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Majesstik is one of the most respected Slate Breakdown artists in DFS
*Tabs are updated throughout the Weekend
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JMToWin is a high-stakes tournament champion (Thunderdome, Luxury Box, Game Changer, Wildcat) who is focusing this year on single-entry/three-entry max
This is, instead, a look at the player pool I’ll be fishing.
:: covered in-depth in the Angles Pod (it’s highly recommended that you listen to the breakdown of the roster in order to see the thinking behind it, and in order to understand what we’re talking about when we look at a “bottom-up build”
:: these are my “Tier 1” plays: the plays I feel confident leaning into across different types of builds; players who have a high ceiling and a low likelihood of price-considered failure
:: these are games, offenses, situations, or scenarios I’ll be looking to build around across my rosters
:: these are players who don’t fit into the categories above — either Upside pieces who don’t have the floor to be Blue Chips (and are not being focused on within my game-focused builds) or players who may not have a strong shot at ceiling, but are worth keeping in mind from a “role” perspective
This will allow Angles to be delivered to your phone as soon as it’s live
Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (above).
Taysom Hill
Josh Jacobs
Jeff Wilson
Keelan Cole
Donovan Peoples-Jones
Marquise Brown
Mark Andrews
Mike Williams
Texans
Find last week’s Bottom-Up Breakdown and join The Bottom-Up Build DraftKings Contest here!!
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Hilow is a game theory expert and tournament champion who focuses on mid/high-stakes single-entry/three-entry max
This slate is all jacked up on Mountain Dew. You have to squint really hard to find any semblance of floor anywhere. And I love it! We have access to all kinds of talent through low ownership this week, and the field appears to be extremely certain in a couple of spots that don’t carry much certainty. And I haven’t even mentioned the multitude of reeling teams as far as injuries and/or COVID goes. I have a feeling the field is going to get a bad case of information overload on this slate as they struggle to decipher the plethora of changing dynamics across the league. And that’s exactly what we’re here to capitalize on! You’ve seen this plastered everywhere across the site this week, but we have only one game with a game total north of 50 points this week, and only three games that fall in the “magic range” (47.0-49.5). Let’s embrace some uncertainty, shall we?
The highest point per dollar median projection of any player (a tick below 4x salary multiplier), who also carries the fourth highest 90th percent outcome ceiling on the slate, per the GPP ceiling tool. The kicker is that he’s priced at only $5,600 on DraftKings. I won’t be overthinking this one.
I get the feeling the field expects Mr. Ekeler to see a guaranteed double-digit target workload here (spoiler: it’s not guaranteed that Ekeler sees double-digit looks!). A large part of Ekeler’s value comes from his insane red zone role, but did you know the Giants have allowed only one team across their last six games to surpass 20 points, or that they rank 10th in the league in red zone scoring rate against at 54.35%? Just sayin’.
This one likely depends on the status of JD McKissic, who returned to a limited practice on Friday as he works his way through the concussion protocol. Either way, the Cowboys have surrendered only 20.5 fantasy points per game to opposing backfields, good for third in the league.
Josh Jacobs played 85% of the offensive snaps last week in a game Kenyan Drake was lost for the year. Jalen Richard is still in the COVID protocol and is looking legitimately questionable to make it back in time. In last week’s game, Jacobs set a career-high for targets with nine. The Chiefs are best attacked on the ground and through the short-to-intermediate middle of the field, the area where Jacobs would see his pass game usage. Finally, the Chiefs have allowed an 83% completion rate and 8.83 yards per reception to running backs this season. Throw in Jacobs’ heavy red zone role and inflated touchdown equity and you get one of the top running back plays on paper (assuming Richard misses).
This one also likely depends on the status of one of his teammates, as Melvin Gordon III is currently questionable with hip and shoulder injuries. Williams’ floor would take a significant hit should Melvin return, but the ceiling is very much intact against a Lions defense allowing 28.2 fantasy points per game to opposing backfields.
