Friday Night Football Showdown Week 1: Chiefs vs. Chargers

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XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Showdown aficionados have been loving NFL scheduling the last couple of seasons, as with the league’s quest for even more TV time, they’ve been giving us more island games. This Friday, we get the Chiefs vs the Chargers in Brazil for a 45.5 total game with Kansas City favored by a field goal. Last season, the Chiefs and Chargers were both middling offenses (right around 23 points scored per game) but elite defenses (Chargers allowed 18.5 points per game, 2nd fewest in the NFL, while the Chiefs allowed 20.5, 6th fewest). But, the Chargers are a VERY different team on the defensive side and the Chiefs are fairly different as well, adding uncertainty both to this game and to our general perceptions of these teams from last year. Our AFC West preview covers this in more depth, but the short version here is that the Chargers look likely to be weaker on defense and the Chiefs continue to look more middling on offense versus the elite offensive powerhouse that we became used to out of Kansas City a few years back.  

Kansas City

The backfield is Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt with Elijah Mitchell likely in an emergency-only role. When Hunt and Pacheco were both healthy in the second half of last season, we actually saw Hunt lead the way (though Pacheco kind of seemed like he was never back to full health, so that could play into things). I think what was happening here was largely about pass protection. Hunt is a strong pass protector, while Pacheco is a shakier one. The Chiefs struggled in pass protection for much of last year, and their offensive line looks even weaker this season, so if Pacheco continues to be a poor pass protector, that could lead to more Hunt. But that said, I have to imagine the Chiefs do want Pacheco to be the guy. Hunt is 30 years old and ran for under 4.0 yards per carry last year and it’s just tough to build a strong run game off of him.

My expectation is this: Pacheco is the lead back, but if the Chargers pass rush is getting to Mahomes, we could see that result in more Hunt playing time. Finally, it’s also worth noting that we rarely saw either back exceed a 50% snap count last season when playing together, so we could be looking at relatively low upside either way. Pacheco at $7,600 is cheap for a lead back if he is indeed a lead back, but I’d actually prefer to take the risk on Hunt at $3,600 – there just seems to be more per-dollar upside at his bargain basement price. 

In the passing game, with Rashee Rice suspended, we should see Xavier Worthy, Hollywood Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Tyquan Thornton, and possibly Jason Brownlee or Nikko Remigio in a very small role (look who’s on the active roster on game day). The Chiefs have consistently run deep at wide receiver with six different wideouts often seeing the field. Xavier Worthy really started showing tremendous improvement towards the end of the last season.  From Week 15 through the playoffs, he played in six games and put up a per-game pace of 6.6/79.5/.83 line on 8.6 targets per game. That’s really good. And it came against some overall above-average defenses. With Rice suspended and Travis Kelce on the tail end of his career, I’m very interested in Worthy at a bargain price of $9k. His salary looks to be based more on his complete body of work last season rather than the second half, when we saw real, sustained improvement from the young wideout.

Brown and Smith-Schuster are harder to get excited about. JuJu had one game of 130 yards on 8 targets last year but otherwise never saw more than 3 targets in a game, while Brown only played in five games, and despite significant target volume failed to eclipse 50 receiving yards once. That could be due to health and/or rust, as Brown didn’t make his season debut until Week 16, and he’s been a productive receiver in fairly recent history, so I’ll lean his way over JuJu, but in this offense, all the secondary wide receivers are pretty volatile options. Thornton was signed as a potential depth piece, but with rookie Jalen Royals injured, he’ll be on the roster and he’s expected to have at least some kind of role, including possibly returning kicks; he’s a very volatile dart throw but can definitely be in player pools. 

At tight end, Travis Kelce is definitely somewhere near the end of his career. Last season, he only exceeded 100 yards twice and scored just 4 touchdowns. He can still catch the ball and he’s a very smart football player, but he’s no longer the elite athlete who can go out there and win routes and contested catches consistently. He’s a viable play in this one – he should still see volume and generally speaking the best time to play older guys is early in the season when they’re at their freshest – but at a similar price I lean Worthy’s way. Noah Gray also looks like a really strong value play at just $1,600. Gray saw more targets per game last year than JuJu and did more with them (including a pair of 2 touchdown games). He’s cheap enough that he can put up a usable score without a touchdown, but if he does find the end zone, he’s likely to be a necessary piece in optimal lineups. Playing alongside an aging Kelce, it’s also feasible that we see his role grow at Kelce’s expense. 

