XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
In a display of scheduling mastery, the NFL has the Vikings visiting the Lions as the final game of the regular season. This one’s for all the marbles – the winner wins the NFC North and the number 1 conference seed, so both teams will be going all-out. It has a massive 56 point total (which might be the highest point total of the season!), having been bet up from an opening line of just 47 (who set that one?!). The Lions are 3 point home favorites. Really high total, close spread, and elite offenses…it should be a fun one.
Side note: for those of you on Fanduel this is on the main slate. It’s going to be extremely highly owned, but to me, it’s the clear best spot on the slate and I’m totally comfortable just playing into it despite the ownership. There are plenty of other ways to be different in Week 18, you don’t have to avoid the best game on the slate.
DETROIT
The Lions backfield is missing David Montgomery which has put Jahmyr Gibbs into a huge role. Gibbs played 75% of the snaps the week Monty left early, 69% of the snaps the following week (his two highest of the season), then 52% last week in a game that was totally meaningless for Detroit but they still played fairly tough anyway. In those games, he had touch counts of 28 and 22, scored 28.4 and 29.3 DK points, and has yet to finish below RB4 in fantasy in a week Monty has either missed or left early. The role is monstrous. The matchup here is extremely poor as the Vikings are allowing just 3.9 yards per carry and are facing a massive 64.3% opposing passing play rate, the highest in the league – they are the very definition of a pass funnel defense. I’m not that worried about it for Gibbs, though – the Lions offense is so explosive (and Gibbs himself is such an elite runner – the dude is at 5.6 YPC on the season!) that I trust he can find a way to hit in any matchup, and more importantly, he is highly involved in the passing game as well with 16 targets in the three games since Monty was injured. Even if he’s an underdog to reach 100 yards on the ground in this one, his passing game role keeps him strongly in consideration. In Showdown, I might take a slight underweight position – not because I don’t think Gibbs can smash here, but because the matchup is difficult, he’s going to be hugely owned despite it, and there are so many other great plays in this game – but he’s a great play in any spot (and if his projected ownership dips down into the 40% range, I think that’s too low – I’m just guessing he’ll project for over 50%). On the Fanduel main slate, he’s close to a lock button play for me personally. Behind Gibbs is Craig Reynolds, assuming he plays. He apparently got injured in practice this week. If Reynolds plays, he’s in line for a fairly modest role, probably something like he played in Week 16 against Chicago (15% of the snaps and 5 touches). If he misses, Jermar Jefferson likely takes that role and would be more attractive as he would have basically the same role but at $1k cheaper.
Showdown Ownership Projections!
Ownership updates automatically
The passing game is where things get fun. Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams are the primary wideouts, and then Kalif Raymond is returning from injury and may take a bit of the WR3 role away from Tim Patrick, though Patrick should be the primary in that role. In every Lions Showdown, I’ve been saying that ASRB generally needs volume to really find a ceiling because catching long bombs isn’t really his game…well guess what, the Vikings face such a high opposing pass rate (which both means more pass attempts going around plus more overall plays due to clock stoppage), that ASRB is likely to get the volume he needs in order to smash. He is a no doubt, hands down elite play. Williams has more of a boom/bust profile and while he’s really broken out this season (~15 DK points per game average, four games of 24+ DK points), he also still has quite a bit of bust (four games of single-digit DK points, including against the Vikings earlier in the year). In a game with a lot of major studs, Jamo is priced at a point that may get a bit lost in the shuffle. His volatility makes me less interested in him at high ownership but I don’t think he’s going to get to high ownership. I think he probably tops out at 30% or so (if that) because of the pricing, which makes him very much in play. Patrick at $3,600 feels like a great value play to me although a very volatile one. Patrick has deep threat in his game, he’s earned trust in the red zone (3 touchdowns in Weeks 14-15), and he’ll have games where he can earn significant volume for his price (15 targets in those two weeks). He also has no floor and Raymond will eat into him a bit…but my hope is just keeps his ownership down. My general ethos is to stay away from volatile plays at high ownership but play into them at low ownership, so for me, Patrick is an ownership play – my dearest hope is that projection sites bump him down aggressively due to Raymond returning and that keeps his ownership modest (anything below 20% is reasonable, below 15% feels like an absolute bargain). Raymond is hard to play in his first game back from IR but does deserve to be in player pools as a punt play, especially if he’s going to resume kick return duties (which I have seen nothing about, but my guess is that he will).
At tight end, Sam LaPorta has six straight games of 90%+ snaps as he’s shaken off his early season slump with five games in a row of 10+ DK points. Four of those games are 14.3 or more DK points, which at his price of $5,800 would give him strong odds of landing in winning lineups. TE2 Brock Wright is mainly a blocker with little passing game involvement and then Shane Zylstra can be included as a (very) thin MME punt play. The Vikings pass defense is slightly above average at 6.5 yards per pass attempt allowed, but they’re facing SO much pass volume that teams are getting there against them anyway – they’re allowing 244 pass yards per game, 5th-most in the league.
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