Is it recency bias or is it the act that Fournette has averaged a healthy 84% snap rate over the previous two contests? Either way, Fournette is primarily utilized as a straight-ahead runner, directly into the strength of the Bills rush defense (Star Lotulelei and Tremaine Edmunds). If you watched the Colts/Bills game or the Patriots/Bills game, you probably saw the success of attacking the Bills off-tackle, where wide receivers and tight ends could help set the edge and spring the running backs into the second level. That is unlikely to be how Fournette is utilized. The healthy receiving role keeps his floor high, but the matchup and scheme are significant hits to his ceiling here.
If you were to tell me the Chargers were going to utilize Mike Williams in the prototypical “X” wide receiver role in the absence of Keenan Allen, he would be the top wide receiver play on the slate this week. The problem is we have no clue what the Chargers are going to do with Williams, but we do know they have been reluctant to alter his new downfield role over the previous two months of play. If the field is certain his role is changing, but we have zero degree of certainty – well, you know where I stand.
Godwin back in his more natural slot wide receiver role is a significant boost to his weekly expectation, but the matchup is far from ideal against the Bills this week. Tom Brady has a long-standing track record of struggling against Sean McDermott defenses, introducing some level of uncertainty here.
Moving on (lolz, wtf emoji, I’m going to go cry myself to sleep over this one).
Whoa, a mid-range chalk defense? There must really be no hope for the pay-down options this week! I get it, Davis Mills and little to no supporting cast. But damn, a defense that has averaged only one turnover a game is chalk this week? There are better options available.
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Each week in The Oracle, OWS team members will take on the key strategy questions from that week’s slate :: sharing their thoughts on how they plan to approach these critical elements from a roster-construction, game theory, and leverage perspective.
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A weekly staple of The Oracle :: In no more than two or three sentences, tell us what makes this slate particularly unique.
There are actually several different directions I could go with this answer; but in keeping with the focus I’ve been harping on all week…
There are 11 games on the slate, and only FOUR of these games have an Over/Under north of 44.0. Furthermore, those “higher-total games” are comprised of the following:
Cowboys at Washington Football Team. We can certainly make a case for this game taking off…but we can also note that after a very tough start to the season, the Washington Football Team defense has allowed (starting in Week 7) 24 points to the Packers, 17 points to the Broncos, 19 points to Tampa, 21 points to Carolina, 15 points to Seattle, and 15 points to Las Vegas. After allowing 369 or more yards in each of their first six games (including 424+ in three of those six), Washington has not allowed more than 310 yards in any of these games (a pretty incredible stat). This game could take off. This game could also disappoint.
49ers at Bengals. The 49ers have been an up-and-down defense, but they have held Seattle (twice), Minnesota, Jacksonville, the Rams, Indy, Arizona, and Philly to 330 or fewer yards, while Philly, Arizona, and the Rams are solid offenses that have scored 17 or fewer points vs San Francisco. The Bengals have also been up-and-down on defense, but they have held the Steelers (twice), Raiders, Ravens, and Lions to 17 or fewer points. This game could take off. This game could also disappoint.
Raiders at Chiefs. Yeah. The Chiefs are implied to score 28.75. They scored 41 against the Raiders in Week 10. They have also scored 22 or fewer in five of their last six games; and if we take away that game against the Raiders, we have a five-game sample in which Mahomes has thrown two total touchdowns and four interceptions, with his team scoring 3 // 20 // 13 // 19 // 22. This game could take off. This game could also disappoint.
Bills at Bucs. This is pretty clearly the game with the lowest chance of completely disappointing, but we should also keep in mind that the Bills have allowed under 300 yards in eight of 12 games (including seven games of 262 or fewer yards allowed), while allowing the second fewest points per game in the league. If we take away games against Derrick Henry and Jonathan Taylor, the Bills have not allowed more than 23 points, while holding SEVEN teams to 17 or fewer points. And while the Bills have scored 30+ in seven games, they have also been held to 16 or fewer by the Steelers, Jags, and Colts (we’ll throw out the Monday night “wind game” vs the Patriots), with all three of those teams sitting back and forcing the Bills to work underneath. Only three teams face a shallower average depth of target than the Bucs. This game is the least likely of the bunch to disappoint, but there are certainly ways it could happen.
