NFL - Ravens vs. Bengals Showdown Preview
Wow does it feel good to be back providing content to the amazing community that I tirelessly worked to serve over the last few years. I took some time off to focus on some personal things and am finally feeling ready to return. This time there is no money grab or attempt to “buy your services”. I just want to do this for me because at the end of the day I started this to provide free content that I think can help others. It is as simple as that. I think I got lost in trying to make Heating Up a business like some of the other big Daily Fantasy websites when I should have just done what brought me success from the beginning.
I need to revive the community and rebuild from the bottom up. The old Heating Up server had nearly 800 users and only 40-50 were ever active. I want to rebuild that with those that truly just want to have a place to go to talk sports and win some money through having each other’s backs and helping everyone out. This is more than just me… it is about US so come join us today!
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Showdown Theory is truly one of the last things that I think still has a massive edge in the Daily Fantasy community. Most main slates have pretty much become “whoever pays the most for their picks/optimizers/simulations” wins all the top prizes with only the top 1% reaping the rewards every week. While there might not be as many combinations for SD, there is still an edge to be had and I want to take advantage of that. For the NFL Showdown Slates, pricing on all of the players puts almost everyone into a certain “bucket” or tier where you essentially have to play the top scoring guy from each tier to have a chance. I think breaking each Showdown slate into those tiers and targeting the correct guys from each can result in some serious leverage.
You can gain leverage in Showdown a few different ways, but the main three are as follows
Play the ownership game: Find the lower owned pieces and play them.
Modified Roster Construction: Play the “chalk” but in ways the field might not be playing them.
Burn Salary: Don’t use all $50,000 of the salary allotted to you and waste a good amount to get different.
In Showdown the vast majority of the industry does pretty much the same thing. Watch videos from the sharps of the industry (Stokastic, Run Pure, ETR, ShipIt Nation, Pat Mayo, etc.) and form biases based on who they like. Usually the entire industry likes certain players so their ownership skyrockets. This forms pockets players with hyper inflated ownership (called Chalk) where others go under owned and become great leverage. Finding just one pivot from a chalky ownership player to an under owned player can be the difference in splitting the pot with 100+ and just 10-15 people in Showdown. That is what we want to capitalize on with these articles. Identify the chalk and find pivots in each pricing tier to help solidify leverage.
At the end of the day, the one thing you certainly will want to do is always construct your Showdown lineup in a way that fits some sort of narrative. Don’t play all the WRs and no QB. Don’t play 3-4 RBs and then both QBs. Neither of those things will ever correlate enough to make its way to the top and win a GPP. If you CPTN a QB, unless it is Lamar, Hurts or Fields, run it back with 1-2 receiving options because for a QB to be optimal they need to score likely 20+ DK points and for them to do that they have to throw to someone. There are tons of other scenarios, but make your lineup make sense!
Disclaimer: These articles are not intended to be picks. Please don’t take all my leverage plays and throw them in a lineup. That is almost a guaranteed to end in losing money. The field creates chalk for a reason. They are usually great plays and should be played, but not played all together unless you are playing cash games (50/50s and double ups) only. This is specifically written for tournaments, but can still be applied to cash games by focusing more on the chalk plays. At the end of the day, you are the one clicking submit on your lineups so please no hate if the analysis doesn’t end in winning you money every night.
With that being said, let’s take a look at my favorite Captain Picks, a breakdown of all relevant players that might get touches in this game and how we can leverage the chalk in ways to still have a optimal chance at coming in 1st place!
Captain Picks
We finally have a quality prime time game to showcase and boy does it feel good. We have a fairly close spread with a growing implied total which lends to more scoring. Looking at the metrics, the Bengals allow a ton of yards and offensive production against them which makes me lean towards a Raven CPTN. It isn’t often you get a SD slate where Mark Andrews ($13,200 CPTN) is the 5th highest priced option. Usually he is a top 4 option and is playing right up to his own standards this season. Prior to last week against a great Browns defense, he had double digit DK points in all but 1 game this season. The Bengals not only have allowed the 8th most pass yards/game this season, but they also have allowed the 3rd most TE DK points/game. This could be the spot that Andrews really goes off with all the stats in his favor. Next up would have to be Zay Flowers ($11,400 CPTN) who outside of the Seahawks game where they didn’t have to do anything he has had 4 straight 6+ target games. At some point the TD regression has to come with only 1 TD on the season. This Bengals defense is just bad and I see no reason that Flowers can’t take advantage of the porous secondary. Lastly, looking at the other side of the field, Tyler Boyd ($10,200 CPTN) should not be this cheap coming off of a 22 DK point game without Tee Higgins in a trailing script where Burrow might just have to throw. The Ravens defense is good no doubt, but I can’t fathom the Bengals would just get bludgeoned to the point no one on this offense produces. His matchup out of the slot sucks against Kyle Hamilton, but with no Tee they will likely move people around often and Marlon Humphrey is doubtful which could lead to the Ravens moving guys around as well. Boyd just has a completely different role when Tee is out and is really boosts his upside. There are other options for sure like the studs also fit the CPTN narrative. I just like those three the most.
