XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Sunday Night Football sees the Steelers heading to Los Angeles for a 45.5 total game with the Chargers favored by 3. The Steelers are somewhat surprisingly sitting on top of their division at 5-3 (and the only team with a winning record, to boot!), while the Chargers are 6-3. This is a battle of two good teams, which I would not have guessed prior to the season!
LOS ANGELES
On the Chargers side of things, Kimani Vidal has had a stranglehold on the RB1 role since Omarion Hampton went down. He’s had the role for four games, and in those four games Hassan Haskins backed him up for two of them and had a grand total of 10 touches, then Haskins got hurt and Jaret Patterson assumed the RB2 role, handling 20 total touches (but with 15 of those coming in the 4th quarter of games). Vidal’s range of outcomes and effectiveness has varied wildly, though, as he’s seen touch counts of 22, 14, 25, and 13. In two of those games, he ran extremely well and racked up over 100 rushing yards; in the other two games, he ran very poorly and accounted for just 50 total rushing yards in both games combined. There’s a bit of Jekyll and Hyde going on here with Vidal, and part of it is certainly due to the status of Joe Alt, as he’s the key offensive lineman for the Chargers, and the offense as a whole (both run and pass) looks much weaker without him. Alt is, sadly, out for the season, which is likely to create some difficulties for the Chargers against the Steelers and their above-average pass rush. I can’t quite classify Vidal as a confident, solid RB1 play, because while he’s had two games of elite workloads, he’s also had two games of disappointing workloads. This included one in which he was game-scripted out in a 14-point loss against the Colts, but it also included last week’s disappointing performance against the Titans and their mediocre run defense. There’s a lot more volatility here than with most home favorite 3-down running backs. I do, however, think Vidal’s price of $8,800 accounts for that uncertainty and leaves him firmly positioned as a strong option. Patterson fits the “RB2 in Showdown” profile, though I really wish he had even just a target or two to help bolster his PPR floor. He’s pretty fragile, given that 75% of his carries have come in the 4th quarter of wins and that he hasn’t yet been used in the passing game.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
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Speaking of the passing game, the Chargers will really be missing Alt here as Justin Herbert’s yards per attempt drops from 8.3 (elite) with Alt to 6.5 (below average) without him. The matchup here is really nice against a Pittsburgh defense that has faced a league-high 40.5 pass attempts per game, as well as allowed a league-high (by a wide margin) 278 passing yards per game – bit of weakness on weakness here as we get the Chargers without Alt against a Steelers pass D that is giving it up to everyone. Los Angeles has four talented pass catchers, and that’s caused them to operate without one alpha guy this year, with Ladd McConkey, Keenan Allen, Quentin Johnston, and recent breakout tight end Oronde Gadsden all sharing passing game work. Ladd is the safest of the wide receivers, leading all pass catchers in snaps and routes while tying for the team lead in targets with Allen. He’s also the most expensive by a wide margin. Worth noting is that after seeing a slow start to the season, Ladd’s last four games have seen target counts of 7, 10, 15, and 9, so it’s possible things are swinging back around to Ladd being more of a clear WR1 rather than mixed up with everyone else. Allen is in a weird spot because he’s playing the fewest snaps of the wide receivers but earning targets at a high rate while on the field, leading to a healthy target share but on modest route participation. Of some concern is that Allen played just 37% and 25% of the snaps in Los Angeles last two games, one of which was a blowout win, so I’m willing to set that aside, but 37% of snaps in a competitive game last week raises some eyebrows. He did just have a massive 14 target game in Week 7, so I’m not THAT concerned, but it does give me a bit of pause. Otherwise, I’d be very, very interested in the team’s target leader at just $8k. Johnston is the deeper perimeter receiver and the only main guy with an aDOT over even 9 yards (Johnston’s at 12), but he’s also the one with the starkest splits with and without Alt, as when facing more pressure, it’s hard for Justin Herbert to be patient enough to let longer downfield routes to develop. Johnson posted scores of 14.9 or more DK points in four straight weeks to start the season, but since then, he’s been much more muted. We’ve also seen rookie Tre’ Harris playing more in the last couple of games, with his snaps ticking up to 59% in the Week 8 blowout and 46% last week, which was his highest mark of the season, not including a blowout win or when Johnston missed a game in Week 6. Those snaps have come at the expense of Allen, which creates some concern for pairing them together. I don’t think I’d outright disallow them from appearing in rosters together, but I’d use rules to try and discourage it.
At tight end, Oronde Gadsden has been a breakout star. He started to emerge in Week 3 and then took over the role from Week 6 onwards with 75%+ snaps in all of the team’s last four games. In that time, Gadsden has 5+ catches and 68+ yards in every game, and he’s caught 24 of 27 targets (likely unsustainable, but impressive nonetheless). He’s for real, and he’s also tied for 2nd on the team in red zone targets with 9 despite not playing 304 total offensive snaps on the season compared to 488 for Ladd, 435 for Johnston, and 343 for Allen. The kid is impressive. TE2 Tucker Fisk is a pure punt option as a blocking tight end with 3 targets and 1 catch on the year. Allen, Johnson, and Gadsden are all priced within $1k of each other, while Ladd is $1,400 more than the next most expensive guy, so I suppose I should rank them:
- I’ll go Ladd first as I think his role is the safest.
- If I had confidence Allen’s role would be what he’s had all year, he would be second, but I do think there’s some risk that Harris is chipping away at him a little bit, so I’ll actually go Gadsden second (it also helps that he’s the cheapest)
- Then Allen, then Johnston, who I think is the most impacted by Alt’s absence and thus has the riskiest profile of the bunch.
- The Chargers are blessed with pass catching talent, though, and all four of these guys are very viable.
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