Last week, I said “Options” made the slate particularly unique. This week, it’s the opposite.
“Uncertainty” abounds on this slate — to a high enough degree that, to me, “uncertainty” is what makes this slate particularly unique.
Well, just want to reiterate JM’s point that there’s one “very clear” best game….though it still has paths to fail. And then a handful of “second tier” games, followed by a large pile of games predicted to be low-scoring.
There is a lot of uncertainty on this slate. There aren’t many plays I just feel really, really good about….and that makes the slate more interesting, to me, from a high-variance play perspective. What I mean by this is that most of my entry fees tend to be focused on smaller field tournaments, and in those tournaments I try to find the most certainty that I can. But on a week with very little certainty, it makes a lot of sense to just play the ownership game: look at where the field is feeling a lot of certainty (as expressed by ownership), and just look elsewhere. While ownership can sometimes be efficient in identifying plays with a lot of certainty (as we talked about last week), on a week like this, the plays that attract ownership are likely to be much more fragile than normal, which leads to a +EV approach of focusing more heavily on ownership this week vs. last week.
I’ll also say one other thing is there are a LOT of questionable tags this week. I don’t really keep track week to week, but as I’ve been digging in to research and working on my responses to the Oracle, it feels like there are more situations where something could change than we normally see. It’s going to be a week to be on your toes on Sunday morning and ready to react to surprise inactives!
My large field view of this slate revolves around injuries and the possible traps that ensue when the field automatically assumes value in the aftermath. It’s unique for me because I haven’t been hand-building this week due to all of the uncertainty. This will be a “run the optimizer through its paces and be ready to ultimately decide on my approach on Sunday.” I love this situation because of the tournament appeal created by the uncertainty, but dislike it because I simply enjoy hand building at least 50 lineups every week and won’t be doing that this time.
Hilow’s answer will be live around 8 PM PST
This slate has seven (!) teams with implied Vegas totals at 20 points or fewer. Out of 20. That’s insane. What is crazy to me is although my natural inclination is to look ‘beyond’ some of the obvious games, it’s really hard to get excited about any game environments to potentially come in very high scoring when we have guys like Taysom Hill, Mike Glennon/Jake Fromm, Zach Wilson, Davis Mills, the Jaguars, and Jared Goff in high altitude on this slate. The unique aspect could be targeting some of these teams (it’s interesting to me the Raiders and Ravens are also projecting under 20 points at the moment), and hoping for a Minnesota/Detroit Week 13-type finish (29-27 final score). But the unique aspect that jumps out to me in Week 14 is simply the lack of inspiring game environments.
I texted JM on Tuesday that I already had my answer to this question. Mike Leone tweeted some graphs with the pass rates over expectation (PROE) for all the teams in the league. What stood out to me, and what makes this slate unique to me, is the fact that the top six teams in PROE since Week 8 are all involved in games against each other:
There are obviously some things that make it more complicated than just “play these spots”; with Las Vegas missing Waller, the questions in the Chargers receiving corps, Jake Fromm starting for the Giants, and the BUF/TB game being made up mostly of expensive players….but with a lot of uncertainty on this slate I will certainly be keeping this statistic in mind as I make my builds and understanding how rare a slate with such a concentrated group of teams that throw a lot is, especially when it comes without huge game totals that typically draw all the ownership.
