XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Man, some of these Showdowns are just gross. Sunday night has the Steelers visiting the Raiders for a 43 total game with the Raiders favored by 2.5. Kenny Pickett has looked awful this year but this is the easiest matchup he’s faced so far. Jimmy Garoppolo has looked equally awful and the matchup isn’t great for him, but at least he has good weapons and gets to play at home?
Las Vegas
We’ll start with the Raiders. Josh Jacobs has a stranglehold on this backfield, playing 80% and 73% of the snaps in the first two games (despite Week 2 being an absolute blowout by the Bills in which Jacobs rushed for NEGATIVE yards . . . good grief). The Steelers defense so far has been very strong against opposing passing attacks but atrocious against the run, giving up just shy of 400 total yards on the ground in two games. Of course, that came against two elite rushing attacks, but the Raiders are no slouches in this area. The Raiders are home favorites and the path of least resistance is on the ground, and Jacobs has a bell cow role. I’m comfortable saying he’s my favorite skill position play in the game here, even above one of my man-crushes in Davante Adams. Talent, matchup, and opportunity are all there for Jacobs. Behind him, we’ll see smidges of Ameer Abdullah and Zamir White, who can be used as (thin) punt options. If you want to play the “what happens if Jacobs gets hurt” card, I’d bet on White being the next man up ahead of Abdullah.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
In the air, the Raiders have looked fairly dysfunctional so far. Not because of their pass catchers, who are #good, but because of Jimmy G, who has looked #bad. Garoppolo only has 26 and 24 pass attempts in their first two games, and while I expect he’ll average closer to 28-30 for the season, this is unlikely to be a high-volume passing offense . . . but it IS a pretty condensed passing offense. In Week 1, of 26 pass attempts, 9 went to Adams and 10 went to Jakobi Meyers, good for a “better than the Dolphins” target concentration with 73% of passes going to the top 2 WRs (another three went to Jacobs). In Week 2, with Meyers out, Adams saw 8 targets, Jacobs 6, while nobody else saw more than 2. With Meyers back, we can expect the offense to flow through him, Adams, and Jacobs, with everyone else being something of an afterthought (poor Hunter Renfrow). Meyers had an absolute smash game in Week 1 with Denver’s Patrick Surtain limiting Adams, and I do think Meyers will have some more nice games in this offense, but at $8,600 he feels overpriced to me (I think we’re largely past the “box score watcher” phase of DFS, so I doubt he’ll get a ton of ownership). You can certainly view him as a pay up to be contrarian option. Adams, though, looks like an elite play. Remember that last year down the stretch, at least one of Adams or Jacobs put up a smash score almost every single week . . . I expect we’re likely to see a similar concentration this season. Given the matchup, I have a slight preference for Jacobs, then Adams, then Meyers if ranking the Raiders skill position players. Literally, everyone else is nothing more than a dart throw until we see this offense actually throw to other players. They’re all cheap, and the tight ends are my favorites because we know they’ll be on the field – Austin Hooper and Michael Mayer are both non-crazy punt options. Renfrow, Kristian Wilkerson, Abdullah, and White are all very thin options but they do belong in MME player pools.
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