Los Angeles

In the backfield, Najee Harris missed a ton of time due to a fireworks injury…to his eye. Yes, really, what is it with NFL players and fireworks? He’s expected to play but will likely be in a very small role given that he’s barely practiced, leaving the backfield open for rookie Omarion Hampton, the rare first round running back. We’ve seen the Chargers run split backfields for a few years, which limits the upside of this spot, but with Harris likely in a smaller role, we could see Hampton handle more work early in the season. He’s likely one of the two best offensive weapons on the roster, and at $8k, I’m willing to take some playing time risk. I’ll likely be overweight the field here. RB3 Hassan Haskins might see a small role early in the year until Harris is fully back and ready and you can include him in player pools as a dart throw. 

On the passing side, Ladd McConkey is the most expensive player in the game (priced even higher than Mahomes!), but on a slate with overall soft pricing, he sure looks like an awesome option. As is the case with many rookies, Ladd started off last season fairly slow but from Week 11 onwards, check out this per-game production: 6.8/106.8/0.5 on 9 targets per game. Dude was averaging over 100 yards per game and had no fewer than 14.3 DK points in that eight week stretch. The Chargers did resign Keenan Allen (somewhat unexpectedly) but otherwise have a fairly fragile-looking receiving corps. I expect Ladd to get bombarded with targets. The official depth chart for the Chargers looks weird, as it lists Ladd, Allen, and Quentin Johnston as starters with rookie Tre Harris behind Ladd, but given that Ladd and Allen both primarily play slot, I think this might just be a nod of respect to the veterans. My guess is Harris plays a lot, and as with the perspective in the OWS team preview, Quentin Johnson becomes more of a situational player.

I normally don’t love investing heavily in rookies in their first NFL game but Harris is only $3,400; he’s being priced like a WR3/4 type and his role could end up being much larger than that. He’s a high-risk option because I could be wrong and he could barely play, but there’s upside here if his role is bigger than he’s priced for. Allen is getting older but still put up five games of 20+ DK points last season with much weaker QB play than he has in Justin Herbert . .  . he’s also just $6,400. Ladd’s clearly the alpha here, but Allen’s price sure is attractive and this is an offense that really runs through its wide receivers. Johnson had a solid sophomore season but playing time could be really shaky. I definitely would not play all of Allen, Johnson, and Harris on the same roster and I’d be tempted to max 1 of Johnson and Harris as I think their snaps are likely to come at each other’s expense (they’re also both downfield threats and thus profile as similar receivers). 

At tight end, I expect Will Dissly and Tyler Conklin to split time with an edge to Dissly. They make for a reasonable floor, modest ceiling options. I’ll take Dissly as the guy likely to see more snaps and routes at $400 less. 

Strategy Outlook

If we look at how these teams played last year, we’d expect a relatively low-scoring affair. But we could see the Chargers defense take a significant step back, which could in turn, open up their offense if the Chiefs are able to find some early success, and that’s probably how I’m going to build for this one. Another dynamic in play here is that, overall, the players are really cheap. There are only two players with $10k or higher salaries and there are a lot of sub-kicker value options. This means we can expect elevated ownership on the top plays because it’s easy to afford them. Expect Ladd, Herbert, and Mahomes especially, to have higher ownership than we normally see in Showdowns for QBs/WR1s. I’m okay leaning in here as they’re the best plays on paper, but just be aware that having 60-65% Ladd might not be enough to be clearly overweight the field – you might need more like 75%. And, of course, it’s Week 1, which means more uncertainty in general, and if you have conviction somewhere that’s different from how the field is thinking, now’s the time to lean into it. 

Cash Games

In cash games, this one feels like a tough spot because it comes down to just a couple of things: do you have Ladd captain, or a QB? And which value play(s) do you use – Hunt, Dissly, Gray? I obviously want the QBs and Ladd on a cash roster, Hunt feels like the safest value play, and then I think I have a slight lean to Worthy over Hampton as my final higher-end piece but there are a lot of ways you can go in cash here and that kind of makes me want to just not bother. 

Tournaments

In tournaments, Ladd’s my favorite captain (duh) but I also want a lot of Worthy, Pacheco, Hampton, and probably some Harris as a cheap but risky captain choice (you can do basically whatever you want if you start with Harris captain). 

Some groups to consider

• At most 2 kickers + DSTs

• Pair captain pass catchers with their QBs (or consider boosting the QB if using a captain receiver if you don’t want 100% exposure to this pairing – discussed in further detail in the 2020 update to my Advanced Showdowns course)

• If captaining a pass catcher, at most 1 other pass catcher on the same team

• At most 2 of Allen, Harris, and Johnston

  • I might run max 1 of Harris/Johnston – I’m not sure yet – I think it’s a very viable option, just be aware it’s a little riskier than the max 2 strategy

• Max 1 of Hampton and Harris (and frankly, I may just X Harris out of my player pool entirely)

• Max 1 of Pacheco and Hunt (risky here as it’s not crazy to think they both find the end zone and they’re pretty cheap, but have to make stands somewhere)

• Max 2 of Brown, Smith-Schuster, Thornton, Gray