DraftKings NFL Showdown: CAR vs NO
Hello, Grinders. Welcome to NFL Wild Card Weekend. DraftKings threw us a curveball on this Wild Card slate by introducing a new game format: NFL Showdown. The beauty of this format is that it involves just a single game and incorporates individual defensive players. That’s right, if you thought you were a degen for playing two-game slates, you have reached a new level by playing a one-game slate!
Since nobody has ever played this game format before, we’re all starting from square one. As someone who has dabbled in WNBA, CFL, Euro League Basketball, World Baseball Classic and Soccer DFS last season just for fun, there’s no doubt I will be playing this new NFL Showdown game. But I’m going to format this article a little differently than perhaps you’re used to. Given we’re all starting from scratch, this article is going to be formatted more in a way where I’m answering questions that I would want to know before jumping into this new game. In other words, let’s learn together.
Feel free to give me a follow on Twitter. Let’s dive in!
What The Heck Is NFL Showdown?
The first question you should be asking yourself is obvious – what the heck is NFL Showdown? Let’s do a quick summary:
The first thing to note is that it only involves one game, the Carolina Panthers vs New Orleans Saints. That’s it.
Secondly, you have to draft four offensive players and two defensive players within the normal $50,000 salary cap. Also, you have to draft at least one player from each team on offense, so you can’t run a four-man offensive onslaught. You can roster two QBS though, which we’ll touch on later.
Lastly, the offensive scoring is the same as you’re used to, but there’s a new defensive scoring system. The biggest takeaways for me on the defensive scoring is that tackles are important but scoring is heavily weighted for interceptions and sacks. Safeties and Blocked Kicks are also worth 10 points each.
Who Can I Pick?
Here’s how the player pool breaks down:
Carolina Offense – 13 players
New Orleans Offense – 15 players
Carolina Defense – 25 players
New Orleans Defense – 25 players
In other words, you basically have your choice of any offensive and defensive player you want with the exception of backup quarterbacks (sorry Seige, no YOLO’ing with Chase Daniel here). Since I haven’t spent too much time studying the full rosters for these two teams, I thought it was a good starting point to review the depth charts.
Here are the depth charts for the Saints. It’s worth noting that Ted Ginn serves as the Punt returner with Tommylee Lewis as his backup, while Tommylee Lewis and Alvin Kamara handled kickoff duties. The scoring system rewards return touchdowns for both offensive and defensive players, but since all these players are offensive players, you’ll have to roster them on the Offense side.
And here are the starters for the Panthers. Again, everyone is pretty much available, so if you want to draft fullback Alex Armah in case he vultures a touchdown or fifth wideout Mose Frazier, you can (don’t roster Mose Frazier – wait, isn’t that Dwight Schrute’s cousin from The Office?).
Similar to the Saints, the Panthers have offensive players who handle kickoff duties, with Kaelin Clay and Christian McCaffrey on punt returns. I haven’t found a consistent depth chart on the Panthers’ kickoff returners, but it looks to be some combination of Kaelin Clay, Curtis Samuel and Fozzy Whittaker.
Is There Any Strategy?
I think there are two sources we should leverage for our roster decisions: other RotoGrinders experts and Vegas. Give Justin’s Grind Down a read. When you’re done with that, read Hazy’s Information Overload article. OK, when you’re finished, strap back on those glasses and check out JM’s Edge article. I know, it’s a lot of reading and you haven’t had this much assigned reading since the 7th grade. But the nice thing is we’re only focused on one game, so it should only take a few minutes.
The other thing we can leverage is Vegas. As of Thursday night, Vegas has this game with an over/under of 48, with the Saints implied for 27.5 points and the Panthers implied for 20.5. If you believe Vegas is right in that the Saints are favorites, you can expect the Panthers to be playing catch up and have a negative game script. That’s good news for the Panthers’ wideouts, as well as Christian McCaffrey (and a negative for Jonathan Stewart, who only averaged one target per game this season). It’s also worth noting that the Saints rank 18th in plays per game (62.8) while the Panthers rank 11th (64.4). The pace of the game may impact your decisions on who to roster on offense.
One other thing to keep in mind is you’re not drafting a team defense, so it doesn’t matter how many points are scored on your defensive players. In other words, you don’t lose points if your defensive players allow touchdowns – all that matters is the individual stats they rack up. So even though the Panthers are underdogs and expected to surrender more points, that shouldn’t deter you from rostering their defensive players against the Saints.
What Has History Shown Us?
The nice thing about these two teams is that they played each other twice in the regular season, so we have some data (albeit a small sample) to look at.
