TNF Week 14 Showdown: Cowboys at Lions

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Week 14 kicks off with the Cowboys visiting the Lions for a huge 54.5 total game with Detroit favored by 3. The huge news, of course, is whether or not Amon-Ra St. Brown will play. He’s questionable, I’d guess more on the doubtful side, but the Lions did rule out Kalif Raymond yesterday without ruling out ARSB, which implies they’re thinking there’s at least a chance he can play. Especially with Raymond out, if ARSB misses, it spreads a lot of additional opportunity around. I’m going to write this as if he misses, but I’ll touch on below how to think through the Lions if he plays as well. The Lions are also a team expected to contend for the Super Bowl, and at 7-5, they’re in danger of missing the playoffs entirely, so they’re going to be going all-out here. 

DETROIT

On the Lions side, they’ve really been turning the backfield over to Jahmyr Gibbs, who has played his three highest snap counts of the season in the last three games, playing between 70-74% of the snaps and handling 20, 27, and 24 opportunities. The knock on Gibbs has always been about volume. As in the past, he’s rarely reached the magic 20 touch mark we prefer to see from our running backs in fantasy, but he’s gotten there five times this season overall and in each of the last three games, which is a good sign. With Detroit desperately needing this win, I’d expect them to lean heavily on Gibbs, and that’s doubly true if ARSB misses. Dallas’ run D is significantly better with the trade addition of Quinten Williams, but it’s still not great, and Gibbs is talented enough to smash in any matchup, plus he gets a lot of receiving work. I’m not sweating the matchup, and Gibbs deserves to be the most expensive skill position player in this game. With Gibbs surging, poor David Montgomery is getting left behind a bit with opportunity counts of 7, 8, and 10 in those three games that Gibbs has seen his snap count spike. Given that Monty has 10+ touches in all other games except one this year, that’s a material decrease in his workload. Combined with his price being at 7,000, one of the highest points in the season, it’s hard to get excited about Monty here. You’re playing him for what I’d expect to be modest ownership and the hope that perhaps with no ARSB the Lions line up Gibbs more as a receiver while having both backs on the field, though in real life that happens quite rarely (and we didn’t see it last week once ARSB got hurt, either). 

In the passing game, we can expect Jameson Williams and Isaac TeSlaa to be full-time players with Tom Kennedy filling in a part-time role. Jamo just set career highs in catches and yards last week with no ARSB and would again be a smash play here, priced up only to $8,400 and in one of the best possible matchups. His profile makes him volatile, but he’s just way too cheap for his role sans ARSB – expect massive ownership, but he’s a strong play regardless. TeSlaa and Kennedy are both a bit shakier. Last week, TeSlaa saw just 2 targets and Kennedy saw 4, and it’s a good reminder that sometimes when a primary guy gets hurt, most of the missing volume just gets spread around the remaining primary guys instead of backups taking on big roles. That’s certainly possible, and I view both of these guys as volatile. They’ll be on the field a lot, but that isn’t a guarantee that they’ll be earning targets. They’re still both cheap with TeSlaa at $4k and Kennedy at $2k, so at least they haven’t been priced up too much, and of course, the matchup is just about perfect. Between the two, I’d prefer TeSlaa, though Kennedy does have some floor to his game – he was the direct fill-in for ARSB, so he ran short, high catch rate routes with an 8-yard aDOT, while TeSlaa has more per-target upside with a 15.8 yard aDOT, albeit far fewer targets. My expectation, though, is that with a week to prepare for life without ARSB and Raymond that TeSlaa has more involvement – he’s a very talented rookie who Detroit should see as a key part of their future, while Kennedy is an undrafted free agent who’s been in a bench or practice squad role on the team for years but is really “just a guy.” Consider TeSlaa a legitimate, all-around ceiling play, while Kennedy is more of a solid floor but perhaps questionable ceiling value option.

At tight end without Brock Wright and with Sam LaPorta still hurt, Ross Dwelley stepped into a large role, playing 75% of the offensive snaps while Anthony Firkser played 24%. Wright was reported as likely dealing with a long-term injury, so even though he’s listed as questionable, I’d guess he’s much more like doubtful, and I’d be surprised if he plays. When LaPorta went out, Wright saw significant passing game involvement, with 7 and 4 targets. But last week, we only saw Dwelley get 3 targets while Firkser had 1. Still, though, I’d actually guess Dwelley’s likeliest outcome is pretty close to Kennedy’s, but I’d also guess that limited output last week may result in projections significantly favoring Kennedy and thus ownership being much on him as well. If Kennedy projects for high ownership and Dwelley for low, I’d flip those two in my personal exposures. 

On the Cowboys side of things, Javonte Williams has one of the bigger running back roles in the league, playing exactly 78% of the snaps in Dallas last three games and handling 20+ touches in all three of those games. Javonte has yet to play fewer than 72% of the snaps in a competitive game and has one of the more bankable workloads in the league. At $9k, he’s fairly cheap for his role, and while Detroit has been solid against running backs for most of the year, injuries have left them a little more fragile, and they just gave up 4.9 yards per carry to Josh Jacobs last week. The matchup is probably more average-ish now and the role makes Javonte a very solid play, though it’s tough to get to the Dallas pay-up guys given how well the high-end Lions players will project. I think Javonte could be quite low owned here with people wanting to play Gibbs, Jamo, and then Lamb and Pickens, given that Dallas is the road underdog here. Javonte’s not an exciting play, but his role makes his ceiling robust, and if he comes in at low ownership, that’s one solid way to approach this slate in tournaments. Behind him, Hunter Luepke and Malik Davis are both getting a few snaps and a modest bit of work. Luepke is more of a blocker with 3 carries and 9 targets on the season, while Davis is more of a straight backup in a 2-down role with 3-4 carries in each of the last three games. Both are extremely fragile, and you’d probably need a long touchdown (like Davis scored last week) in order to pay off. 

