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 15. 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 Steelers are 14-point favorites tonight against the Bengals. With a 40.5-point game total.
Historical Matchup
The Steelers have won the last 10 meetings and are 7-2-1 ATS with the under hitting six out of the last ten times they played.
11/15/20: Steelers: 36 Bengals: 10 Steelers Spread: -6.5 O/U: 45.5
11/24/19: Steelers: 16 Bengals: 10 Steelers Spread: -6.0 O/U: 37.0
09/30/19: Steelers: 27 Bengals: 03 Steelers Spread: -3.5 O/U: 45.0
12/30/18: Steelers: 16 Bengals: 13 Steelers Spread: -14.0 O/U: 45.5
10/14/18: Steelers: 28 Bengals: 21 Steelers Spread: +1.5 O/U: 49.5
12/04/17: Steelers: 23 Bengals: 20 Steelers Spread: -4.5 O/U: 42.5
10/22/17: Steelers: 29 Bengals: 14 Steelers Spread: -4.0 O/U: 40.0
12/18/16: Steelers: 24 Bengals: 20 Steelers Spread: -3.0 O/U: 45.5
09/18/16: Steelers: 24 Bengals: 16 Steelers Spread: -3.0 O/U: 48.5
12/13/15: Steelers: 33 Bengals: 20 Steelers Spread: +1.0 O/U: 49.0
Over the last ten games for the Steelers when they have been double-digit road favorites. The under has hit nine times and they are 2-8 ATS.
Quarterbacks
Tonight, the NFL will be featuring one proven potential Hall Of Fame resume QB for the Steelers and someone in their second season with three starts under their belt. This is the main reason we saw a change from a one-touchdown spread the first time they played compared to tonight’s game where there is a two-touchdown spread.
Ben Roethlisberger has had an interesting season this year coming off Tommy John Surgery. Big Ben is averaging 7.3 air yards per pass attempts; making him have one of the lowest aDOT’s in the league. This has led to the WRs having a high reception floor but lowering their big plays and yards accumulated. Ben also is second in the league with 40 pass attempts per game, only trailing Justin Herbert who is almost half his age. This low aDOT and high pass attempts have led to him seeing only 0.45 fantasy points per dropback. This is partly due to the lack of running game for the Steelers. They really haven’t had a serviceable running game since week 8. So, Big Ben is forced to throw short passes even in a positive game script. He is the safest play on the board and you can run a great stack with him and a couple of WRs; avoiding the running game. I normally don’t like stacking the passing attack for the heavy favorites, but if the Steelers can’t get anything going on the ground again they will be forced to throw.
Ryan Finley doesn’t have many starts under his belt and still has not seen a 200-yard passing game in his career. Finley has not really had success through the air in his only three starts but his legs do intrigue me. He had two games of 20+ yards on the ground. This raises his ceiling compared to normal backups that rarely get to see the field. The Steelers have had issues as heavy road favorites. They are 2-8 ATS as double-digit road favorites over the last 10 years, so this game could be closer than we expect. Finley is one of the cheapest QBs you will ever see as a starter in a showdown slate. He is worth a shot but could easily just get you single-digit fantasy numbers so be careful.
