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 12. Let’s cap off the week with tons of green on this Monday Night Football slate! 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. If you haven’t signed up for the prop sites that we are partnered with, check them out! Monkeyknifefight and Prizepicks, Promo code: KARMA, have been around for a couple of years and are continuously growing in size and being available in more and more states. If you have further questions about the sites hop in our DISCORD and message me. Our NFL Core plays package includes access to all of the expert’s NFL Prop plays! What are you waiting for? Join KARMA NATION today!
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 fewer 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 Seahawks are 6.5-point favorites tonight against the Eagles. With a 49-point game total.
Historical Matchup
The Seahawks will be going up against the Eagles for the 5th time this decade. They have dominated this matchup in every game. They are 5-0 during that stretch, as well as, 5-0 ATS. The over is 1-4 during this stretch too.
11/24/19: Seahawks: 17 Eagles: 09 Seahawks Spread: -2.0 O/U: 45.5
12/03/17: Seahawks: 24 Eagles: 10 Seahawks Spread: +3.5 O/U: 46.5
11/20/16: Seahawks: 26 Eagles: 15 Seahawks Spread: -6.5 O/U: 43.0
12/07/11: Seahawks: 24 Eagles: 14 Seahawks Spread: -1.5 O/U: 48.0
12/01/11: Seahawks: 31 Eagles: 14 Seahawks Spread: +3.0 O/U: 43.5
Quarterbacks
Possible Benching?
The Philly media has been chastizing Carson Wentz all season with his horrid play. This criticism has been warranted with how bad Wentz has been this season. I’m not even sure this Eagles team got more than a year’s worth of love that teams normally receive after winning the super bowl. Local media usually gives a team a break if they win the super bowl, but that isn’t the case in Philly. They have been calling for Wentz to be benched for a couple of weeks now and they finally might be getting what they want.
Even with those rumors, Wentz still isn’t an awful play in a matchup like this, mainly because it is the perfect get right spot for the down QB. With all these rumors of Jalen Hurts getting snaps, this could cause lower ownership on Wentz than he should have. Making him an amazing leverage play. The safer option would be getting exposure to the pass catchers instead, in case of a benching.
The Seahawks have been one of the worst teams defending QBs. They allow a league-high, 27.8 DK fantasy points to QBs, allowing 355 passing yards per game and 1.8 touchdowns. QBs have thrived against the Seahawks and if there is any spot for Wentz to have a good game, here is the one. They also allow the 4th most yards per play, with 6.0. The Seahawks also allow points on 47% of their drives, which is the 7th worst in the league.
Back in the MVP Conversation?
Russell Wilson’s MVP stock has been slipping the past couple of weeks. Wilson has really struggled since the bye. Sometimes those bye weeks come at the worst times and really throw off the season. Before the bye, the Seahawks were 5-0, while Wilson was averaging 300.4 passing yards, 3.8 touchdowns, and only 0.8 turnovers per game, adding 30.6 rushing yards as well to his totals. Equating to a little over 30 fantasy points per game. Since the bye week, the Seahawks are 2-3, while Wilson is averaging 296.8 passing yards, 2.2 touchdowns, 2.0 turnovers, adding 42.8 rushing yards per game. Equating to 23 fantasy points per game. As we can see his passing yards haven’t taken a huge hit, but his fantasy points are down over 7 points per game. This doesn’t really hurt the pass catchers but does hurt him.
One thing to note is with a fully healthy running back squad, Russ will take a hit to his rushing upside. While his splits make it seem like he does not, mainly due to his 84 yard rushing game in Arizona back in week 7. He has seen more consistent numbers without them. He also lost 5-6 passing attempts per game, mainly seeing a usage rate drop in those games. With Carson back, the offense should run a lot more smoothly and become less predictable. This should help Russ throw a lot more efficiently, at the cost of volume and game script.
Running Backs
Value outside of Sanders?
The running backs for the Eagles have been annoying since Miles Sanders returned to the active roster two weeks ago. Sanders is commanding 75% of the RB touches, but both running back touchdowns have not been from him. Instead, Boston Scott and Corey Clement have trolled us. Clement was the more random touchdown of the two, but Scott has been involved in around 20% of the snaps and is getting some usage, making him a fine GPP play for leverage.
The Seattle run defense shouldn’t be something that is overlooked because of how bad their pass defense is. Teams committed to the run, see more success on the ground than they do in the air. Seattle is the second-worst team in yards allowed before first contact. They are allowing 2.50 rushing yards before first contact, trailing only Dallas with 2.92 rushing yards before first contact. They are also allowing the second-most rushes inside the 5, while allowing a touchdown on 46% of those rushing attempts.
What does Carson’s return mean?
