Texans (

19) at
Hawks (

22)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Week 7 closes out with the Texans heading to Seattle for a 41.5 total game with the Seahawks favored by 3. Both teams boast strong defenses (with Houston’s in particular playing at an elite level, albeit against modest competition – allowing 12.2 points per game this season). Houston’s offense has been shaky, while Seattle has somewhat quietly been a top-5 team in points scored per game. It should be an interesting one.

SEATTLE

On the Seattle side, Zach Charbonnet has outsnapped Ken Walker in the last two games, making that four of five healthy games in which he’s done so. He has 12 and 13 touches in those games to Walker’s 11 in each game. Right now, this backfield looks like a timeshare with Charbonnet in front, but it’s tough to feel confident in either back right now. What really stands out, though, is that despite playing in fewer games, Charbonnet has 7 carries inside the 5-yard line to Walker’s 3. It’s an odd situation because Walker is the more explosive back, by a fairly wide margin, while Charbs is more of a consistent plodder. But Seattle seems to like that, I guess. Walker has upside if he breaks a long run, but at $1k more than Charbonnet with a smaller goal line role, Charbonnet looks like the overall stronger play. Both are viable in tournaments, but against Houston’s elite defense, a split backfield is a bit of a tough sell for me. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, the Seahawks are Jaxon Smith-Njigba all day, every day. JSN has a massive 36.4% target share, the highest in the NFL. He’s 2nd in the league with a 48.6% share of the team’s air yards. He has a very healthy 13-yard aDOT. He’s no longer a short distance guy who needs a ton of volume to find a ceiling. He’s even 2nd in the league in deep targets with 13. Dude is elite, and the role is insane. Houston’s a top 5 defense, but somebody has to find some points, and JSN is, overall, the best skill position play in the game. It’s not fooling anybody, and he’ll be very highly owned, but he’s a really tough fade. The way the Seahawks move him all around the formation makes him really tough to guard, and I’m fine just eating the chalk here. Behind him, things get thin fast due to JSN’s massive usage. Cooper Kupp holds down the WR2 role, and while he has a healthy 20.8% target share, his aDOT is just 6.4 yards, which has made it extremely difficult for him to find ceiling performances so far this season – he’s really only had one game you’d be happy with at his $6,800 price tag. Still, somebody has to be in optimal lineups, and Kupp is really the second best option of the Seahawks pass catchers, and his short-area route tree makes it tougher to guard him. Kupp is unexciting but viable. Tory Horton is holding down the WR3 role with very limited volume (but he does have 3 touchdowns on the season) – he’ll almost certainly need a touchdown, but he also has some big play ability. Volatile but reasonable. Jake Bobo can be used as a punt option.

At tight end, AJ Barner leads the way with Elijah Arroyo and Eric Saubert playing material snaps behind him. Barner has one massive game of 7 targets, but otherwise has 3 or fewer targets in every game. He’s uninspiring – I’d rather bet on Horton for ceiling over Barner, personally. Arroyo has actually been seeing very similar target volume to Barner, except for that one spike game, but he’s $2k cheaper and will be less owned. I think they’re more similar than most people think. Arroyo isn’t some smash play by any means, but I bet he’s going to be sub-5% owned, and if I’m building 150 lineups, I’d probably run like 10% of him. Saubert and WR4 Jake Bobo are thin punt options.

houston

The Deuce

Strategy Ideas and Things To Consider for Monday’s 2-game Slate:

Overview::

It is important to understand the big picture of these teams both in terms of their inner workings and their perceptions entering this week::