There are several wide spreads with low team and game totals. There are only two game environments I like enough to lean into (BUF/TB and DAL/WAS) and it seems like a week where we’re trying to make the best out of nothing. As I built out my player pool this week I was only able to identify three “elite” plays, and one of them has some questions I still need to solve. Josh Allen and Travis Kelce are the two I feel most comfortable with and Austin Ekeler could be the third but he could come out of the game early due to the Chargers having a commanding lead and coach Staley saying he’s got a lot of “bumps and bruises”. The WR pool has a lot of uncertainty at the top and not much depth to compensate for it. It just looks like an overall ugly slate. I’ll be looking to leverage what I believe to be true against what the field thinks they know.
Game Environments, Week 14: As we know by now, there are only four games with an Over/Under north of 44.0 this week, giving us a particularly narrow group of games to target if we want to begin from the same starting point as the field. While it feels like the field will use this as an opportunity to try to isolate one-offs across a roster (thus giving us an edge if we fully stack the top games, instead of trying to isolate one-offs), this is also the type of week in which finding “the right game everyone is overlooking” can be even more +EV than normal (step 1: fewer game stacks from the field would mean less competition if you’re right; step 2: greater uncertainty means even greater value gained if getting an overlooked game correct ). With that in mind, do you have a preferred approach this week, between “focusing on the top games or trying to find an overlooked game,” and/or do you have a game that is particularly standing out to you amongst the available options?
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Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries
The goal of One Week Season is to teach lessons that will last. As a part-time contributor, I’ll admit the most fun in writing any kind of prediction piece is putting yourself behind a player and seeing that player succeed. But, the problem with the “picking players” approach is there can be too much luck involved, and it’s not sustainable over time. When I came on board to write Willing to Lose last season during the NFL playoffs, I didn’t totally get the point of why showcasing process and strategy is the most valuable form of DFS content. My time is limited, as it is for many of you, and when I used to click on a DFS article, I wanted to do the least amount of work to come away with the best plays – instant success, it’s what we’re all after. But slowly, as you start to peel back any process to unveil the whys and the hows, you start to see that DFS strategy can be magical. Building foundational steps to repeat daily or weekly, and refining a process while introducing variables to it with each DFS slate is a game-changer. The only way to accomplish this is to learn each week, but not throw aside what you’ve learned to date.
And while no DFS website is perfect, it’s been amazing to see just some of the success OWS subscribers have had this season pulling down five and six-figure wins consistently. There have been some chaotic, illogical weeks this NFL season, just as there have been some chalk lineups winning large-field GPPs. But with a constant focus on figuring out how to fish, hopefully, we’ve given some good advice along the way here and there to refine your process every week.
And with that, in the spirit of transparency, as I am just one man, I figured this week I could walk you all through my process. By doing this, I want to also say that while writing this introduction, I have no idea who or what I will highlight as a “willing to lose” strategy later in this piece. I want to go on this journey with you together in Week 14. Let’s do it . . .
I don’t always keep these handy but it’s always a worthy exercise when I do. But the benefit I have here is the Missed Opportunities piece I write every Monday evening. It forces me to make some sense out of every Sunday, which is never easy to do. From Week 13, we learned:
● When value plays are overwhelming to simply start there.
● Condensed volume among wide receivers can be paramount.
● The 2021 viable double tight end strategy is still viable.
● Don’t overreact, but do react to Sunday news.
Team-wise we also had the following events transpire and/or emerge:
● Vikings losing to the Lions
● Dolphins D dominant again
● Colts and Rams drubbing of their opponents
● Bengals looking league average (not as good or as bad as we thought)
● Raiders and Ravens offenses are still looking out of sync
I then tend to move onto Vegas lines for Week 14 games. As JM noted in the Week 14 Angles email this week, we have one clear top game on the slate carrying an over/under north of 53 points in the Bills and the Bucs. My initial thought on these situations is always to ask, who are the under-owned players in that game? Then a few 47/48 point total games (these are my preferred game stacks, typically), and a whole slew of 43.5 and under games (look for floating plays, condensity). This week, these games are: DAL/WAS, LV/KC, and SF/CIN. More on this below.
