DraftKings NFL Showdown Primer: Conference Championships
Hello Grinders. We’ve made it to the NFL Conference Championships after a wild weekend last Sunday. Never did I expect to be writing an article featuring Blake Bortles, Case Keenum and Nicholas Foles (I Wikipedia’ed him and made sure his full name was indeed Nicholas, and it was).
The goal of this article is to highlight DraftKings’ new NFL Showdown single-game format and give you some ideas on how to approach it from the offensive side.
Looking for in-depth IDP analysis to help you build better Showdown lineups? Subscribe to DraftKings Premium and gain access to thehazyone’s IDP projections and thorough analysis of each team’s defense.
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How To Play NFL Showdown
The goal of the game is 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.
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, but those are difficult to predict and are a high-variance event.
The Strategy
The two biggest tools I’ve used to help me draft my teams are to leverage the tools on RotoGrinders and to leverage Vegas. There are plenty of articles, rankings and projections that are available at your fingertips here on RotoGrinders. Be sure to check out Noto’s First Look article as well as JM’s Edge article.
As for Vegas, that’s a big factor in helping me to determine who are the favorites and what the expected game flow might be. Trying to predict game flow is huge for this format because you’ll only be able to roster four offensive players. If you’re expecting the Jaguars to be up, for example, it’s highly likely Leonard Fournette and T.J. Yeldon will be pounding the ball. If you expect the Patriots to be up, the Jaguars will be playing catchup and will likely be relying on their wideouts, so perhaps you’ll want to run a three-man stack of the Patriots and then bring it back with a guy like Marqise Lee.
Let’s spend some time now breaking down each game.
Jacksonville Jaguars at New England Patriots
Vegas-Implied Total: Patriots 27.75, Jaguars 18.75
The Patriots enter this game as heavy favorites, and it’s hard not to blame Vegas in loving this team led by Angry Tom Brady. The Jaguars finished the season ranked 1st in pass DVOA but 26th in run DVOA. This is noteworthy because Bill Belichick is the type of coach who is going to exploit this weakness, unlike some other head coaches who are too stubborn. This puts both Dion Lewis and James White firmly in play this week. We saw last week that you can even pair the two and soak up all the running back usage. The one wrinkle is that Rex Burkhead is expected back per this tweet by Ian Rapoport, which makes it hard to plan for DFS purposes. Burkhead had 5 rushing touchdowns on the season, which was tied for 2nd on the team behind Dion Lewis’ 6 and tied with Mike Gillislee’s 5. Given Burkhead hasn’t played in a game in over a month, I’m hesitant to think he has a huge role. But then again, this is the Patriots we’re talking about here, so we shouldn’t be surprised if Burkhead vultures multiple touchdowns on Sunday.
The Jaguars were tremendous against wideouts this season, but were ranked 19th in DVOA against tight ends. This makes Rob Gronkowski slightly more appealing than guys like Brandin Cooks and Chris Hogan in my opinion. And I can’t forget about Danny Amendola, who gashed the Titans last week for 11 catches and 112 yards. But this Jacksonville pass defense is out-of-this-world good. They allowed a league-low 169.9 passing yards per game and just 17 passing touchdowns, tied for the third fewest in the NFL.
I know what you’re thinking right now. Allan, you’re just spewing a bunch of numbers and stats at me. Ben Roethlisberger just torched this defense for 5 touchdowns and 469 passing yards, and this is Angry Tom Brady we’re talking about here. You’re right, and if that’s your view, Vegas agrees with you. That was the first time all season the Jaguars had allowed more than 3 passing touchdowns in a game. So the question you have to ask yourself is this – if Vegas is right, how are they going to score their 27.75 points? I’ll provide a few stacking ideas in a minute.
On the other side of this game, the Jaguars are implied to score just 18.75 points, which is the second lowest implied total this weekend after the Eagles’ 17.75. The Patriots were ranked 21st in pass DVOA and 30th in run DVOA. Even in a game where the Jaguars scored 45 points against the Steelers, Blake Bortles only threw 26 times for 214 yards and a touchdown. It was basically the Leonard Fournette show featuring his sidekick T.J. Yeldon (hmm, this sounds like a TV show I should pitch to FOX). The big thing is that Yeldon is more than half the price of Fournette, so if your goal is to stock up on Patriots, you’ll need to bring it back with someone cheap on the Jaguars. Yeldon could be an option.