• Bucs – Tampa Bay has battled through a litany of injuries this season, but Baker Mayfield has just kept producing as the Bucs have scored 25+ points in four straight games. Now they are likely to get Mike Evans back on the field, with an outside chance for Emeka Egbuka to play through his hamstring injury. Whoever is on the field at receiver for the Bucs is likely to have success, as Detroit has the 5th ranked run defense in the league and will be without four of their top five defensive backs due to injuries and suspension. 
• Lions – Detroit returns home after a tough loss to the Chiefs last week. Jared Goff’s home/road splits have been massive during his time with the Lions and the Bucs are one of the bigger “pass funnel” teams in the league. We have seen this movie before with the Lions defense when they were decimated in the second half of last season and their games were all shootouts. For what it is worth, this week Dan Campbell said the team wants to split the running back work more evenly. The reality is this matchup suits Gibbs in the passing game far better than the between the tackles style of Montgomery.
• Texans – Houston emerges from their bye week with a 2-3 record and a grueling upcoming schedule. They will be without veteran WR Christian Kirk, which further emphasizes the role of Nico Collins while also bringing some value WRs into the mix in this spot. The team played Week 1 and 2 without Kirk as well, but Justin Watson played a lot of snaps those weeks and is now on injured reserve. This makes the secondary Texans receivers a spot that will likely have a big impact on the slate. Also, there are not great running back options on this slate and the Texans RBs are cheap. 
• Seahawks – Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been awesome this season, but this is easily his toughest matchup to date with the Texans pass defense that is ranked third in DVOA. Houston has been a lot easier to run the ball against than to pass it. Unfortunately the Seahawks running game has not been dependable this season and they split the work. Seattle will likely depend heavily on their defense giving them good field position to create points.

QB Thoughts::

• I am not really overthinking things here, as the salaries of Mayfield and Goff are higher than Stroud and Darnold, but their range of outcomes is so much different as well. Both TB and DET have pass funnel defenses and it feels fairly likely that at least one of the QBs there goes over 25 points, with the potential for both doing so or one of them getting to 30….while in the HOU/SEA game it feels like we’ll be somewhat lucky if either QB gets to 20. 

My guess on final ownership::

• Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff – 25 to 35%
• Sam Darnold and CJ Stroud – 15 to 22%

RB Thoughts::

• Jahmyr Gibbs and Rachaad White are the top running backs on the slate by a wide margin.
• David Montgomery’s coach wants to give him the ball more but this is a matchup where he is least likely to be efficient with those touches and Detroit seems likely to have to throw the ball a lot more. I think my favorite way to play him might be WITH Jared Goff as a bet on Detroit scoring five or six TDs.
• Kenneth Walker III has played better than Zach Charbonnet, but still splits the backfield with him. Very few rosters will have three RBs, while Gibbs and White will likely both be well north of 50% ownership, which means Walker will probably settle in the 25% range. Seattle has a bye next week and part of the reason they have been doing the committee is seemingly to preserve Walker’s health, so you could make a bet on them letting him off the leash a little bit in this one which would make him a player with one of the higher ceilings relative to salary on the slate.
• Coming out of the bye it wouldn’t be shocking for Woody Marks to have a bigger role, but the team obviously respects veteran Nick Chubb. The Texans offense looked great against the Ravens backups the last time we saw them play, but are likely to have a much tougher time without Kirk and playing in a hostile road environment.

WR Thoughts::

• Amon-Ra St. Brown should be extremely busy in this one and is the primary read on most passing plays for Detroit, while this is a spot with the state of their secondary where they are likely to enter the game and continue through it knowing they need to score a ton of points.
• Jameson Williams was used on a more diverse route tree last week and I expect his role to grow again this week, with the potential to break the slate. Let’s not forget that the second half of last season is when Williams really went bonkers.
• Mike Evans is in an absolute smash spot to return to. Sterling Shepard, Tez Johnson, and Kameron Johnson are all likely to have a role if Emeka Egbuka is unable to play. Hard to imagine at least one Bucs WR/TE isn’t in winning lineups with the state of the DET secondary.
• Jaxon Smith-Njigba is too integral to the Seattle offense to have a truly “bad” game, in my opinion, but his salary around $8k makes it so a “good” game from him keeps you from winning. He is likely to be 60% owned, I don’t expect his team to be pushed, the matchup is really tough. All of that is enough for me to not play him. DFS is hard and you have to make choices. I’m just not playing JSN this week and living with whatever happens.
• If not playing JSN, taking shots on Cooper Kupp, Tory Horton, or AJ Barner is reasonable. I prefer them in the reverse order of that listed, but also expect Kupp to post a bigger game at some point this season so if it happened here I wouldn’t be totally shocked. Just in general with the Seattle passing game I expect JSN to have decent production but disappoint for his salary and ownership, the backfield to soak up a decent amount of the offense, and then these “other” guys to split whatever is left…..and if betting on that last chunk I would prefer to do it in the cheapest and lowest owned way possible.
• This Texans offense looked broken to start the season without Christian Kirk on the field and playing against good defenses, which is the situation they find themselves in this week. I am not looking to bet on Nico Collins in this spot, but he is talented enough to overcome that. Really the nature of the slate is tough to justify playing him at such high ownership because of how many points and yards are likely to come from the other game.
• After Collins, the “next” WR appears to be veteran Xavier Hutchinson who scored two touchdowns in their last game against the Ravens. However, I kind of like playing one of the Texans rookie WRs (Jayden Higgins or Jaylin Noel) in this spot in large field tournaments. 