I’ll spare you all here this tedious process but as most players typically do this on the website where they play DFS, I try to note this on paper somewhere to go through the exercise of writing players names, gauging my own reaction to those players names, and then crossing off some who I know I will not use. As a reminder, I typically build no more than five or six lineups each week, and I enter them in large-field, mostly low-dollar tournaments. I highly recommend doing this exercise no matter what kind of DFS player you are. It’s time-consuming but it helps to never overlook a player because at least you’ve written their name down somewhere.
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Sonic is a Milly Maker winner and large-field tournament mastermind who focuses on mass-multi-entry play
Greetings OWS MME Degens!
A week of uncertainty should play right into our hands. We have four late games so I’ll be employing the “Attack of the Clones” strategy. I’ll be building three different late swap templates that include some lower-owned plays from the early games. Hopefully they will smash and I’ll have a fun diversification process before 1pm PST.
No one really knows what the hell is going to transpire in these games so don’t follow the herd unless you really feel strongly that you agree!
Be YOU and CRUSH!
LFG!
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Xandamere is one of the most respected Showdown minds in DFS, and focuses his Main Slate play on mass-multi-entry
Week 14 and we’re moving towards the end of the NFL season (sigh). I’ve already almost binked the Superdraft GPP three times now and I’m determined to do it this year. Maybe this is the week!
We’re STILL seeing overlay every week on Superdraft. If you aren’t playing there . . . why not?
Before you read this article, you should read my NFL Superdraft Primer to get a basic understanding of the site, how it’s different from Draftkings and Fanduel, and the strategy elements that come into play. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can get $100 free with a minimum $100 deposit!! (Promo Code :: OWS)
First, all the normal NFL strategy about stacking and correlation still applies. It definitely makes sense to strongly consider pairing your QB with a receiver. Game stacks are entirely viable here. The good news is you don’t have to change your entire approach to be successful on Superdraft. All you have to do is change your mentality of player selection, since the multiplier introduces so many different strategy dynamics, as the primer goes over. With that, let’s take a look at Week 6. I’m not going to go game by game here (we have the Edge for that!), but rather, position by position, trying to spot where I think there are good opportunities to leverage attractive scoring multipliers.
I’m always happy when my highest projected quarterbacks on Superdraft are actually good overall plays and not some dude like Jake Fromm. Phew. This week, the top projected QBs are led by Cam Newton and Taysom Hill, with massive rushing equity, but there’s also a lot of stackability here as Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, and even Josh Allen at 1x rate pretty well. I’m also interested in some of the QBs who just have huge raw ceilings even with lower multipliers like Dak Prescott and Tom Brady, as these guys are highly capable of 30+ point performances in good game environments.
There’s a lot of uncertainty here around injury situations, so I’ll try to pick through that. The highest projected running backs currently are Austin Ekeler and Leonard Fournette (tough matchup for Fournette, but really high team total, home favorite, and a strong role definitely keep him in play). Josh Jacobs is a good option if you believe the Raiders can keep the game close, while Antonio Gibson looks strong if JD McKissic misses another game, and then there are some options that could shoot up the rankings depending on injury situations. Javonte Williams would be an elite play at 1.3x if Melvin Gordon misses another game. The Titans RB situation could give us a good value if we get clarity on roles (and even if we don’t, you can take some shots here: Dontrell Hilliard is still sitting at a 2x multiplier!). The Panthers running back situation is similar, as projections have Chuba Hubbard and Ameer Abdullah splitting work, but if one of them ends up seeing 18+ touches, they’re sitting there at beautiful 1.5x and 1.9x multipliers, respectively. If Elijah Mitchell misses for San Francisco, Jeff Wilson at 1.55x would also be extremely attractive.
