field, and he projects for a smaller target share. I do, however, expect him to come in at the lowest ownership of any of the plays priced in the $10k range, giving him some contrarian appeal in tournaments. WR3 Andrei Iosivas is not a good NFL player, having caught just 8 of 17 targets this year despite an 10.5 yard aDOT (normally we expect to see guys with deep aDOTs have such low catch rates). He’s a value option but not an appealing one.

What we did see last week was some rotation at tight end as Mike Gesicki got hurt early and Drew Sample (who is mostly a blocker) played his fewest snaps of the year, leading to increased work for Noah Fant and then Tanner Hudson, who is also a capable pass catcher, played meaningful snaps for the first time this season. The tight ends as a whole saw a whopping 11 targets with 2 for Sample, 4 for Fant, and 5 for Hudson. Hudson is also in the concussion protocol and is almost certain to miss, while Gesicki is already ruled out, which should leave the Bengals with Sample, Fant, and then probably Cam Grandy as the TE3. This could lead Fant to play a lot of snaps as the main pass catching tight end, and we know he’s a capable receiver (he’s also caught 16 of 18 passes on the season), and at just $3,600, he would be underpriced if he plays as the primary tight end. We also know that Flacco loves his tight ends. In the four games he started for the Browns, Harold Fannin saw 24 targets and David Njoku saw 25 – that’s 49 tight end targets out of 160 Browns pass attempts, or a 30.6% tight end target rate – one of the highest in the league. Sample and Grandy would be playable as dart throws, but Fant’s the guy who I’d really be drawn to. 

PITTSBURGH