What’s up Karma Nation! We are back with another season of my Showdown Throwdown article. We had success last year targeting these showdown slates so here’s to another profitable year! 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.
Vegas Totals
The Browns are a 6-point favorite tonight against the Bengals. With a 43-point game total.
Tonight is the battle of Ohio. These teams have a track record of being awful but hopefully with the young QBs that they can hopefully turn these franchises around. I’m expecting the under to hit with the Browns covering. Rookie QB on a short week in his first primetime game is not what I want to bet on.
Quarterbacks
Joe Burrow: The number one pick had a decent debut last Sunday against the Chargers. Putting up 193 passing yards (70 of those yards came on the final possession), 46 rushing yards including one 23 yard scramble for a touchdown, and one interception. Burrow had to go up against one of the better defenses in the league but gets a similar matchup tonight. Browns don’t have an amazing defense but it is good enough to make Burrow have some troubles tonight. Burrow faced a pressure on 38% of all drop backs which was 7th worst according to PFF. He had a bottom third completion %, passing rating, and sack % while under pressure. Burrow is going to have to deal with Myles Garrett tonight, who had a league leading 17% pressure %. He should have great game script tonight but it will come with a struggle to get anything going. If you play him hope for a big second half but we could easily see him struggle all game.
Baker Mayfield: Mayfield struggled a ton in his first game of the season, which we all expected against the Ravens amazing defense. There is a huge difference between a defense like the Ravens and the Bengals. Baker should have a much easier time tonight. He has the highest ceiling on the slate, with an expected bounceback performance. Even though the projected game script isn’t in Bakers favor this game should stay in neutral game script for a majority of the game which will still lead to a lot of passing. I don’t want to play him as a CPT but I love him in the MVP spot and Flex on DK.
Runningbacks
Both teams tonight will feature runningbacks and back up running backs that are very playable.
Browns Backs: There were question marks going into this season on whether Chubb would have first round pick production or will Hunt take over as the passing down back and take too much usage away from Chubb. We saw in 2019 that Hunt was really taking over as the lead fantasy back on the team. Since Hunt came back from his suspension last season, Hunt has lead the RB fantasy production on his team. 6 out of 8 weeks in 2019 and last week we saw Hunt beat out Chubb scoring more fantasy points than him again. You can easily play both of these backs tonight and I can see a case where both are top 3 fantasy scorers in this game.
Bengals Backs: While Mixon is the true ball carrier on this team, don’t count out Gio Bernard for fantasy production. He has always been around to catch balls for the Bengals and I expect him to be involved in the offense again tonight as the Bengals should be playing from behind. I’m not expecting a huge game from Mixon, so if I’m playing him I’m either expecting a touchdown from him or gets lucky and breaks a couple big runs.
Pass Catchers
We could go in depth for every pass catcher on these teams but these are my favorite players on both teams. This gives you a pay up guy and a cheap guy to plug and play. Other pass catchers are definitely in play but these two are guys I’m trying to target in over 50% of my lineups.
Odell Beckham Jr: Odell saw 10 targets last game and only caught 4 of them. I‘m hopping recency bias will keep people off him tonight because he is an amazing play. He saw 10 targets even though he didn’t see his first target until the Browns 4th possession of the game. If they can get Odell going early, which they should, the Browns should roll over the Bengals tonight led by an Odell ceiling game of 8+ catches 100+ yards and a touchdown.
John Ross: What surprised me the most about the Bengals offense is that John Ross saw the most snaps out of all WRs for the Bengals. Even though he saw 2 catches, he did see 5 targets giving him a 13.8% target share. While that isn’t that much, at only 5.2k he is just way too cheap for the ceiling he offers.
Defense/Kickers
Defenses and Kickers are always over looked in showdowns but they are very much in play tonight. I love the Browns defense tonight against a young QB on the road in his first primetime game. This isn’t going to be a usual primetime game environment because of Covid, but the Browns are allowing 6000 fans into the arena tonight. At least the stadium won’t be empty. That little fan noise should still get to Burrow tonight. A primetime game is still a primetime game with everyone watching at home.
Kickers are in play as well. I love kickers in a low scoring game. I love the under tonight so that means I love the kickers. We could see both teams capped at only 2 touchdowns tonight which will limit the ceiling of a lot of these guys so that means that 6-10 point value you get from a kicker means a lot. If the game does stay low scoring and you nail the touchdown calls defense and kicker can bring you to the top of the leaderboards easily.
Captains’ Corner
There are plenty of ways to go tonight at captain. Usually in projected low scoring games I avoid the QB CPT play. Yes, it is still the safer play because you should be able to be involved in a majority of the team’s touchdowns but it really caps your ceiling because if a QB sees only one or two touchdowns he is rarely the highest scorer on the slate. At the price we have to pay for QBs, I’m expecting them to score at least 5 points more than the highest scoring skill position. It’s fine for cash but to take down a GPP it’s not the right move. On Fanduel where the salary isn’t scaled up when you pick your MVP I still love playing Baker tonight, but on DK you are looking for the best value, which just isn’t going to be a QB if the game goes how vegas says it will. A lot of these low scoring games you are guessing the touchdown. It sucks saying that but that extra 6-point boast or 9 point in the CPT spot just means so much in a game like this.
Browns CPTs:
- Nick Chubb
- Will dominate game script
- Kareem Hunt
- High catch ceiling, while playing similar snaps to Chubb
- Odell Beckham
- High chance to score while being a PPR monster
- Browns Defense
- Projected low scoring game with high turnover and sack ceiling due to game script and rookie QB.
Bengals CPTs:
- John Ross
- Game script in his favor.
- CJ Uzomah
- I know some of you guys like your crazy plays. We all remember the old saying TEs vs the Browns. Well we saw what Andrews did last week let’s see if CJ can put up a Touchdown tonight as well.