As always, I’ll discuss stacking options later, but in this section, I’ll just highlight receivers I’m comfortable using as floating plays in any roster:
The highest projected tight end that I have is . . . Kyle Pitts, which I feel okay about, but not great. He’s an elite talent and at a nice 1.4x multiplier, but he has a nightmare matchup and he’s the guy that defenses have been really keyed in on since Calvin Ridley left the team. Pitts’ best game since Ridley left came in Week 10 against Dallas in which he caught four of seven targets for 60 yards. Not exactly inspiring. You can trust the projections and play him (at likely high ownership), and I wouldn’t argue with you, but personally, this is a spot I want to be underweight on. I’d rather lean on the talent, role, and game environment of guys like Rob Gronkowski at 1.2x, Dawson Knox at 1.7x (!), Mark Andrews at 1.2x, or “Raiders tight end” (depending on if Darren Waller plays or not). Oh, and George Kittle at 1.2x is fine on his own, and I expect would be the best on-paper tight end play on the slate if Deebo Samuel misses another game.
One thing that’s tougher about Superdraft sometimes is adjusting to the format when thinking about game stacks. Multipliers can attract us to different game stacks than we would use on a salary-based site, as just looking at projections makes “weird” things like Jake Fromm look viable. You can choose to trust the projections and use plays like that, but personally, I have a hard time seeing a ceiling there. I try to combine players who project well in Superdraft’s scoring format while also playing what I consider to be strong overall plays based on game environment, talent, and matchup. It’s more art than science sometimes (i.e. Roethlisberger projects well by median outcome, but does he really have the kind of ceiling we need in tournaments even at a high multiplier? I’d guess no, but could be wrong). Here are some stacks I think look attractive this week:
Jreas11 leverages research from the NFL Edge in order to replace DFS cash game play with profitable prop betting
The Betting Discord has been on absolute fire the last few weeks, so much so that members of the discord have put together a google sheet to track the group’s success. Unsurprisingly, the results show the quality of information and communication being shared is on another level. Best of all, everyone has their niche! Anyone who wants to contribute to the OWS Discord Betting Tracker is welcome to DM their email on Discord for an editor link- everyone else is welcome to use this as a resource of fun bets to tail in the discord with the community!
Follow me on Twitter for more. DMs open for any questions on how to get started or general Prop Betting Strategy!
Jamaal Williams: Over 21.5 Receiving Yards
Result: Loss (9 Receiving Yards)
Williams caught his only target for the nine yards. The Lions were able to take leads into the 2nd half and into the final quarter, leading to 17 rush attempts for Williams (of 24 backfield rushes) and only three total RB targets.
Antonio Gibson: Over 96.5 Total Yards
Result: Won (111 Total Yards)
Antonio Gibson continued his late season surge with 23 rush attempts for 88 yards and contributed five receptions on six targets for 23 yards and a touchdown through the air- totaling 111 yards from scrimmage. He looks to be over his early season shin injury while holding up strong to increased usage. Until J.D. McKissic returns, Gibson will continue to be a usage monster in close games for the Washington Football Team.
Darek Carr: Over 265.5 Passing Yards
Result: Loss (249 Passing Yards)
Well, the Las Vegas Raiders didn’t win, so Carr did not throw for 300 yards, continuing a season-long trend that has seen Carr surpass that milestone in every Raider win this year. With no Darren Waller, Carr relied heavily on Hunter Renfrow (9/102) and Josh Jacobs (9/38) underneath and was unable to hit on many splash plays to get over the yardage total on 38 attempts.
Week 1: +10.0 Units
Week 2: -1.1 Units
Week 3: 0.0 Units (No bets placed, family weekend)
Week 4: +4.65 Units
Week 5: +3.1 Units
Week 6: +2.4 Units
Week 7: -0.3 Units
Week 8: -5.7 Units
Week 9: +11.75 Units
Week 10: +5.8 Units
Week 11: -0.13 Units
Week 12: +6.67 Units
Week 13: +3.01 Units
2021: +40.15 Units
Book: Bet MGM -115, DraftKings -115, BetRivers (247.5 -114)
“These two offenses rank 28th and 31st in pace of play and in the bottom ten in the league in overall pass rates.”