Ravens
The Ravens are 3 point favorites at home with a 24.25 point implied team total. This offense is smoking hot with 30+ points in 4 straight games and now they face a statistically poor defense that allows the 3rd most yards/game. Lamar Jackson ($10,800) hasn’t been asked to do too much lately with the run game being so dominate and some blowout scripts really lending to more of a rushing script anyways. With a closer spread and an opposing offense that can push them could and should unlock Jackson in all facets. If there is some concern for his upside and the ownership comes in slight suppressed, I will be likely locking him in. The upside is way too high to pass up. Yes you will have some lows but he is way too good of a fantasy QB to have a 4th straight under 20 DK point performance when we know there are 30+ spots coming soon and tonight could be the spot. All the stats align for him to have a massive game. He has the passing weapons to target like Zay Flowers ($7,600) and Mark Andrews ($8,800) who I talked about above. Everything also points to them have big games so I would try to pair Lamar with atleast one of these guys (if not both). The secondary guys like Rashod Bateman ($4,800) and Odell Beckham Jr. ($5,200) will also get plenty of opportunities with OBJ having a bit higher ceiling lately. I want to like Bateman, but man is it frustrating to see him just do the same thing every week. He gets 3-5 targets, doesn’t put up a ton of yards and is virtually invisible in the red zone. If I lose because he finally has a big game so be it but I can’t keep trying to defend him. I was big truther and I just can’t keep going to him in SDs. At least OBJ gets some redzone targets. He has back to back games with a TD and has 4+ targets in 6 of the last 7 games. Do I like chasing TDs from a guy that is 4th in terms of WR snaps? Not really which is why I am leery of going to him. However, this offense seems to be wanting to try to get him the ball right now. The guy that most likely will get forgotten about is Nelson Agholor ($800) who is running on about 45% of the snaps out of the slot mostly. He doesn’t get targeted too often with no more than 2 targets in any of the last 4 games. However, the scripts have been weird in most of those games and prior to that stretch where they were more competitive he had 4+ targets in 3 of 4. He is super cheap and really only needs one big play to pay off and despite the bust tag he gets, you have to look past it and recognize he could be a decent play at low ownership tonight. I don’t hate it, I don’t love it but I am definitely intrigued. If you want to get cute and play a Devin Duvernay ($200) who is questionable, Isaiah Likely ($600) or Charlie Kolar ($200) go for it but be prepared for a 0. Duvernay would likely be more correlated with Ravens DST since he returns punts and kick offs. Other than that he seems unplayable. The backfield is currently an absolute mess with word that Keaton Mitchell ($5,600) currently being projected for more snaps and touches based on coach speak. He had run on 18% and 24% of the RB snaps in his first two games officially in play which is poor, but man did he go off. In the last two weeks on 14 touches, I want to say 9 of them went for over 9 yards. The efficiency is out of this world and bound to come back down to earth, but if he is going to get more than 4-5 touches then even if the efficiency comes down he should be able to produce. If he just absorbs Justice Hill’s ($2,800) snaps (26%) and some of Gus Edwards ($7,000) he could really be a force and the price is really low for the implied ceiling. He is a great GPP play but if he regresses back to the normal expectation for a rookie RB he could be a let down tonight. I think Edwards is definitely a good safe play. He will likely get a solid number of carries with a decent chance at a TD. The Bengals have allowed the 3rd most rush yards/game this season. I think one of these guys really produces tonight and my lean could end up being Edwards if he comes in lower owned. I think the Keaton breakout really kills Hill. He probably will be the 3rd RB which is never going to be a good fantasy piece.
