TNF Showdown Week 4: Seahawks at Cardinals

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XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Week 4 is upon us, and it begins with the Seahawks visiting the Cardinals for a 43.5 total game with the visitors favored by a point and a half. So far, the Seahawks have been playing really well, barely losing to the 49ers in Week 1 before putting up 75 points across Weeks 2-3 against the Steelers and Saints while only allowing 30 points. While they have faced below-average offenses thus far, the Hawks defense looks pretty solid. The Cardinals are also 2-1 with a close loss against the 49ers while beating up on the mediocre Panthers and Saints, but those wins have been much closer affairs. Their defense has held on but still given up a lot of passing production, while it’s fair to say the Arizona offense has not yet fully clicked into gear. 

ARIZONA

We’ll start with the home team. The Cards backfield just lost James Conner for the season, leaving the backfield to Trey Benson with Emari Demercado backing him up. Benson had already been playing a fair bit and has looked good doing it, so far running for 6 yards per carry and catching 8 of 11 targets on the season. The Seahawks have looked good on run defense so far, but Benson is likely to step into quite a large role. Last week, Demercado only played 7 offensive snaps after Conner was hurt. It might look a bit different with a full week to prepare, but I’d expect Benson to play at least 70% of the snaps with a correspondingly large workload, and while the matchup isn’t great, he just isn’t priced for that at $8,800. The large passing game role we’ve seen so far is especially encouraging. At his price, he’s a solid value and a play I will be overweight on. Demercado is hard to get a handle on. He will certainly have some kind of role, but it’s unclear how big of one. He’s priced at an awkward level if he only ends up playing sub-20% of the snaps, like he did last week.

In the passing game, the Cards will almost certainly be without Zay Jones, who sustained a concussion last week and is going to have a really tough time getting through the protocol on a short week. I’m assuming he’s out, which should leave Arizona primarily using Marvin Harrison Jr. and Michael Wilson, with Greg Dortch seeing increased snaps and then perhaps Xavier Weaver or Semi Fohoko will see the field in a very small WR4 role. Harrison is wildly talented, but so far has a very modest 19.3% target share this season with 5-6 targets in every game. $7,800 is a weird price for him in that it’s clearly too cheap for his talent, but his role has been oddly small. There’s still plenty of time for that to change, and at this point in the season, I want to buy the talent. The Cardinals may not be the sharpest franchise in the league, but certainly they’re not stupid enough to refuse to use one of their best offensive players…right? The rest of the wide receivers are all punt options as Arizona’s offense is really built around the running back, Harrison, and tight end Trey McBride. WR2 Michael Wilson is on the field for most of the snaps but has 8 targets on the year – he’d be my next favorite option, as at $3,400 he’s priced like a guy who’s a part-time player. OWS favorite Dortch is a guy who has always succeeded when given opportunity, but has had a tough time finding consistent opportunity. He’s a little riskier than Wilson as it’s possible the Cards could just continue to refuse to play him – he should see more run without Jones, but it might not matter if Kyler Murray doesn’t throw to him, or perhaps Arizona plays more 12 personnel sets instead – there’s risk but upside in a guy who has historically been a great route runner with an elite catch rate.

At tight end, McBride is the (very) rare tight end who leads his team in target share, target rate, and share of air yards. McBride’s 27.3% target rate is the highest in the league for a tight end. He’s the real primary pass catcher in this offense. He’s priced like it all the way up at $9,800, but he can be viewed more as a WR1 than a TE, and importantly, he’s the WR1 in a pretty concentrated offense. He’s a bit of a toss-up with Benson as my favorite Cards skill position play. He’s more talented than Benson, but Benson wins out on the strength of the role. The Seahawks have also given up an awful lot of production to tight ends early: George Kittle went 4/25/1 on 4 targets in just 21 offensive snaps before getting hurt, the Steelers two primary tight ends caught 7 of 8 targets for 58 yards, and the Saints Juwan Johnson caught 6 of 8 targets for 51 yards last week. McBride looks to be in a really nice spot. TE2 Tip Reiman is primarily a blocker who can be utilized as a “hope he gets a short touchdown” punt play (he does have 4 targets in two games, so it’s not totally crazy, and then TE3 Elijah Higgins is a similar player profile, except he’ll be on the field far less than Reiman. Both are viable punt plays, with Reiman being the (slightly) better option due to more field time. 

SEATTLE

On the Seattle side, the backfield’s a bit of a mess. Kenneth Walker was drafted like the lead back all offseason, only for Zach Charbonnet to play ahead of him in Weeks 1 and 2, with 66 offensive snaps and 27 touches to 46 snaps and 28 touches for Walker. Snaps have favored Charbs, touches about even, with Walker oddly seeing the only targets with 4 (Charbonnet was previously used as more of a 3rd down/receiving back in prior seasons). Charbs then got hurt and missed Week 3 and Walker stepped into his role, scoring 2 touchdowns but only managing 2.4 yards per carry. Charbs received a “full” practice tag for Monday’s walkthrough, and if this backfield reverts back to the split we’ve seen so far, Walker is wildly overpriced for a split role at $10.4k and is effectively unplayable as anything more than an extremely contrarian option hoping for a shift in workload distribution of a fluky big play. I will play a little bit of Walker at captain in case of that weird outcome, but will probably avoid him entirely as a flex play. Charbs, on the other hand, is priced more accurately for a split role. While it’s concerning he has 0 targets so far this season, I expect he’ll be used in the passing game a bit at some point, and if that happens in this game, $5,400 is too cheap for his expected role. The floor is always low on guys in split backfields without known receiving roles, so I wouldn’t personally be locking him, but I think he’s mispriced. 

