Joey’s MNF Showdown Throwdown
Hello DFS Grinders and welcome back to another installment of my Monday Night Football Showdown Throwdown article. Tonight we have a great NFC South matchup with the Saints taking on the Panthers.
Weather: The weather should be perfect tonight no precipitation no wind temperature in the mid 40s night perfect for a great rivalry game.
Vegas insight: 50.5 game total with the Saints favored by 6 points.
I wanted to mention something before we started the article. Showdown Slates are hard with a ton of variance. Depending on game flow one TD could ruin the entire slate. Or like we saw last week Derrick Henry could rush for 250 yards and 4 touchdowns. The importance of this slate is more roster construction and how you can optimize you lineup for fit the best players into your lineup. So that doesn’t mean just throwing who you think will be the best raw points scoring into the cpt spot on DK and going from there.
Value is one of the most important parts of Showdown slates and choosing CPTs. Choosing the right CPT is one of the most important decisions on the slate. Depending on if I value the studs and how many there are to choose from depending on my roster construction will go. If it is more important to have to have all the studs and stack QBs you want a cheap CPT but if you believe one guy is going to break the slate you want to prioritize him and put him in CPT.
Studs/MVP Candidates
There’s obviously some huge talent in this game that means we have to figure who the one we have to pay for.
Christian McCaffrey: If you are looking for the safest floor on the slate and maybe in the league look no further. Yes the matchup isn’t the best New Orleans has allowed 3.2 yards per carry and only 53 rushing yards per game to running backs both league lows. That’s not where McCaffrey makes all his fantasy noise. His presence in the passing game makes him one of the elite running backs in the league. The offense runs through him and with Greg Olsen out the team will need to rely on him even more. He’s not my favorite play to run in Cpt for DK because of him salary limits his value, but his raw points on a showdown slate makes him an elite flex play.
Both QBs: These QBs are both top fantasy QBs with huge upside. We could see this game get put on there hands tonight with both sides being great stopping the run. The rushing upside leads me to believe Cam is the safer choice and with the 2 headed monster in New Orleans Brees could have his touchdowns stolen. Both provide similar upside but we have seen the scary floor from Brees sometimes.
Michael Thomas: Him and Brees have had some kind of crazy connection this year. We have a nice game total tonight with plenty of opportunity to keep the scoring pace up. He is coming off a 13 target game and with Smith getting out on the back burner Thomas is back to his high volume high production games.
Middle Tier
DJ Moore: He’s one of my favorite plays of the Carolina WRs. (I have a little bias towards him because he was my favorite WR coming out of the draft class and he’s finally getting going). Moore has seen 8 targets in 4 straight games and the past 2 weeks has 10 total targets from the slot which is an area the Saints have struggled in. We should see him thrive here against a Saints defense who has been stepping it up the past couple weeks.
Ian Thomas: Last game with Greg Olsen done for the season, Thomas has really filed the roll nicely which limited Cmc’s role in the passing attack. He should come done after his 11 target 9 catch game where he was in an excellent matchup against Browns. This volume can’t go overlooked as we’ve seen in the past Newton has loved to target TE’s even with Olsen out. He is in a tough matchup with the Saints giving up the least amount of points to TEs this season and only 34 yards per game (yuck), but the TE skill they have faced hasn’t been extremely good so I don’t read too much into this. He’s actually one of my sneaky plays at cpt that will help open up this slate to add a ton of top plays. If he has a huge game you are in great shape.
Kickers/Defenses
I’m not a huge fan of kickers even though the game total is high enough to believe kickers will be involved, but the redzone defense and the 3rd down defenses both rank in the bottom half of the league.
Saints Defense has been playing great lately and we saw Cam try to carry this team. He ended up with some bad turnovers. We saw a couple weeks ago the Saints force a ton of turnovers vs the Falcons. If the Saints front 7 can get pressure on Cam he could end up in a bad spot.
Cheap Tier
Tre’Quan Smith: So this is a FD only play for me just based on pricing only. He priced at 6k which is basically min salary for FD Showdown slates. He’s been completely forgotten about in this offenses after exploding against the Eagles he’s only seen 2 targets in 2 games with a drop on one of those passes. The team hasn’t forgotten about him thoguh he’s been on the field over 70% of the snaps still. He could end up being the play you are kicking yourself about at the end of the game wondering why you didn’t play him at that price. I mentioned he was just a fanduel play because of price. This offense likes to spread the ball out with all these weapons and even Michael Thomas has been out on the side burner once or twice as others dominated.
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Monkey Knife Fight Bets
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Go long: 217.5 yards 2x DJ Moore, Christian McCaffrey, Michael Thomas. Yards over the past 3 games: 67, If Michael Thomas reaches the 100 you just need 58.5 between the 2 of Moore and McCaffrey. Moore is averaging 67 yards per game over the last 3 and McCaffrey has reached over 50 yards 7 times already this season. This should be one of the easier bets tonight.
Over/Under 13x: Brees: Over, Newton: Over, McCaffrey: Under, Kamara: Over, Thomas: Over. For those of you looking for the big pay day trying for 13x ROI these are my bets. I like the overs for all except McCaffrey rushing yards who is going up against a top notch Saints run defense. I think he is more involved in the passing game then rushing game.
