TNF Showdown Week 12: Bills at Texans

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And now for today’s feature from the Daily Dose…

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

In what might be one of the toughest Showdowns to build for of the year, Week 12 begins with the Bills visiting the Texans. This game has a 43.5 total with Buffalo favored by 6, and oh boy, it’s a tricky one. Buffalo, of course, is always tough because of how they spread the ball around on offense, while the Texans are a struggling offense but an elite defense. The way to beat Buffalo is on the ground, except Houston’s run game has been terrible. Let’s see if we can figure this one out. 

HOUSTON

We’ll start on the Houston side, where Woody Marks has very clearly passed Nick Chubb to become the lead running back. In the last two weeks, Marks has handled 17 and 19 opportunities to Chubb’s 6 and 5, respectively. He has not looked particularly explosive, but part of that is running behind one of the league’s worst offensive lines. The role looks solid, and teams have been trying to beat Buffalo on the ground, where their defense has been significantly more vulnerable…or has it? We’ve seen four running backs really exploit the Bills, and those have been Derrick Henry, Bijan Robinson, Devon Achane, and Sean Tucker. All of those running backs have something in common: they’re really, really explosive and capable of breaking big plays. I’d still say the matchup is positive, but Marks isn’t exactly in that same category. He’ll also face game script risk against one of the league’s best offenses, and so he’ll need the Texans to keep things close in order to maximize his odds of finding a ceiling. At $9,200, he’s priced a little less than a bell cow RB role should dictate, so he looks like a value, but I’d personally very much prefer playing him with the Texans defense as the likeliest way he gets to ~20 touches is if Buffalo’s offense is held in check. Chubb is an RB2 dart throw.

In the passing game, Davis Mills has injected at least a little bit of life into this offense, winning a shootout against the Jaguars two weeks ago before struggling against the Titans last week. Encouragingly, he’s thrown 45 and 41 passes in his two starts (and the Texans as a whole threw 40 in Week 9 when Stroud got hurt), and that kind of volume sure makes things look a lot more favorable for Houston’s pass catchers. Nico Collins has double digit targets in all of those three games (after reaching that point just twice in all of Stroud’s full games). It seems odd to say Davis Mills has unlocked him or saved his fantasy season, but it sure looks that way. Nico is an elite receiver, but in a really tough matchup, though, as Buffalo has really clamped down on opposing WR1s, with only three WR1s (Drake London, Stef Diggs, and Zay Flowers) having good games against them. Nico is just as good as any of those guys, but his QB isn’t. A tough matchup and an $11.2k price make it tough to play Nico, but should also result in lower than normal ownership for an elite pass catcher in Showdown – he’s a solid play and perhaps a contrarian one if his total ownership comes in under the 50% mark.

The other wide receivers are rotating with Christian Kirk, Jayden Higgins, and Xavier Hutchinson all playing 50-60% of the snaps, and Jaylin Noel playing a smaller WR5 role. Kirk has been legitimately awful this season, topping out at 64 receiving yards in a game and only seeing 7 targets combined in the last two games (out of 86 pass attempts, for a sub-10% target share). At just $2,800, I think you could reasonably try to bet on his longer-term track record of talent, but it requires some real faith. Higgins looks like the emerging WR2 with 14 targets and 9 catches in the last two games, and at $4,600, he’s pretty cheap for that role. Hutchinson is playing the most snaps of the tertiary wide receivers but has shown only modest upside, only reaching double-digit DK points twice on the year, but he’s also quite cheap. Finally, Noel has looked quite talented at times this year, but is playing only around 30% of the offensive snaps. If he got more playing time, he’d be a really strong option, but as it is, he’s still a reasonably cheap value play who has put up scores you’d be happy with at his $1,600 salary four times on the year (not bad). I’d rank these guys as Higgins, Kirk, Hutchinson, and Noel.

At tight end, Dalton Schultz is really the 2nd option in the passing game with 20 targets in Mills’ starts for an elite-for-a-tight-end 23.5% target share. The Bills have absolutely eliminated opposing tight ends, but I’m always a little wary of how I use that data point, as different teams use their tight ends very differently in the passing game. It’s a tough matchup, but hardly an impossible one, and at the end of the day, Schultz is just not priced for his target projection. At $6,200, he looks like a very strong value option. 