TE Thoughts::

• The Lions have been a concentrated offense this season and last week we saw the two running backs, ARSB, Jameson, and Sam LaPorta as the only Lions to touch the ball. LaPorta is by far the best tight end option on the slate and it will be hard for me to make any rosters that don’t have at least one of him or Jameson Williams in it.
• AJ Barner has shown an ability to make big plays and has had plays designed for him near the goal line. Among the “non-LaPorta” tight ends, Barner has four games of double digit PPR points while Schultz and Otton have combined for three. Despite that, he is likely to be the fourth highest owned TE on the slate. My main build is looking like it will be a Goff triple with Barner in the Flex.
• Cade Otton didn’t get in the end zone last week with all the Bucs WR injuries. This week, considering how beat up the Lions secondary is and at least one of Tampa’s star WRs being back, it is a little harder to see him posting a big stat line. That being said, he will play the whole game and it should be high scoring.
• Dalton Schultz may see an uptick in targets as the safety valve with Christian Kirk out. Hard to count on a touchdown, so the ceiling seems kind of low here, but should be good for a few catches and 40 to 60 yards.

Strategy and Game Theory::

• Relative to last week’s slate, salary is much tighter for this week’s two game slate and there is a clear ideal way to play these two games with TB/DET appearing so much more appealing than HOU/SEA.
• If you select the most expensive active player for each of your nine roster spots on DraftKings, you will be $7,600 over the salary cap. 
• Each team has one elite WR (assuming Evans plays and Egbuka does not). The quickest way to come down from that salary listed above is to pick the one you like the least and drop down to a cheap alternative from the same team. You can then toy around with a couple other positions to get below the salary cap, but it isn’t as simple or straightforward as last week’s two-game slate was. 
• The early game is going to be by far the more popular spot to build around and in these instances many people think the way to handle it is to flip that and build around the other game. For this particular slate, I don’t really have an interest in doing that. 
• Most people will probably build in a very specific way, with 5 or 6 players from TB/DET and then one player from each of HOU and SEA or two from one of them and one from the other…..and using HOU or SEA defense. That might work out, but I think that betting on one of the offenses from the late game playing very poorly (or both) is a solid strategy. So maybe we have 6 or 7 players from the early game, but then one or two players from SEA plus their defense and fade HOU completely (or vice versa). The natural tendency on these slates is always to “cover your bases” and most people will have one player from every team on their rosters. Not doing so might be the most +EV thing you can do.
• The defenses here are interesting, as probably 60 to 80% of the rosters will have either SEA or HOU defense. I think the Seahawks defense might destroy the Texans terrible offensive line, but there is also a chance the game is low scoring and boring while with all the pass attempts in the early game there could be a pick-6 or something that really sets things off. Something like Bucs Defense on Goff rosters or Lions Defense on Baker rosters could have a lot of value here.

Positional Rankings::

(My favorite plays on the slate at each position when considering all elements, including salary/ownership)

RB::

1. Rachaad White
2. Jahmyr Gibbs
3. Kenneth Walker III
4. David Montgomery
5. Woody Marks
6. Nick Chubb

WR::

1. Amon-Ra St. Brown
2. Mike Evans
3. Jameson Williams
4. Jaxon Smith-Njigba
5. Nico Collins
6. Emeka Egbuka (if active)
7. Cooper Kupp
8. Tez Johnson
9. Jayden Higgins
10. Sterling Shepard

TE::

1. Sam LaPorta
2. AJ Barner
3. Cade Otton
4. Dalton Schultz

SHORT SLATE-ONLY OPTIONS::

• Here are a few cheaper options that I’ll be considering on this slate that can help you make a unique lineup, but you wouldn’t be playing on the Main Slate::
  • Sean Tucker
  • Elijah Arroyo
  • Tory Horton
  • Jaylin Noel

Good luck and see you in the lobby at 7:00 pm ET Monday!!

-Mike (MJohnson86)