What’s up Karma Nation! Welcome back to another edition of my Monday Night Football Showdown Throwdown Article. I hope you had an amazing week 4. We get to cap off our week with two amazing Monday Night Football games! Tonight, I will only be breaking down the Atlanta @ Green Bay showdown because that is the one that is featured on DraftKings. Make sure if you haven’t to subscribe to our NFL Core Plays. Showdowns are fun but make sure you get in on all our prop plays for these showdown slates. I usually run a prop cash play then GPPs for showdowns.
Showdown slates are different from normal slates and vary from site to site.
On DraftKings you have a CPT spot with a 1.5x multiplier, this is similar to FanDuel, the difference is the salary for the CPT scales 1.5x as well. On FanDuel, the MVP spot it does not. This will lead to more unique lineups and less ties for DraftKings compared to FanDuel. Which is one of the reasons why I prefer DraftKings showdown slates to FanDuel. On DraftKings you select five flex spots and one CPT, while on FanDuel you select four flex and one MVP.
Vegas totals
The Packers are a 6-point favorites tonight against the Falcons. With a 56-point game total. There has been some line movement this morning. Packers moved from -7 to -6 and the total has dropped one point. Probably reacting to the Adams news.
Historical Matchup
Matt Ryan and Aaron Rodgers have faced off nine times over their long, award filled careers, including two games in the playoffs. The home team has been favorited in every game but one dating back to 2011. Matt Ryan has the 4-3 advantage during the regular season, they are tied 1-1 in the playoffs, the over has hit seven out of nine times they have played.
Regular Season:
12/09/18 GB: 34 ATL: 20 GB Spread: -4 O/U: 50.5
09/17/17 GB: 23 ATL: 34 GB Spread: +3 O/U: 55
10/30/16 GB: 32 ATL: 33 GB Spread: +3 O/U: 51
12/08/14 GB: 43 ATL: 37 GB Spread: -13.5 O/U: 54.5
10/09/11 GB: 25 ATL: 14 GB Spread: -6 O/U: 54
11/28/10 GB: 17 ATL: 20 GB Spread: +2 O/U: 48
10/05/08 GB: 24 ATL: 27 GB Spread: -5 O/U: 42.5
Playoffs:
01/22/17 GB: 21 ATL: 44 GB Spread: +6.5 O/U: 59.5
01/15/11 GB: 48 ATL: 21 GB Spread: +1 O/U: 44
Quarterbacks
We have a battle of two of the best Quarterbacks in the league going at it tonight. There is a huge discrepancy between the defenses. Aaron Rodgers has by far easier matchup tonight, but will be missing his top two weapons on the outside; Davante Adams and Allen Lazard (The Lizard King). We will most likely see Rodgers spread the ball out to his WRs and it might end up turning into a guessing game between these guys. We saw Adams miss four games last year. Surprisingly, all of Rodgers’ averages raised except for pass attempts, which decreased by 1.5 attempts per game. Rodgers’ averaged 48 more yards, 0.83 more touchdowns, 20 more passer rating, and 8.7% better completion%. You wouldn’t think it but Rodgers faired much better without Adams than with him. From a fantasy point approach, he averaged 5.1 fantasy points more without Adams (20.9) vs with Adams (15.8). Rodgers is a great play tonight but figuring out who to pair him with could spell troubles.
Matt Ryan has been throwing the ball at one of the highest rates of the season and as a projected underdog should see more attempts than usual. The Falcons have blown so many leads, partially due to the fact their passing game has been so good but their running game isn’t good enough to control possessions and hold the lead. Ryan has two straight games of under 300 yards passing, which I hope keeps his ownership down. We should see more of a Seattle type game from him; attempts wise. Leading to well over 300 yards passing tonight. Both Quarterbacks are great plays, and in a projected shootout it is a great time to play both for 20+ fantasy points tonight.
Runningbacks
Both of these offenses do not feature a workhorse load for these runningbacks. So, both the backups are in play if you want to gain some ownership leverage tonight. I would favor Brian Hill over Jamal Williams but both are solid plays.
Aaron Jones: Jones is one of my favorite plays on the board tonight. The Falcons have historically been bad against running back, especially ones that have pass catching abilities. Jones is second on the team in targets and third on the team in receptions. Only behind Adams and Lazard. This means Jones will be their leading pass catching that is going into this game healthy. Outside of week 2 Jones consistently has see the highest routes run on this backfield. Williams and Ervin both see around 10 routes run per game, so they could be used as leverage/troll touchdowns.
Todd Gurley: Gurley is in a tough spot and I may be looking at fading him tonight. Gurley hasn’t really shown many flashes of anything special this season which has led to increased usage and designs to get Hill and Smith into open space. The interesting thing about Gurley is that he isn’t really being targeted out of the backfield, which we were used to with him in LA. Outside of the first game Gurley has only two targets with one game having zero. Brian Hill has been used more consistently in the passing game with two targets a game. If Gurley was used in the passing game more than I would love him today. If we could combine his high touch count with targets then he would be a fantasy stud, but I can’t trust him enough to play him tonight with potential negative game script.