In the passing game, Seattle is basically Jaxon Smith-Njigba and then everyone else. JSN has a massive 40.3% target share, 44.2% target rate, and 60.8% share of the team’s air yards. Talk about an alpha pass catcher. The offense is completely designed around him. He’s $11k but clearly the best on-paper play in the game with 20+ DK points in every game so far this season and at least 96 receiving yards in each game. There’s no such thing as a sure thing in football but he’s the best skill position option and thus a key decision: do you play him on 100% of rosters, do you fade him entirely and cross your fingers, or do you just try to roughly match the field on JSN exposure across your rosters and figure that you’ll try to differentiate and win elsewhere? There’s no right decision here; it’s just up to you and your playstyle, but personally, I’m just going to lean into JSN here as the workload is so massive that it makes it hard for him to fail without an injury.

Cooper Kupp plays the WR2 role with a healthy 20.8% target share. So far, Kupp has looked fine – he’s healthy and doesn’t look like he’s really slowing down as he’s caught 11 of 15 targets. JSN hogs so much volume in this offense that it’s hard for other pass catchers to really hit, but Kupp would be the second-best chance to do so. In a vacuum $7k, is a reasonable price for his role, but he’s a tough click with Harrison and Benson priced just above him, and both being, at least in my mind, clearly superior options.

WR3 Tory Horton is a talented rookie who plays the vertical role in Seattle’s offense, giving him solid per-target upside. The volume is likely modest for Horton, but he’s already scored 2 offensive touchdowns while also returning a kick for a score last week. He’s a volatile week-to-week option, but there’s plenty of talent here. Horton is priced at an awkward $5,800, which is quite high for a WR3. His median projection is likely to be modest, which combined with his price, should keep his ownership in check, but his ceiling is high enough to justify this price. He’s a highly risky play, but one I want to be over the field on because while he’s not going to pile up a ton of targets, his role on the offense is a real one and his ceiling justifies the price even if his median projection does not. Jake Bobo and possibly Dareke Young will play a handful of snaps in small rotational receiver roles.

At tight end, AJ Barner is playing massive snaps but is primarily a blocker, with just 6 targets on the season. Somewhat comically, Barner has fewer air yards than targets, with just 2, and most of his targets have been behind the line of scrimmage. He’s on the field a ton and so a viable punt, just recognize he isn’t really a part of the passing game plan. Rookie TE2 Elijah Arroyo is questionable. If he’s active, he’s another cheap punt option (who I would prefer to the Cards punt TEs), and then Robbie Ouzts (who is also Q) and Eric Saubert are also playable cheap dart throws. 

CHEAP OPTIONS

Really quick, there are a lot of punt/dart throw options in this game: the Seahawks have Bobo, Young, Arroyo, Ouzts, and Saubert (and really even Barner fits here), while the Cards have Reiman, Higgins, and then Weaver or Fehoko (Dortch is a bit above this tier of players). My favorite overall is Barner, then Arroyo if he plays, then Reiman, then really, your guess is as good as mine. 

STRATEGY OUTLOOK

The way this game is likeliest to play out is slowly. The Cards are dead last in the league at 33 seconds per play, while the Seahawks started off playing extremely fast in Week 1, but are now down to 10th in the league in pace. The Hawks probably land somewhere in the middle, but the Cards at the bottom will somewhat slow down the overall pace of the game. A full-on shootout is unlikely, but the clearest path to the game going over is for Seattle to take a lead early and force Arizona to be more aggressive through the air in response, which would boost the Arizona passing game (obviously McBride is already a strong play, but boosting Harrison and then their secondary options would change the dynamics of this slate a fair bit). If the game does play slowly, which it’s likely to do if it’s close, that cuts down on the play volume needed for secondary pieces to have a good chance of hitting, and you’re basically looking at the primary guys and then everyone else becomes “hope for a touchdown because they aren’t likely to get enough volume to get there on catches/yards alone.” 

CASH GAMES

In cash games, I want to prioritize the quarterbacks, JSN, and Benson at the higher (JSN’s floor is high enough that I’m comfortable playing him in cash), and then the kickers, Charbs, and Wilson are the cheaper plays to make it work.

TOURNAMENTS

In tournaments, the best overall captain choice is JSN, but I want to be over the field on McBride, Harrison, Benson, and Charbs. 

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 1 of each team’s various punt plays as noted in the team writeups. 

• At most 1 of Wilson and Dortch

• At most 2 of Walker, Charbs, and Darnold

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