| Passing | Rushing | ||||||||||||
| Opp | Cmp | Att | Cmp% | Yds | TD | Int | Rate | Y/A | AY/A | Att | Yds | Y/A | TD |
| BAL | 16 | 30 | 53.33 | 167 | 1 | 1 | 66.9 | 5.57 | 4.73 | 5 | 22 | 4.4 | 0 |
| OAK | 13 | 31 | 41.94 | 115 | 0 | 1 | 39 | 3.71 | 2.26 | 3 | 47 | 15.67 | 0 |
| PIT | 12 | 26 | 46.15 | 192 | 1 | 0 | 84.1 | 7.38 | 8.15 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 0 |
| AVG | 13.7 | 29 | 47.13 | 158 | 2 | 2 | 62.1 | 5.45 | 4.87 | 3 | 26 | 7.7 | 0 |
Running Backs
I touched on this in Big Ben’s section but the running game for the Steelers has been extremely inconsistent. James Conner just isn’t producing as he did earlier in the year. He did miss some time due to covid and as a cancer survivor, you could believe that he is dealing with the lasting effects that some players have faced coming back from covid. During weeks 2-7, Conner was averaging 88.4 rushing yards 0.8 touchdowns, 2.6 receptions, and 20.8 receiving yards. Playing 63% or more of the snaps every game Since then, his fantasy stock has plummeted. From Weeks 8-14, he is averaging 42.4 rushing yards, 0.2 touchdowns, 2 receptions, and 6.6 receiving yards per game over that stretch. He was third in the league in rushing yards with three 100-yard games averaging 18.2 fantasy points per game, averaging 0.35 fantasy points/snap, and 0.90 fantasy points per touch. From Weeks 8-14, he is averaging 8.0 fantasy points per game, 0.20 fantasy points per snap, and 0.58 fantasy points per touch. This included one great game against Jacksonville. The matchups haven’t been worse, they actually have been better over this time. He is just someone I will be fading for the rest of the season.
On the other side of the ball, the Bengals have started to look at a timeshare between Samaje Perine and Gio Bernard. Even Though Gio is the better back and they are paying him way too much money. The Bengals are giving Perine extra run late in the season. Last week against Dallas was the first week Perine out-snapped Bernard after an early fumble moved Gio to the bench. Actually, Trayveon Williams. This is another backfield I will probably be avoiding, because will Gio stay benched and give Williams and Perine the node, or does Gio get back into the high snaps he was seeing with a high target ceiling in a projected losing effort to the Steelers. Basing it on the pricetags, I would much rather take the chance on Williams or Perine instead of Gio.
Steelers Pass Catchers
The Steelers pass-catchers lack the big play upside that we like in showdown slates. As well as, Big Ben’s lack of aDOT has led to consistent high reception low yards numbers for these guys. leading to the spiderman meme between Juju Smith-Schuster and Diontae Johnson. Although, I will always lean Johnson over Juju when deciding between these two guys. Before last week where he was benched for dropping the ball, Johnson saw double-digit targets in six of their last seven games. While Juju has only had three games of double-digit targets, he makes up for it with his touchdown upside. Chase Claypool is the big body RedZone target that is used to find a way to score when they are having trouble getting in the endzone. He can get in done on an end-around or a fade in the endzone.
Eric Ebron quietly had another great season for the Steelers. Although, he is not leading all TEs and second in the league in touchdowns with 15 as he did in 2018 with the Colts. He is still seventh in targets, 13th in yards and touchdowns, sixth in RedZone targets among all TEs. The Bengals have struggled against TEs all season, allowing the fifth most DK points to TEs, the most targets per game, and the most yards per game. Ebron should have an easy time carving through this defense.
Since Week 9:
| RZ Tar | RZ Rec | RZ TDs | EZ Tar | EZ TDs | |
| Chase | 12 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Juju | 10 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| DJ | 9 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Ebron | 11 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Washington | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 2 |
Bengals Pass Catchers
How do we sort through these pass catchers when the Bengals probably won’t pass for over 200 yards? You need to get this play right because volume won’t bail you out. When a new QB comes in to play it is hard to know their tendencies, so you can’t just use past performances to predict future volume. Finley has 19 attempts on the season. Both passes last week went to Tyler Boyd, the other two dropbacks he had he was sacked. The previous week, he had 7 pass attempts, resulting in; two targets for Gio, one for Tee Higgins, two to Drew Sample, and two to Alex Erickson. The week before that he had 10 pass attempts, resulting in; 4 targets to Higgins, 2 targets to A.J Green, 2 to Boyd, and 2 to Sample. He was also sacked seven times in his 27 DBs. At this 26% rate, the Steelers defense should dominate this game. Just based on matchups, Boyd has the easiest matchup, followed by Higgins and Green, but all will be facing top corners. So take your pick and take your chance.