In the passing game, Lamb and Pickens have formed one of the top wide receiver pairings in the league, and Pickens has actually outperformed Lamb overall this season (though we correctly identified on Thanksgiving that Lamb was the better option). Both are extremely solid plays. Earlier in the season, Lamb missed some time with injuries and Pickens smashed, but even since Lamb has returned, Pickens has had between 9 and 13 targets in five of those six games. Surprisingly, they each have exactly 57 targets in those six games. Priced $200 apart and with exactly identical target volume and in a good matchup, it’s hard for me to pick a favorite…they’re both elite receivers. They even have near-identical aDOTs! Flip a coin here, I suppose. I’ll lean Lamb very slightly, but you can go either way. Ryan Flournoy, KaVontae Turpin, and Jalen Tolbert are splitting the WR3 role, with Tolbert having the smaller role ever since Flournoy put up his huge Week 5 performance. Of the three, Flournoy has the highest target projection, while Turpin is more of a special teams guy, but one who has tremendous per-touch upside. Tolbert won’t be in my player pool, but both Flournoy and Turpin are appealing in tournaments as they should be significantly less owned than the cheap Lions – everyone’s going to play TeSlaa and Kennedy, but if Flournoy or Turpin find the end zone, they’ll almost certainly wind up in winning lineups.

At tight end, Jake Ferguson is the third pillar of the offense, though he hasn’t seen more than 7 targets since Lamb returned from injury. He’s fine, and his touchdown equity is great as he’s second in the league in red zone targets with 20, but at $7,400, he’s priced a little too close to the real high-end options for me to get really enthused about him. TE2 Luke Schoonmaker is a punt option, and while like Turpin and Flournoy he’ll be lower owned than the cheap Lions, he’s harder to get excited about as his role is extremely short area and limited. His ceiling outcome is something like 1/12/1, and while that might put him into winning lineups, it’s not a guarantee at all. He’s a thin tourney play. TE3 Brevyn Spann-Ford is on the field a decent amount but only has 6 targets all season, so he’s the thinnest of punt options. 

STRATEGY OUTLOOK

This is a tricky one because there are so many pay-up options: Gibbs, Jamo, Lamb, Pickens, Javonte, plus the quarterbacks, and any of them can reasonably find ceiling performances in any given game. You could try to spread the peanut butter around and play all of them and just hope to build better rosters overall with better storytelling/correlation, or you could take a stand on a couple of the studs. The latter approach would be my preference personally, though both are viable approaches. Finally, another dynamic here is the pricing dead zone. This is always the case in Showdowns, but it’s extra-wide in this one with only two plays between $5.4k and $8.4k in Ferguson and Monty. Usually, when we get a big dead zone that results in decreased ownership (which is somewhat odd), you’d think only having 1-2 viable plays in a $3k range would result in increased ownership on those plays, but what generally tends to happen is the overall roster construction/salary allocation just shies away from those guys. 

AMON-RA ST. BROWN

IF ARSB PLAYS: I doubt he does, but if he does, that moves TeSlaa back to a much thinner option and removes Kennedy as a viable play. What it also does is significantly increase the appeal of the cheap Dallas guys like Turpin, Flournoy, and Schoonmaker as punts, because now they aren’t competing against cheap Lions who will project much, much better. 

CASH GAMES

In cash games, I would strongly consider prioritizing the Lions heavily if ARSB misses because of how much volume he leaves behind – Gibbs, Goff, and Jamo would all be core plays for me in cash (with Dak as the 4th pay-up option), while TeSlaa and Kennedy would both be cash viable as well. If ARSB plays, the cash build becomes a much tougher one. I’d leave Jamo out of my cash pool in that case and lean towards Javonte as his replacement, but then the value gets trickier as I wouldn’t play TeSlaa in cash, and Kennedy basically goes away entirely in that scenario. I’d look to Dwelley as my favorite cash option in that scenario.

TOURNAMENTS

In tournaments, the clear top captain options would be Gibbs and Jamo. I’d strongly consider going overweight the Dallas side with a lot of exposure to Lamb, Pickens, and Javonte in the captain spot, and then I’ll run some cheap captain rosters as well to get an extra stud in given how many high-end plays there are on this slate. 

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 least 1 of Gibbs, Jamo, TeSlaa (these guys will be the core of the Detroit offense and I think it’s reasonable to believe at least 1 gets there unless you’re building for Dallas onslaught scenarios)

• At most 2 of Gibbs, Goff, and Monty (unless in 5-1 Lions onslaught builds)

• At most 1 of Flournoy, Turpin, and Tolbert (could consider waiving this rule if ARSB plays, or add Schoonmaker to the group and make it a max 2 rule)

• At most 1 of Luepke and Davis

• At most 1 of Dwelley and Firkser

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