Packers Pass Catchers
The Packers situation is going to be an interesting one. Outside of the running backs who we rarely see pass block, and are added into a big part of the pass offense. We need to figure out who will be seeing the most work. The Packers continue to run 3 WR sets the least amount in the league. Weeks one and two they ran 3 WR sets 35% of the time, which was second lowest in the league, only in front of the Eagles. Last week was basically the same, running 3 WR sets 38% of the time. This means the most valuable guys on this team will be the RWR and LWR followed by the TE getting a lot of work in the passing game. We won’t see huge numbers out of slot WR Darius Shepard.
Marquez Valdez-Scantling: MVS should emerge as the main guy in this offense tonight, but he has a track record of letting us down with Adams out. He is second on the team in targets with 17, but is 4th on the team with with 8 Receptions and a team worst 47% reception%. He is also 6th worst out of 79 eligible WR with 10 targets or more through the first 3 weeks of the season. While the volume is there, there is no history of trust with Rodgers and has not played well enough to believe the trust has built up this season. What MVS does make up for is his deep ball. He is second in the league in targets over 20 air yards (9) through the first 3 weeks. He has seen 4 catchable balls and caught 3 of them. He is leading all WRs with at least 10 targets through the first 3 weeks in aDOT, with an average depth of target of 18.94 yards. He is 10th in the league in air yards this season with 313 air yards. If Rodgers deep ball is on tonight MVS could have a huge game. If not expect a bust performance from him. Depending on his projected ownership he will be a fade for me if he is above 50%. He is a high upside play but way too touchdown dependent at his salary. I prefer him on FD a lot more than DK tonight.
Robert Tonyan: Tonyan ran a route on 72 out of 121 passing plays this season, which is a route on 60% of all passing plays. He only has an 8% target share in this offense, but the one bright side is last week he last an 18% target share and TEs as a whole saw a 35% target share in this offense. Without the Packers top two receiving options, 36% of the total target share, we should see a lot of targets continue to get spread around.
Malik Taylor vs Darius Shepard: Last night DraftKings gifted us with the easiest value play ever. They forgot to raise Deebo Samuel’s from $200 so we could just plug and play him. Tonight, is a little tougher. The Packers are going to have to deal with another next man up situation. The Packers will be without Davante Adams and Allen Lazard. This leaving Taylor to fill their role on the outside. Shepard is going to be running slot for the Packers today but as I mentioned earlier in the segment, the Packers rarely run 3 WR sets, so we won’t see a ton of slot work from Shepard but he did run 40% of his routes on the outside as well. We will probably see a snap split between these two players. Both are good plays, it’s a tough choice who to decide between. Don’t change your lineup to fit one or the other.
Falcons Pass Catchers
Falcons have three main WRs who play a majority of the snaps on the team.
Calvin Ridley, who we will see run 92% of his routes on the outside and 8% in the slot. Him and Julio split time on the right and left sides of the field. Ridley has looked more like the number one receiver in this offense, which is a role we saw Julio have his whole career. Ridley has exceled this year mainly due to teams wanting to double team Julio. This leaves Ridley in single coverage rarely getting safety help over the top. This has caused Ridley to see a league high 559 air yards. Even without Julio or Gage last game he still was able to see a week high 250 air yards. Ridley seems to be on a mission to secure his name as a top 10 WR in the league this year. He is averaging just shy of 30 fantasy points per game on 11 targets and 7 receptions a game. He has been aided with receiving a 100-yard bonus in every game this season. Ridley will have a tough matchup, seeing Alexander 50% of the time. This should be an interesting story line to see who fairs better against this defense. Ridley or Jones. I am leaning Jones with the ownership leverage play.
Julio Jones, who runs 80% of his routes outside and 20% in the slot, him and Ridley split time on the right and left sides of the field. Julio has found success when he has to slide into the slot compared to playing outside. Tonight, will be a great time to take advantage of it again. Packers have outstanding corners on the outside, which could cause Julio some trouble. When he is able to run slot, he will have a 4-inch height difference and is much faster than Sullivan. When Julio gets lined up in the slot, he should have some big gains. He only sees 20% of his snaps from the slot, but these snaps can lead to some great mismatches. Julio has been targeted on 36% of his slot snaps. 5 catches for over 100 yards from the slot on 8 targets. Also 50% of his targets this year have come in the slot. Julio only sees a target on 13% of his routes run on the outside compared to being targeted 36% of his routes in the slot.
Russel Gage, the slot man, runs 80% of his routes in the slot and runs 20% of his snaps outside. Gage was hurt last game, but is good to go tonight. Gage is second on the team in targets with 23. He also was absent for a majority of the game last week against the Bears. Gage provides amazing upside at the mid-tier tonight and is an interesting cpt play if you want to get a little crazy. He is someone that is always overlooked but plays too big of a role in this offense to ignore him tonight. He only saw 12 snaps last week but still saw 3 targets before he went down with an injury. He should be considered a low owned leverage play tonight.
Coach’s Corner
We have one of the top MME (Mass Multi Entry) tournament players in the world joining Team Karma. Coach has been playing DFS showdown slates for years and has the 5 figure screenshots to show for it. He puts out a showdown video every Thursday and Monday Night as well. Make sure to check him out if you want more content for tonight.