In Week 3, the Saints crushed the Panthers 34-13. Cam Newton was picked off three times by Kenny Vaccaro (who is now on IR), P.J. Williams and Marcus Williams. Newton was also sacked four times by DE Cameron Jordan, DE Alex Okafor (who is now on IR), DE Trey Hendrickson (who is questionable for this Wild Card game) and DE Hau’oli Kikaha (who is now on IR). It’s worth noting that CB Ken Crawley led the team with seven solo tackles and was closest to the 8+ tackle bonus that DraftKings awards. In this game, there were no defensive touchdowns. On the other side, the Panthers recorded no interceptions and their lone sack came from DE Mario Addison. S Kurt Coleman led the team with six tackles. Cam Newton accounted for the team’s only touchdown when he rushed into the end zone for three yards, while Drew Brees connected with Michael Thomas, Brandon Coleman and Ted Ginn for touchdowns and Alvin Kamara rushed in for a touchdown.
In Week 13, the Saints continued their dominance by beating the Panthers 31-21. This was a cleaner game that featured no interceptions on either side. Cam Newton threw touchdowns to Devin Funchess and Christian McCaffrey, while Drew Brees only had one touchdown to Michael Thomas. There were a total of four rushing touchdowns by Alvin Kamara (2), Mark Ingram and Jonathan Stewart. Both teams also only had two sacks. On the Saints side, they were by LB A.J. Klein and S Kenny Vaccaro (both on IR), while on the Panthers side they were by DEs Kyle Love and Mario Addison. LB Luke Kuechly led the game with 8 tackles and finished with 14.5 DraftKings points.
How Good Are These Defenses?
Let’s take a step back from these two games and look at the Saints’ and Panthers’ defense as a whole.
The Saints
The Saints had the 8th best defense, which was an impressive turnaround considering they were 31st last season. They had the markings of a funnel defense, finishing with the 5th ranked pass DVOA while having the 23rd ranked rush DVOA. The Panthers actually finished 4th in the NFL in rushing yards per game with 131.4. Amazingly, their leading rusher was actually Cam Newton, who averaged 47.1 rushing yards per game compared to Jonathan Stewart’s paltry 45.3 rushing yards per game. In fact, both Cam and Stewart finished tied with the team lead with 6 rushing touchdowns. DraftKings awards 1 point per tackle, but neither of these teams were very good at tackling. In fact, the Saints finished 28th in tackles while the Panthers finished dead last at 32nd. Saints S Von Bell led the team with 62 tackles and forced 2 fumbles – which is interesting given he’s only $4,400 and the fifth highest-priced defensive player on the Saints.
The NFL Showdown format heavily weighs sacks, and the Saints possess one of the best sackers in the game. DE Cameron Jordan (not to be confused with former Dolphins TE Jordan Cameron, who is not the same guy) led the Saints with 14 sacks, which was tied for 4th most in the NFL. Cameron makes for a terrific play, but he’s priced at $5,300. Impressively, S Vonn Bell was tied for second on the team with 4.5 sacks. So not only is this Vonn Bell dude leading the team in tackles, he’s running safety blitzes and sacking guys. The Panthers allowed 35 sacks on the season, which was tied for 18th most in the NFL.
As you can imagine, the Saints’ secondary is also fantastic. Rookie Marshon Lattimore tied for 5th in the NFL with 5 interceptions. He also returned one of those interceptions for a touchdown. Lattimore will likely defend Devin Funchess, and with Lattimore rating as PFF’s 7th ranked cornerback this season, I will likely be underweight relative to the field on Funchess. The Saints as a whole were terrific with interceptions, nabbing 20 this season, which ranked 3rd most in the NFL. This is bad news for Cam Newton, who threw 16 interceptions this season. If not for the woeful DeShone Kizer, who threw 22, Newton’s 16 would’ve led the NFL.
If you’re looking for a sleeper play, S Marcus Williams had 4 interceptions this season and is only $4,100. Williams was also 2nd on the team in tackles and is coming off a Week 17 game that saw him grab 2 interceptions for 22.5 DraftKings points. If you’re absolutely looking to punt the defensive spot, Ken Crawley at $3,900 is interesting. He’ll be starting opposite of Marshon Lattimore so if Cam Newton decides not to test Lattimore, we could see Crawley have more chances for interceptions or tackles. All the talk this season has been on Lattimore and rightfully so, but Crawley is quietly ranked as PFF’s 21st ranked cornerback this season.
If you want to YOLO, draft someone on special teams and hope for a blocked kick. The Saints only had one blocked kick all season and it came courtesy of Justin Hardee (he scored 16 DraftKings points that game and is only $2,000 this week). This is not a recommendation to play Hardee specifically, but YOLO’ing someone on special teams is not the craziest idea in a large field tournament.
