XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Sunday Night Football has the Texans visiting the Chiefs for a very “meh” 41.5 total game with the Chiefs favored by 3.5. We’re likely in for a major defensive struggle here as the Texans have the best defense in the NFL, and while the Chiefs defense is not as strong, Houston’s offensive ineptitude helps make up for that. In all likelihood, this is a fairly slow, low-scoring game…but you never do know.
KANSAS CITY
On the Chiefs side of things, Isaiah Pacheco made his return from a multi-week absence and played just 30% of the snaps while handling 5 opportunities – both season lows. Pacheco had been significantly out-snapping Kareem Hunt in all but one game prior to his injury, so it’s possible this was just easing him back in, but it’s also possible the Chiefs just trust Hunt more (for some completely baffling reason). If Pacheco only gets 5 touches, even at just $4,400, he’s overpriced, but if he moves back to his pre-injury role (which was still modest, but more like 10-12 touches most games), he’s underpriced even in a mediocre matchup. The problem is, we just don’t know how it’s going to shake out. Hunt, on the other hand, has only gone over 16 opportunities once all season (including when Pacheco missed time). At $7,400, he’s pretty clearly overpriced, especially as the passing game role he used to have when he was younger has largely evaporated this season, and he would need to fall into at least 1 touchdown to really have a shot at returning value. I’m more interested in Pacheco here – both of these guys are extremely fragile, but I think Pacheco at least has a shot at ceiling relative to his price, while Hunt would need a very unlikely path in order to find himself in winning lineups.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
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In the passing game, Rashee Rice is a stud. Since returning from his suspension, he has at least 23.2 DK points in four of six games with 5 touchdowns while averaging just shy of 10 targets per game. It’s a difficult matchup, of course, but Rice is just hands-down awesome, and of course, he has one of the league’s top QBs throwing to him. Rice even has 17 red zone targets – 4th in the NFL among wide receivers – despite missing SIX games (on a per-game basis, he’s #1 and it isn’t even close). It’s a little odd seeing him more expensive than Patrick Mahomes, but since those two are the only guys over $10k in this Showdown, it’s pretty easy to fit them (except high ownership). Really, the only knock against playing Rice is “football is weird sometimes.” Xavier Worthy is the other full-time wide receiver, and since Rice returned, he has between 5 and 8 targets in every (competitive) game. At $6,600, that’s reasonable though not exciting, especially with a near-zero red zone role – he’ll probably have to break a long one to be relevant. The WR3 role is split between Marquise Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Tyquan Thornton, with Brown and JuJu seeing more field time but Thornton having the most per-target upside. Given the multi-way split, none of these guys are great options – they’re all just kind of punt options, but I’ll lean Thornton’s way because his ridiculous aDOT gives him at least a chance of being relevant on a single catch.
At tight end, Travis Kelce has looked a lot more spry this year compared to last season. I thought the Chiefs would be saving him for the playoffs, but I’ve been wrong on that. He does kind of come and go from the offense a bit, but he has games of 8 and 13 targets since Rice returned and has shown some per-catch upside with 3 catches of 30+ yards on the season already (something he only did once all of last year). At $8,800, he’s a little more expensive than I’d like to see, as he’s pretty close to Nico Collins, who is a much stronger play, but he is certainly viable in tournaments. TE2 Noah Gray has been a little more involved in the offense lately, with target counts of 4, 1, 3, and 4 in Kansas City’s last four games, but with a tiny aDOT and no real red zone role, his per-target upside is very modest.
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