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 13. 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 49ers are 1-point favorites tonight against the Bills. With a 47.5-point game total.
Historical Matchup
Being out of conference opponents, the Bills will be going up against the 49ers for the first time since 2016. The last two games they played have not been close. With the winning team winning by an average of 35.5 and the favorite and the home team winning both times.
10/16/16: 49ers: 16 Bills: 45 49ers Spread: +7.5 O/U: 44.0
10/07/12: 49ers: 45 Bills: 03 49ers Spread: -10.0 O/U: 45.5
Quarterbacks
Josh Allen has been great this season but gets a tough 49ers defense that just got Richard Sherman back. Plus the loss of John Brown really hurts Allen’s production. Not having his full receiving core has posed challenges for him this season and this game shouldn’t be much different. In the three games Brown has missed, Allen is averaging 242.3 passing yards, has one passing touchdown and one interception per game as well. This would only equate to 12.7 FPPG. Luckily, he has some rushing upside to supplement his passing numbers. In those games, he averaged 37 rushing yards per game and had one rushing touchdown in those games. Raising his average to 18.4 FPPG. Compared to his 26.6 fantasy points per game with Brown in the lineup. Huge difference and against a tough defense, he doesn’t provide a ton of value tonight. You would be mainly playing him for his raw points.
Nick Mullens always surprises us with how well he can play for fantasy purposes. In general, a QB that faces the Bills averages 15 more passing yards a game. Only five QBs did not reach their average, one was due to the weather (Mahomes), one was due to a massive blowout (Tannehill), two were due to playing against running QBs (Newton and Murray) the last was Darnold because of the Jets. This game should stay close and force a big performance out of Mullens. Bills defense is known to give up a lot of yards to slot WRs and their QBs prosper from that. Teams that have a dominant slot WR that didn’t have weather issues or blowout game scripts, saw an increase in around 63.5 passing yards a game. This should help him reach his props and dominate in showdown formats. This boast for Mullens makes him one of my favorite plays on the board and the QB I will be using in the two-game slate tonight as well.
Running Backs
The running game in Buffalo hasn’t been strong this season at all. They have shown flashes of success but other than a few games, they just don’t look to produce in the ground game. Instead, they prefer to use Allen’s legs or give Devin Singletary and Zack Moss a couple of carries each and that is it. That doesn’t mean we can’t find value in the backfield on showdown slates. It is tough to get a read on these two guys though. They continue to go back and forth between and of course they are basically the same price. Since Moss returned from injury, he has been playing 10-20% more snaps than Singletary and neither is the true passing down back. We have seen them switch roles, in some games, Moss is running more routes, and in some games Singeltary is. The bonus you get from playing Moss, which is something you don’t get from Singletary is the RedZone/i5 usage. The table below should the breakdown of stats since Moss returned to full strength in week 7.
| Player | Targets | Receptions | Yards | Attempts | Yards | TDs | RZ Carries | i5 Carries | FPPG |
| Moss | 9 | 8 | 61 | 46 | 225 | 3 | 9 | 5 | 11 |
| Singletary | 13 | 10 | 72 | 39 | 213 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 7.7 |
As you can see there isn’t a ton of difference in their usage besides close to the goal line. That means that Moss has a lot more valuable touches than Singletary. The touchdown upside is way higher with Moss than Singletary as well. If Singeltary scores it is most likely from a long run or screen pass.
The 49ers’ running game gets a little interesting with everyone at full strength. They have four guys that they have consistently used in their running game. Raheem Mostert at $9,600 salary. Then you have three guys between $1,400 and $2,200; Tevin Coleman, Jeff Wilson Jr, and Jerrick Mckinnon. We know that Mostert will be the majority of looks as he does when he is healthy and that’s what the price differences are telling us. Mostert has been featured in four games while healthy. He received 53-68% of all the runningback carries in those games. This shows that the 49ers are still likely to use a back up running back to take around 30-40% of the carries. So there is value in the cheap guys. Last week we saw Wilson take almost 40% of the running back carries. While McKinnon saw the most routes run of all the RBs. Although, Coleman was not active during that game so we could see Coleman take Wilson’s attempts.
Bills Pass Catchers
With John Brown on the IR, Stefon Diggs stock goes way up. Unfortunately, he isn’t in such a great matchup tonight against a 49ers team that is getting much healthier as the season moves along. The 49ers got back Richard Sherman last week, for his second game of the season. Luckily for Diggs, Sherman doesn’t shadow WRs and only stays on the left side of the field. Diggs moves all around the field and never stays in one position for more than 50% of the snaps. So he will see Sherman for a little but not a ton. So don’t fade Diggs just because of Sherman.
Gabriel Davis is also way too cheap, with John Brown out. In games that Brown is out, he slides right into his role, and he’s a huge snap increase. In the three games Brown missed, Davis played 95% or more snaps in all three games. He also had at least three targets in those games and in two of his three games he went over 10 fantasy points.
With Cole Beasley lining up a majority of his snaps in the slot he should avoid the 49ers’ best defenders; Jason Verrett and Richard Sherman. Although, he is probably going to be an extremely popular play. I only want two pass catchers for the Bills. I am leaning toward running only Davis and Diggs. You can also throw in a TE for a potential RedZone touchdown.
49ers Pass Catchers
The 49ers pass catchers is always tough. You have a lot of YAC guys that can all get it done no matter how open they are. My favorite play of the three main pass catchers is Deebo Samuel. He is their best playmaker and gets the easiest matchup of the WRs, as he will be lined up in the slot for the majority of the game. The Bills have been getting killed in the slot and when Samuel is healthy he is the 49ers’ QBs favorite target. In games where Samuel played at least 80% of the snaps. He is averaging nine targets a game, including 13 last week. This equates to a 26% target share and only a 10% air yards share. Deebo is great after the catch and with how the Bills play man to man he could have a couple of opportunities to break a long touchdown.
We also have to look at the other two guys for the 49ers Bradon Aiyuk and Rickie James. I am expecting White to be on Aiyuk because he doesn’t travel much into the slot, he won’t be on Deebo at all. Even though Aiyuk is coming off back to back double-digit target games, I am not expecting huge production out of him tonight. White is one of the best corners in the league and shouldn’t let Aiyuk do a ton this game. James is always a wildcard to explode for a big game. After his huge 13 target, 180-yard game he only has 5 targets and 6 targets, while still playing close to 90% of snaps. He could be the forgotten gem tonight as he should avoid White.