“The 49ers have continued their run-based attack as the season has progressed, ranking second in the league over the previous four games in total rush rate at 59% (second to only the 60% of the Eagles).”
“They pair these high rush rates with a slow pace of play (28th overall) and a defensive scheme designed to limit splash plays against.”
“The macro matchup against the Bengals should be considered a difficult one, as Cincinnati ranks sixth in the league in defensive drive success rate, fourth in plays allowed per drive, third in yards allowed per drive, and seventh in points allowed per drive.”
“Both of these teams have tried to win games in similar ways this season, each checking in with bottom-five pace of play and bottom-ten pass rates. While they both are capable of slightly increasing their pass rates and pace of play when trailing, neither make it to overly aggressive levels.”
“All of that to say, the most likely way for this game to unfold is for it to mirror a late-season slugfest, with each team adopting a relatively conservative offensive approach.”
“Expect a slow-paced, slugfest-style game environment to start as each team jockeys for field position and control.”
We still do not know Deebo Samuel’s status for this one after he was able to log a full practice on Friday (a walkthrough) after working off to the side on Thursday. While his addition to the lineup would be a boost for Jimmy Garoppolo and the San Francisco offense as a whole, it is hard to predict his involvement coming back from injury and a truly questionable tag. On top of this, we have seen his role split between rushing and receiving duties while Elijah Mitchell has been sidelined in 2021, which will be the case entering Week 14. The status of Samuel aside, this matchup does not look like one in which Jimmy G is likely to manufacture a large passing workload and will be reliant on efficiency to surge into the 250+ yards passing range. The 49ers have ranked at the very bottom in terms of situation-neutral pace over the last month, throwing at the 31st highest rate during the same four-week timeframe.
Book: DraftKings -115, Bet MGM -118, BetRivers (31.5 -115)
“CAR just fired their OC from the start of 2020 with an explanation of wanting to run the ball more.”
“QB rushing vs ATL: Hurts (62) // Jones (39) // Heinicke (43) // Tua (29) // Darnold (66) // Dak (TD) // Lawrence (39).”
“Cam rushed for 30+ yds in 8 games in 2020 (38, 46, 47, 48, 54, 75, 76, 79) and 12 rush TDs.”
“In the first game between these two teams, Carolina went with a very run-heavy game plan of 47 rushes and only 25 pass attempts.”
“ The Carolina offensive approach will likely be very clear and direct in this matchup, with a heavy focus on the running game using their backs and Cam in various ways.”
“Coming out of the bye week, the offensive focus of the Panthers will likely be leveraging Cam’s strengths and hiding his weaknesses while finding creative ways to get the ball in the hands of their best remaining playmaker.”
“Cam Newton is now likely to be the true goal-line back for the Panthers with CMC out for the season.”
Former Carolina Panthers OC Joe Brady was alleged to have been fired for not running the football enough. That was after a month-long stretch where the Panthers passed the football at the second-lowest situation neutral rate (41%). We can expect that number to decrease even further, and with yet another season-ending injury to running back Christian McCaffery, we can expect Cam Newton to see increased usage on the ground with a lackluster at best backfield to siphon carries. With both teams playing slowly (Atlanta is running at the 9th slowest situation neutral pace since the Calvin Ridley injury), there is a concern for low play volume here, but we can expect Cam to receive eight to 12 rushing opportunities as a floor after the Panthers rushed 47 times in their first meeting in Week 8 with Sam Darnold starting at quarterback. With the Falcons surrendering over five yards per carry to the position, the Panthers should look to mold around Cam Newton’s strengths and give him ample opportunity to affect the game with his legs, while also opening up running legs for the other members of the Panthers backfield.
One of the major advantages of online sports betting is that you can carry accounts with multiple sports books in order to quickly/easily shop for the best line for the bet you want to place. Every week in Edge Bets, you’ll have access to this Player Props Tool from our friends at ActionLabs (click the orange “LABS” below), in which you’ll be able to see at a glance where the Best Lines are.