Bengals
The Bengals are 3 point underdogs on the road with a 21.25 point implied team total. The first thought is Tee Higgins is out which will condense the offense even further as if it wasn’t already really condensed to a couple of guys. Joe Burrow ($10,000) I actually think is fairly cheap for how he has been playing lately. He has 23+ DK points in 4 of the last 5 games which is a lot better than the start of the season. The big concern is the Ravens’ defense is elite. They will be without Marlon Humphrey which helps JaMarr Chase ($11,000) a ton, but in general they are very solid and have plenty of depth. I see no reason Chase can’t get a massive number of targets again this week even if the last few weeks the target share has come down. I think the best way to beat the Ravens is let your best players make plays. Move Chase in motion before the snap and then get him quick targets. I could easily see him get 12+ targets in a pass happy script trying to keep up with the borderline unstoppable Baltimore offense. Tyler Boyd ($6,800) will be massive chalk and for good reason. He is way too cheap for the role and should also see a massive target share. The big concern is the matchup for him is really bad. Kyle Hamilton is playing at an all-pro level this season and he does guard the slot. I don’t hate fading him from a leverage perspective. However, I still like his prospects on volume alone. After those two, Trenton Irwin ($4,400) played on 81% of the snaps last week and was productive with 2/54/1. He got one long TD to help him out and I expect the attention going more to Chase and Boyd should get him some extra targets this week. I just think he also gets a good amount of ownership which could end up busting. The big positive is he will likely get a good amount of the backup CB coverage with Humphrey out. He is a good value play that if you want leverage you can fade and hope for the best. You also have Andrei Iosivas out this week which should open up a lot of 2 TE sets as well as maybe Stanley Morgan Jr. ($200) to get around 25% of the snaps and will be virtually unowned. I probably won’t go there, but I see some appeal. There have been times this offense doesn’t care who it is so there are some random TDs to go around. I would prefer the TE group much more though. With all 3 of Irv Smith ($3,000), Tanner Hudson ($2,600) and Drew Sample ($400) getting around 40% of the snaps, it is really tough to make a call on one or the other. Sample is more of a blocker so I would probably mark him out of the player pool for me. Burrow seems to have the best connection with Hudson right now. He has given him 4+ targets in 3 of the 4 games he has played this season with 5 and 7 in the last two weeks. Again, no Higgins or Andrei so 2 TE sets will be plentiful. The one place that Baltimore might be vulnerable is they allow a lot of TE targets this season. Irv might be seen as the more talented TE and on name value alone get more ownership. I just like what Hudson is doing right now and is probably my favorite punt play on the slate. His TD is coming soon. The last spot to talk about is the backfield. Joe Mixon ($9,600) has one of the highest snap share and rush shares in the league. He will certainly be involved in the pass game with 3+ targets in each of the last 5 games. My only concern is if the Bengals get down they typically abandon the run and just throw exclusively. This price is very steep for a RB playing the defense that has allowed the 11th fewest rush yards/game and 2nd fewest rush TDs/game. His real value will have to come in the pass game which is likely. He makes for good leverage in tournaments. I think he comes in low owned which is a positive. With his backup Trayveon Williams ($200) being the flat min for a 2nd RB, I think he could end up being valuable. Say this blows out. He will get some run. He is used as a 3rd down back at time which caters to more passing and are higher value snaps. What if Mixon gets hurt? Williams will be a massive value. He is playing on just under 25% of the snaps currently which isn’t nothing. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised to see him in the optimal of a solo shipper tonight if things fit a certain narrative. It is extremely risky, but scared money doesn’t make money so I kind of see some appeal for him here. Usually backup RBs are priced closer to $2,400 not the flat min.
DST and K
If I am going to a defense it would only be the Ravens DST ($4,600). The Bengals allow sacks and Burrow showed last week that he is mistake prone at times with 2 INTs when trailing trying to come back. They might be in a similar spot this week. Not to mention the Ravens defense is great in general. The Bengals DST ($3,600) are fighting an uphill battle against this offense that is electric right now. I wouldn’t go there. As for the kickers, both Justin Tucker ($5,400) and Evan McPherson ($4,000) are always in play. They are both great kickers but it is always up to game flow as to whether they can get their opportunities or not. With just a 3 point spread, I am shocked McPherson is this cheap so I prefer him for sure. The Bengals will move the ball and the Ravens defense being that solid could lead to stalled drives in the red zone. Tucker will also score well but the Bengals defense is not the best. The offense has been so efficient that they could be in for just TDs which doesn’t help Tucker. I still like him but not as much as Evan.
My Narratives
Play both QBs and find the value
Keaton > Gus
Andrews > Flowers
Hudson > Irv Smith
Favorite punts are Hudson, Keaton and McPherson
4/2 both teams and 3/3 stacks
Bengals get their must win by a score of 33-30