Last week, Marqise Lee led the team with 6 targets, while Dede Westbrook saw 3, and Keelan Cole and Allen Hurns each saw 2. If the Jaguars are playing from behind, the Jaguars in theory should be forced to pass and play catchup. In the event this happens, my favorite play is Lee of this bunch. Or if you think the Jaguars will just keep feeding Fournette despite being down and want to hide Bortles as much as humanly possible, I suppose that could happen. If you’re interested, in the regular season, Fournette had 36 receptions while Yeldon had 30.
Here are a few game stack ideas based on how you expect the game flow to be:
Stack Idea 1: James White / Dion Lewis – If you think the Patriots are going to ground and pound the Jaguars to death, it makes sense to pair the two Patriots’ backs.
Stack Idea 2: James White / Dion Lewis / Rex Burkhead: This might be overkill, but if you really believe the Patriots are going to burn the Jaguars through the ground, you could play the trio of running backs. Again, it may be overkill and you’re fading Tom Brady and his pass catchers, so you’ll have to take a stand on how you expect this game to go.
Stack Idea 3: Tom Brady / Rex Burkhead or Dion Lewis – If the thought of fading the league’s best quarterback is too hard to handle (no offense Jacoby Brissett), you could pair Brady with Rex Burkhead. This way you’re accounting for all the Patriots’ passing touchdowns and potential goal line vulture touchdowns from Burkhead. If you think Burkhead is simply a decoy and Lewis will continue leading this backfield, then take that stand and pair Brady with Lewis.
Stack Idea 4: Tom Brady / James White / Leonard Fournette – This one is on the more expensive side but it has some appeal because it covers a few scenarios. If the Patriots are somehow losing, it’s likely at the hands of Fournette destroying them on the ground. The Patriots are going to have to play catch-up, and pairing Brady with White allows you to account for passing touchdowns via Brady as well as potential passing touchdowns to the running back via White.
Stack Idea 5: Leonard Fournette / T.J. Yeldon / Tom Brady – Let’s suppose Vegas is wrong and the Jaguars are the ones who beat down the Patriots. I’m assuming the Jags will hide Bortles as much as they can and have their Fournette/Yeldon combo do as much work on the ground as possible. Bringing it back with Brady makes sense as he’s the most likely candidate to get the Patriots back into the game.
Minnesota Vikings at Philadelphia Eagles
Vegas-Implied Total: Vikings 20.75, Eagles 17.75
The Vikings are slight favorites entering this game despite the Eagles having the 7th ranked pass DVOA and 3rd ranked run DVOA in the regular season. It’ll be interesting to see how the DFS community treats Case Keenum and Stefon Diggs this week after their miracle play to end the game. That’s the last memory we have of the Vikings, and it’s hard not to let that influence us. But it’s worth noting that in last week’s game against the Saints, it was only the third time all season Keenum threw at least 40 times. Keenum also finished with 19.12 DraftKings points in the game. If somehow the Saints bat that ball down and it’s an incompletion, he finishes with 9.68 DraftKings points, which is a huge difference. Similarly with Diggs, he finished with 28.7 DraftKings points, but if he doesn’t make that catch and take it to the house on a fluke play, he finishes with 12.6 DraftKings points. I know sometimes these types of arguments don’t work in convincing people because Diggs did make the play and you can’t just remove a single play to fit a narrative. But the point I’m trying to make is that they were one play away from having Keenum and Diggs finish with a fairly ordinary fantasy day.
Game flow will be important as that will likely dictate how the running backs are used for the Vikings. The Vikings tend to lean on Latavius Murray when they have a lead and that’s what we saw last week, where Murray finished with 19 carries and a 1-yard touchdown. Jerick McKinnon is the change-of-pace back and handles passing downs, so he makes sense if you think the Eagles can grab the lead. Similar to what we saw in the Patriots-Titans game, it’s not crazy to pair two running backs and hope they both go off. While Murray had the goal line touchdown last week, McKinnon also hit paydirt with a 14-yard touchdown run. The problem here is that the Eagles allowed the fewest rushing yards per game this season (79.2) and only 7 rushing touchdowns (tied for third fewest).