Seahawks fans can rejoice as they get Chris Carson back into their starting lineup. They have definitely missed his production over the last couple of weeks. Although, we have to look at, what does this mean for fantasy? We will see everyone outside of Carlos Hyde, will lose their fantasy relevance tonight. Even Hyde at $7,000 becomes a fade for me. He should still get touches, but not enough for his salary unless he finds his way into the endzone. Hyde was playing 30% of the snaps when both players were healthy, so there is a path to success if Carson isn’t 100% and Hyde splits carries with him more than normal.
Carson was playing like one of the best fantasy running backs this season. Hopefully, he will be overlooked in this matchup as the passing game generates more attention. Prior to the bye week, Carson was RB5 on the season, averaging 20 fantasy points per game, tied for the lead league for running backs in receiving touchdowns, on top of his three rushing touchdowns as well. 10% of his rushing attempts came inside the 5. Carson was also second in the league, only behind Alvin Kamara, with 0.56 points per snap, and 1.22 points per touch. He was one of the fantasy hidden gems to start the season and he could get right back to that production tonight.
Seahawks Pass Catchers
Lockett vs Metcalf
This is where everyone, including myself, struggles with. It doesn’t matter who has the better matchup, the decision between DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett is always a tough one. Most of the time you have an idea who will go off based on matchups and defensive scheme, but that isn’t always a set in stone answer.
Normally Lockett is the more consistent player getting touches and looks, and Metcalf is more of the big play waiting to happen in this offense. Shown by Vegas odds projecting Lockett and Metcalf both at 5.5 receptions, but Lockett is a heavy favorite for the over and Metcalf is the heavy favorite for the under.
Metcalf has the tougher matchup, more than likely see a majority of his snaps covered by Darius Slay, who is the best corner on their team, and one of the more underrated corners in the league. While Lockett, who sees a lot of routes in the slot, will be matched up against Nickel Robey Coleman. Who is one of the worst slot corners in the league. Even though Lockett has an easier matchup, Metcalf is still a better WR than Slay is a corner. So we could see MEtcalf get plenty of separation on Slay and come up with a couple of chunk plays.
Hollister or Dissly
The Seahawks lost their starting TE, Greg Olsen, last week, leaving the starting job open for either Will Dissly or Jacob Hollister to take over that work. Dissly has had success with Wilson in the past. Prior to this season, when Dissly received 50% or more of the offensive snaps for the Seahawks, he averaged 5 targets, 3.75 receptions, 51 yards, and 0.75 touchdowns per game. Dissly should see an increase in snaps and targets tonight.
The Eagles have also been awful against TEs this season. They have allowed 14.9 fantasy points per game, ranking 6th worst in the league.
Eagles Pass Catchers
Travis Fulgham has been a diamond in the rough for the Eagles this team. It seems like they found their new number one guy. Even though I am sure most Eagles fans thought, Jalen Raeger was going to take that role, when they selected him in the first round, one pick before Justin Jefferson. Since Hurts is getting a lot of first-team reps in practice, this shouldn’t affect the WRs production with a QB change. Unlike what we have seen in the past, when the backup comes in sometimes he doesn’t have a connection with first-stringers. This shouldn’t be an issue tonight.
The Seahawks are allowing the most fantasy points to WRs this season, so we want to get some exposure to these guys tonight. Fulgham has been the WR1 on this team, followed by Raeger, with Greg Ward seeing the majority of the slot routes. While Fulgham and Raeger see the field on 99% of the passing downs, Ward only plays about 66% but gets high valued slot routes. Fulgham is just way too cheap for this slate, and no reason not to be priced above $7000. I don’t expect the Eagles to be winning much in this game unless they start with the ball and score on their first possession. So we should see a perfect game script for these WRs.
Even though the Seahawks have been getting killed by WRs this season, that doesn’t mean they are amazing at defending TEs. They just happen to be so bad against WRs and they haven’t played many top TEs to show that they are also bad against TEs. The Seahawks are honestly bad defending every position. They do have star strong safety Jamal Adams, but the Seahawks are so bad at applying pressure to the opposing QB, they use him as an extra pass rusher. This exposes a ton of holes in their defense. Which Carson Wentz will either thrive on or get benched because the pressure causes him to have a couple of sacks and turn the ball over.
Dallas Goedert is one of my favorite plays on the slate. Goedert continues to see massive usage in the passing game with Zach Ertz still out. Even though Seattle appears to be one of the better teams in the league at defending TEs, they really aren’t. In games where teams actually use TEs, they are averaging 6.3 targets, 3.5 receptions, 52 yards per game, with only one touchdown in six games. This including a 3 target, 1 reception, 15 yard game from Mike Gesicki, a player that went on a stretch of not being used in the offense. They really just haven’t allowed many touchdowns to TEs, which is something that is very random and should regress soon.