The Panthers
The Panthers were solid on defense as well, finishing with the 7th best defense. They ranked 10th in pass DVOA and 6th in rush DVOA, so there weren’t too many holes on this squad. However, as noted above, the Panthers finished last in tackles. The good news – they finished 3rd in sacks with 50! Mario Addison and Julius Peppers led the team with 11 sacks each, which was good for 11th best in the NFL. It’s worth noting that Peppers only played on 50% of the team’s defensive snaps this season but he’s only $3,800, so he’s not the worst play. Addison played on 65% of the team’s defensive snaps and is even cheaper at $3,400. Also worth noting is that the Saints only allowed 20 sacks all season, which was the second-fewest in the NFL. There are likely several reasons for this, such as Drew Brees knowing when to get rid of the ball and the Saints having a solid offensive line. But perhaps the biggest wrinkle is the change in the Saints’ game plan. In 2016, the Saints threw the ball 674 times, 2nd most in the NFL. This season, they only had 536 passing attempts, good for 19th most in the NFL. Drew Brees is no longer chucking the ball like he used to, which is going to limit the chances for defenses to sack him. Just keep this in mind.
The team is led by Luke Kuechly, who played on an amazing 91.8% of the team’s defensive snaps all season. He led the team in both interceptions (3) and tackles (74) and had 8 or more tackles in four games. The downside is he’s the most expensive defensive player on this slate at $6,700. He scored 12 or more DraftKings points in eight games this season and it’ll be interesting to see what his ownership levels will be on Sunday. I would expect most DFSers will spend up on offense and spend down on defense, so I don’t hate playing Kuechly to be contrarian (assuming he really does go low owned).
In terms of interceptions, the Panthers were 24th in the NFL and only had 10 all season (3 by Kuechly). S Mike Adams, CB Daryl Worley and CB James Bradberry all finished with 2 each. Bradberry was also 2nd on the team with 66 tackles and played on 99% of the team’s defensive snaps, but will have to deal with Michael Thomas. I don’t hate the idea of playing Bradberry even in a tough matchup knowing he’ll be on the field the whole game barring injury. However, the fact the Panthers don’t intercept the ball a lot coupled with the fact Brees only threw 8 interceptions all season, which tied for the second fewest of any team, makes me want to limit my exposure in chasing the picks from the Panthers’ side.
DT Kawann Short accounted for the Panthers’ only blocked kick of the season. Short actually has 8 sacks on the season so he’s not a crazy play at $3,500 given his role on both defense and special teams.
Overall, I think I’d rather take my chances on the Saints side for defensive players, but if you decide you need some savings, I don’t hate Addison, Peppers, Bradberry, Adams or Short.
So What About These Offenses?
I won’t go into much detail about the offenses because those are better detailed in the links I provided above by much smarter people than me (or is it “much smarter people than I?” Oh who cares, it’s just grammar). But I do think it’s worth talking about given this format forces us to only choose four offensive players within a tight pricing structure.
In my opinion, the best thing you can do is take a stand on how you expect the game script to go and then build your team around that. Here are a couple of stacks I would consider depending on how the game might go:
1. Cam Newton / Drew Brees – Newton has such a high rushing floor I think he’s the player most desirable on the Panthers side. Pairing him with Brees allows you to capture all of the passing touchdowns in this game.
2. Cam Newton / Christian McCaffrey / Drew Brees – If Vegas is right and the Panthers are behind, McCaffrey will be forced to handle more passing downs as they play catch up. The downside here is you’ll be forced to penny pinch on defense and your fourth offensive player.
3. Cam Newton / Christian McCaffrey / Mark Ingram – This is on the more contrarian side. If the Saints pound it in for touchdowns as opposed to get it via the air, Ingram could be the one hitting pay dirt. He did lead the team with 12 rushing touchdowns compared to Kamara’s 8.
4. Cam Newton / Jonathan Stewart / Alvin Kamara / 2 Panthers defensive players – This is also on the contrarian side and expects a positive game script for the Panthers. This is one of my favorite things to do in tournaments, which is to do the exact opposite of what Vegas and everyone thinks will happen. If the Panthers find themselves with a lead, whether through their defense or Cam Newton, we’ll see more Jonathan Stewart pound the ball. On the other side of the ball, the Saints will be playing catch up and that’s a good thing for Alvin Kamara, who handles the passing downs over Mark Ingram.
5. Alvin Kamara / Mark Ingram – This is one of my favorite stacks to consider. We saw this pairing work in the regular season and it’s counter-intuitive to roster both running backs as it feels like you’re capping your upside. But their roles are different, and there’s enough room for both of them to succeed in a game. If you roll out this stack, you’ll probably want to bring it back with a guy like Newton or McCaffrey with the assumption the Panthers are playing from behind.
6. Luke Kuechly / Cameron Jordan – I doubt most DFSers will start their roster construction by pairing the two highest priced defensive players. If you want to be different in tournaments, this is one way to do it.
These are just a few ideas, but hopefully it gives you an idea of how to build correlating teams.
I somehow wrote nearly 2,500 words on a one-game slate, which is next level degen status. But I hope this article was helpful. Definitely reach out to me on Twitter or leave me a comment below with any thoughts/feedback. Thanks for reading, and may variance be on your side.