BUFFALO

On the Bills side of things, James Cook is in a really strong role. For the last few years, the challenge with Bills running backs is that they haven’t wanted to give one guy all of the work, and that they get vulture close to the goal line by Josh Allen. Well, Cook is averaging a very healthy 19.2 carries per game to go along with 2.3 targets, and any running back who’s averaging over 20 opportunities per game is a really nice role in today’s NFL. The Allen vulture risk is real, though, as Cook has 12 carries inside the 10 yard line while Allen has 16, and at his price Cook almost certainly needs a touchdown to pay off, and the matchup here is truly awful against a Texans defense that has yet to allow a running back to reach the 100 rush yard mark while holding enemy running backs to just 3.9 yards per carry. You’re betting on talent here with Cook, as he can break big runs at any time, and that’s probably what he’s going to need to do in order to hit. At his price, I think people are a lot more likely to play Allen than Cook, and after that, the ownership is really going to come down to how people and projections view Cook vs. Nico as the other two 10k+ options. I think he’ll make an interesting captain option for tournaments, as I expect his ownership probably to come in around the 10-15% mark, and his chances of a big game are higher than that, even in a difficult matchup. RB2 Ty Johnson’s role is extremely small this season, averaging just 1.9 carries and 1.3 targets on the year – he’s a pray-for-a-touchdown tourney dart throw. 

In the passing game, Keon Coleman was benched last week for disciplinary reasons, but even with Coleman and tight end Dalton Kincaid out, we still saw six different wide receivers (and three tight ends) play offensive snaps for the Bills. I hate this team. Khalil Shakir, the honorary WR1, saw just 3 targets while UDFA Tyrell Shavers had the best game of his professional career, putting up a 4/90/1 line on 5 targets. This offense is going to spread the ball around, and it’s incredibly difficult to project who’s going to hit on a given week. The Bills are an elite offense, so they tend to generate a lot of splash plays, and you just need to find the guy(s) who make those plays. Coleman should be back this week, while Elijah Moore was inactive as well and is probably going to be so again, as the team has brought in Gabe Davis and Mecole Hardman to fill depth roles. My best guess here is that the active WRs will be Coleman, Shakir, Josh Palmer, Shavers, Curtis Samuel, and Davis, and then Hardman is probably active but only playing special teams. It’s also possible that Samuel sits after not practicing on Tuesday and picking up a couple of injury designations. On a short week, it wouldn’t shock me to see the veteran wideout sit this one out, and if he does, we could see Moore back or see Hardman play more offensive snaps. None of these guys is likely to reach the 70% snap mark, with Coleman and Shakir the only ones who’ve consistently gotten to 60% all season. With this being something of a merry-go-round, my order of preference would be this: 

1. Coleman (likelihood of more snaps, talented, only $5,400)

2. Shavers (very cheap at $2,400 and just had a big game, could potentially earn more work)

3. Palmer (5 targets last week, $4,200’s a cheap price, he’s rocking a solid 14 yard aDOT)

4. Davis (only $3,800, classic deep threat profile, played 41% of the snaps in his first week with the team and caught 3 of 4 targets)

5. Shakir (safe option, but $8k is just a really expensive price to pay for a guy with a 4.2 yard aDOT, yikes)

6. Samuel (if active, just $1,200, always been talented but very low target projection)

7. Moore/Hardman, if no Samuel, would slot in last.

At tight end, it seems likely that Dalton Kincaid will miss another game. He was ruled out on Friday of last week, so he never really had a chance to play, and then he missed the team’s first two practices of this week. If he plays, at $7k, he’s a reasonable option as he’s one of the team’s top pass catching options, and he’s broken 100 yards twice on the year while putting up four scores you’d be happy with at his price in eight games. If he misses, Dawson Knox led the Bills pass catchers in snaps last week, and while it didn’t result in production, we’ve seen him produce before, and $4k would look very cheap for a guy who’s going to be on the field a ton. TE2 Jackson Hayes would be something of a desperation punt (ranked around the Samuel/Moore WRs). 

STRATEGY OUTLOOK

So, all in all, we have an elite defense and a good defense going up against an elite offense and a mediocre offense. We should expect the Bills to find ways to score. They’ve put up 28+ points in seven of their 10 games, but this is a very difficult matchup against what is probably the top overall defense in the NFL. The Texans, on the other hand, are unlikely to put up enough points to blow out the Bills. This game is very likely to have either Buffalo romping if they can overcome the matchup, or a very close, lower-scoring affair. The most contrarian way to play it would be to build lineups with 4 or even 5 Texans, looking to their elite defense to really hold down Buffalo – it’s unlikely, but also gives the clearest path to a solo win should it come to pass. 

CASH GAMES

In cash games, yikes. There are no cheap value plays to really feel THAT good about. Allen is obviously the top priority, and then Cook, Mills, and Marks, but it’s not really possible to get all four without punting at captain, and there are no captain punt options I feel that good about for cash, so I suppose Cook is the guy I’d most likely leave off just given his price and matchup, but yeesh. I don’t like the cash build for this one.

TOURNAMENTS

In tournaments, the clear top captain option is Allen, and then I want to be overweight on Cook, Marks, and Nico, but there’s a very good chance the optimal captain in this one is a cheap pass catcher….but good luck figuring out which one. 

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 Bills wide receivers (this is a fairly restrictive rule and you could group yourself out of the optimal lineup by using it. I’d be comfortable with it personally, but your mileage may vary)

• At most 2 of Hutchinson, Higgins, Kirk, and Noel

• For a general overview of Xandamere’s Showdown rules, refer here.