So if you can’t run on the Eagles, it makes sense to focus your attack through the air. Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen are firmly in play, while Kyle Rudolph sneakily drew 8 targets last week. It’s worth noting that Jarius Wright came out of nowhere and saw 6 targets while playing 47% of the offensive snaps, while Laquon Treadwell didn’t see a target in his 19% of snaps. Treadwell is dirt-cheap but seems to have been over-taken as the team’s third receiver.
As for the Eagles, they have to deal with the Vikings’ 4th ranked pass DVOA and 5th ranked run DVOA. In other words, both teams are defensive juggernauts. This doesn’t bode well for Nick Foles, who failed to throw a touchdown in last week’s 15-10 win over the Falcons. With Xavier Rhodes likely to cover Alshon Jeffery, my exposure to the Eagles’ wideouts would be more towards Nelson Agholor and (gulp) Torrey Smith. Agholor will likely deal with 39-year old Terrence Newman, who has been decent this season, while Torrey Smith matches up with Trae Waynes. I’m not in love with Agholor or Smith but that’s likely who I would consider pairing Foles with if I decided to attack the Vikings via wideouts. Zach Ertz also saw 5 targets, the same amount as Jeffrey, Clement and Ajayi last week, but didn’t do much with them. Ertz seemed to have decent chemistry with Foles during Weeks 15 and 16 of the regular season, so I’d be willing to go back to the well here.
On the ground, we saw Jay Ajayi rush 15 times with 5 targets, LeGarrette Blount rush 9 times with a touchdown and Corey Clement rush once with 5 targets. Blount’s touchdown was from the 1-yard line so he’ll probably continue to see goal line work, while Clement acted as the team’s third-down back. Here’s how snap counts were distributed last week:
Jay Ajayi – 43% of snaps
LeGarrette Blount – 30% of snaps
Corey Clement – 24% of snaps
Here are a few game stack ideas based on how you expect the game flow to be:
Stack Idea 1: Stefon Diggs / Adam Thielen / Corey Clement – Let’s assume Vegas is right and that the Vikings are able to generate a lead through the air. Stacking Diggs and Thielen pairs the Vikings’ best pass catchers, and bringing it back with Corey Clement makes some sense if you assume he gets more work out of the backfield as the Eagles play catchup.
Stack Idea 2 – Jay Ajayi / LeGarrette Blount / Jerick McKinnon – Let’s assume the Eagles surprise us and can take a lead through the ground in order to hide Foles. It will likely be via the two-headed monster of Ajayi and Blount. With the Vikings playing from behind, they will likely lessen the workload of Latavius Murray and rely on pass-catching back Jerick McKinnon. Murray only averaged one reception per game this season and is not a pass-catching threat, so there’s always risk in playing him if the Vikings fall behind.
Stack Idea 3 – Nick Foles / Nelson Agholor / Zach Ertz – I’m thinking this is one of the more contrarian stacks as I can’t imagine people wanting to roll Nick Foles out there. But if you do, pairing him with Agholor and Ertz makes some sense as those were the two he targeted the most in his Week 15 and Week 16 starts. In those two starts, Ertz saw 23 targets and Agholor saw 16. This stack also makes some sense if you think the Vikings can grab a lead and the Eagles will be playing from behind, so bringing it around with a guy like Latavius Murray or Stefon Diggs makes some sense.
Stack Idea 4 – Latavius Murray / Kyle Rudolph / Stefon Diggs – This stack goes heavy on the Vikings and is on the more expensive side. The idea is that Murray will be getting goal line work and rushing touchdowns, while Rudolph and Diggs will be heavily involved in the red zone. Rudolph and Diggs accounted for 14 of the Vikings’ 21 red zone passing touchdowns this season. If you want, you could swap Thielen for Diggs. Thielen actually saw the most red zone targets on the team, but only hauled in 30% of his targets. Diggs, on the other hand, was extremely efficient in the red zone, nabbing 85.7% of his red zone targets.
Thanks for reading, and good luck this weekend. May variance be on your side.
Looking for in-depth IDP analysis to help you build better Showdown lineups? Subscribe to DraftKings Premium and gain access to thehazyone’s IDP projections and thorough analysis of each team’s defense.