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 6. Let’s start off week 7 with tons of green on this Thursday Night Football slate! Make sure if you haven’t, 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.
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 less 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 Eagles are 4.5-point favorites tonight against the Giants. With a 44.5-point game total. There has been some line movement this morning. The Cowboys opened at 2.5-point underdogs, which has now moved to 1-point favorites. The over/under opened at 54 and has moved to 55 points.
Historical Matchup
The Eagles and Giants have been going at it for years. They are divisional rivals so we know there is a lot of bad blood between them. The Eagles have beat the Giants in 9 out of their last 10 meetings. The lone win for the Giants comes in 2016 at home. They are 5-5 against the spread and the games have gone over 70% of the time.
12/29/19: Giants: 17 Eagles: 34 Giants Spread: +3.5 O/U: 44.5
12/09/19: Giants: 17 Eagles: 23 Giants Spread: +9.5 O/U: 45.0
11/25/18: Giants: 22 Eagles: 25 Giants Spread: +5.0 O/U: 49.5
10/11/18: Giants: 13 Eagles: 34 Giants Spread: +1.5 O/U: 45.5
12/17/17: Giants: 29 Eagles: 34 Giants Spread: +7.5 O/U: 40.5
09/24/17: Giants: 24 Eagles: 27 Giants Spread: +5.0 O/U: 41.5
12/22/16: Giants: 19 Eagles: 24 Giants Spread: +1.0 O/U: 42.5
11/06/16: Giants: 28 Eagles: 23 Giants Spread: -3.0 O/U: 42.5
01/03/16: Giants: 30 Eagles: 35 Giants Spread: -3.5 O/U: 50.5
10/19/15: Giants: 07 Eagles: 27 Giants Spread: +3.5 O/U: 50.5
Quarterbacks
The Quarterback situation in Philly has been up and down this season. We continue to get rumors and Philly sports reporters trying to get Carson Wentz replaced, in order to try out their second-round pick, Jalen Hurts. Hurts was the 5th QB off the board and if we continue to see Wentz struggle this season, we could potentially see Hurts start a game. Luckily, Wentz should be able to get a free win tonight against a struggling Giants team. Wentz currently ranks 17th in the league in passing yards with 1401, but ranks second in the league in air yards with 2152. This is a difference of almost 800. Only half the QBs in the league have a positive number, and the next highest QB only has a difference of 500, Joe Burrow. Wentz is able to get the ball out of his hands, but hasn’t produced much from what his potential could be. Wentz is due for a big game, while the Giants aren’t the worst defense, this is a great spot to get right.We saw last week the Giants gave up almost 300 yards to Kyle Allen.
Daniel Jones is maybe surprisingly one of my favorite plays on the slate tonight. I don’t always like forcing both QBs in my main lineup on a small slate, but I might tonight. Jones will be playing against projected negative game script. However, the Eagles defense, while only allowing 253 passing yards per game to opposing QBs, give up 11th most fantast points per game to Quarterbacks. They also give up the 6th most rushing yards per game to QBs. This is how Jones sets himself apart from other QBs putting up mediocre numbers. Jones ranks third among QBs in rushing yards. Over 50% of his yards are on designed runs, so not only is he scrambling, the Giants are designing plays to get his legs involved too. I wouldn’t play Jones on a Thurs-Mon slate of games, but I love him tonight in showdowns for his rushing upside. One thing you have to worry about is the turnovers for Jones, especially when he will most likely be playing from behind. We could see some dumb moves from Jones, like we have seen in the past, that makes the Eagles defense very interesting tonight.
Running Backs
Mile Sanders is out for the Eagles so we will see guys need to step up to take his role. Boston Scott seems to get the largest bump out of all the backs, which is part of the reason he receives the largest bump in salary. Scott has proven he can get involved in the passing game and running game and be a productive back. He is a little pricey for me, but on the slate, you can really play anyone, he is a great play tonight. The Giants give up the 13th most fantasy points to RBs, and one of eight teams that give up more than 50 receiving yards to backs in the league.
Devonta Freeman has taken the reigns as the main back for the NY Giants, since Saquan Barkely went down with an ACL tear. Since they signed Freeman in week 3, he has dominated the usage in the running game, with 75% of the rushing attempts, and 40% of the target share among of the running backs. Wayne Gallman and Dion Lewis also have some value in this offense, but not much outside of a showdown slate like this. Lewis also has a 40% target share among backs, which could be needed in projected negative game script. He did not play that many snaps and did not run that many routes in the game last week against Washington, they were winning, but I assume they go right back to losing this game. Gallman will get you at most five carries outside of an injury from Freeman. If you are looking for some salary relief, I don’t mind Lewis at $1,600, if your lineup is going off negative game script for the Giants.
Eagles Pass Catchers
The Eagles are injured all over this offense and will be dealing with players they never would have believed would be the starter in week 6. The Eagles will be without Zach Ertz and Miles Sanders, who have really been the focal point of their bad offense outside of Fulgham. They will also be without Alshon Jeffrey, Dallas Goedert, and Jalen Reagor for another game. They will be without what was believed to be their top 5 options in their offense today. So, who will they be with tonight? Desean Jackson and Travis Fulgham will be starting on the outside, with Greg Ward filling in the slot, and Richard Rodgers sliding in to the TE position. John Hightower was extremely involved in the passing game last week; he led the league in air yards with 207. He also had a 34.5 aDOT, ranking him 4th for the week. Unfortunately, Hightower will be the odd man out with Jackson back. Fulgham has been playing too well to slide to the bench and Ward plays the slot. Luckily for us he is cheap enough to still consider in your player pool mainly due to being such a deep threat. Even though his snaps will be way down, if he keeps a similar aDOT to his season numbers, 5th in the league at 18.8 aDOT on the season, he can still reach value on a couple deep targets.
Giants Pass Catchers
The Giants have been one of the least fantasy friendly offenses this season, even though they have the talent to make some noise in the fantasy world. Despite the irrelevance in fantasy, one player has been able to power through and is currently WR20 on the season. Darius Slayton has been the only bright spot in the offense this season. Hauling in 25 catches on 42 targets, for 406 yards and 508 air yards, which ranks 7th in the league. Despite Daniel Jones only throwing three touchdown passes on the season, Darius Slayton is currently third in the league in targets in the end zone with six, hauling in all three of Jones’ passing touchdowns on the season. He has 41% of the red zone targets and 100% of the end zone targets. He is really is the only one Jones looks for in the red zone and end zone, so I expect this number to stay consistent this season.
Eventually the coach has the realize he has one of the best TEs in the league; Evan Engram. Engram just hasn’t been involved in the passing game like we have seen in years past. Engram is seeing similar red zone numbers as he did last year, but one of the glaring issues is, he just isn’t seeing the same targets he did last year. He is seeing barely over five targets a game, where last year he saw over eight a game. However, he is seeing an 18% target share, while last year he had a 22% target share. We are all still waiting for that game he explodes and this is the perfect time for him to do it. The Eagles have struggled to cover the middle of the field all year, giving up 11.7 fantasy points per game to TE. This ranks 4th in the league, giving up 6.2 receptions, 62.8 yards, and one touchdown a game on average. This seems like a slate where you can be comfortable playing Engram on both sites. Philly also gives up top 10 yards to players in the slot and top 5 receptions to slot. The slot is where we mainly see Golden Tate.
