TNF Week 16 Showdown: Rams vs. Seahawks

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Week 16 begins with a critical NFC game as the Rams visit the Seahawks for a 43.5 total game with Los Angeles favored by 1.5. These are the NFC’s two best teams (or at least the teams with the two best records) as they’re both 11-3 and tied atop the division. Obviously, this is a big deal, and there are interesting developments with each team. The Seahawks offense has been struggling lately, while the Rams are without Davante Adams, who appears to be doubtful for this week’s game. 

SEATTLE

On the Seattle side, the backfield’s a 2-way split between Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet. Walker looked like he was pulling away a few weeks back, but then he has opportunity counts of 15, 17, 13, and 10 in the past four weeks, while Charbonnet has 6, 14, 10, and 9 in those games. Those are four straight wins with a favorable game script for running (they were playing from behind against the Colts last week, but it was close throughout), but Seattle has just had a tough time generating useful fantasy scores from its backfield due to the split and their overall low play volume (58.5 plays per game, roughly 3 below average). Walker has (much) more big-play ability, as Charbonnet only has 2 carries over 20 yards all season, while Walker has 6, but Charbonnet has much more touchdown equity with 20 carries inside the 10-yard line against 10 for Walker. Against the Rams, one of the league’s better defenses, this is just a really tough spot. I don’t really want to play either of these guys, but in Showdown, it’s tough to ignore the touchdown equity they bring to the table, and their prices are very reasonable at $7,200 for Walker and $6,200 for Charbs. I’ll lean slightly to Charbonnet based on the red zone role and the price discount. 

In the passing game, it’s basically Jaxon Smith-Njigba or bust. While this is a low passing volume offense, JSN has a massive 35% target share and 46.4% air yards share, good for 1st and 4th in the NFL, respectively. He’s averaging 9.3 targets per game and leads the league in receiving yards. He’s an absolute stud. When these teams met in Week 11 and played to a modest 40-point total game, JSN put up 23.6 points with a 9/105/0 line. That’s closer to his floor than his ceiling (keep in mind JSN only has TWO games all season under 20 DK points!), but would still almost certainly be enough to put him in winning tournament lineups. After JSN, we have Cooper Kupp, who is largely running cardio out on the field (just four games all season of 10+ DK points and only one of 15+, which is most likely about what you need at his price). We also have trade acquisition Rashid Shaheed, who just played the most snaps he’s played with Seattle last week at 68%. Shaheed has 12 targets in the last two weeks and looks to be fully integrated with the offense at this point. Giving Seattle another deep threat, Shaheed has a much higher ceiling than Kupp, and at only $800 more, is a much stronger option to me. Some combination of Cody White and Jake Bobo will pick up a handful of WR4 snaps and can be viewed as tourney dart throws – White has a slight lead here.

At tight end, Elijah Arroyo was put on IR, so AJ Barner will be on the field a ton with Eric Saubert backing him up. Barner is one of the league’s least exciting tight end options for fantasy purposes (he’s almost always unowned on main slates), but he does have 4 touchdowns on the season as well as three games of 50+ receiving yards. At $4,400, if he finds his way to one of those outcomes, there’s a very good chance he’s in winning lineups. He’s a solid, cheap play, while Saubert is a risky punt.

On the Rams side of things, Kyren Williams’ role has been shrinking, with his two lowest snap counts of the season and two of three games under a 60% snap share in their last two weeks. He’s been saving his fantasy output with a ton of touchdowns lately, with 8 in Los Angeles last seven games, but here on the road against one of the league’s top defenses is a tough spot to consider paying up for a high $9,800 price (his 4th highest salary of the season) given his declining snap share. He’s averaging just 13 carries and 1.4 targets per game over the Rams last five games, including four wins and plenty of favorable game script for running the ball (though Kyren did have his most efficient game at 7.6 yards per carry when these teams met in Week 11, but that seems somewhat fluky to me). Kyren has a ceiling, but his floor is scary low for his elevated salary. The positive here is that with people wanting to play JSN and Puka at the high end of the salary range, I expect Kyren’s ownership will be pretty modest. RB2 Blake Corum is coming off a solid three-game stretch with 13.1+ DK points in each game, at least 71 rushing yards in each game, and 4 touchdowns. With no passing game role to speak of, Corum is dependent on big runs and/or touchdowns, and while his snap share has increased in the last couple of games, he’s still only at 13 and 11 touches. He’s a fine RB2 play but a low-floor one given the modest volume.

In the passing game, I’m assuming Adams is out, as he left last week’s game early and did not return. It was a hamstring injury, something he’s been nursing for a few weeks – he clearly pulled up lame on a route, left, and didn’t come back. Those kinds of soft tissue injuries generally take a bit to heal up, and Adams has yet to practice. He rarely misses games, and so it wouldn’t absolutely shock me if he played, but I think he’s more likely to miss than play in this one. What’s weird is that he left Week 15 early and Puka also got banged up and missed some time, but none of the other wide receivers saw an increase in playing time. In fact, Jordan Whittington and Xavier Smith both played fewer snaps than we’d been seeing while the Rams deployed heavy personnel packages at the highest rate they’ve used all season (including some sets where they even had THREE tight ends on the field). That gives us a hint that Los Angeles does not think highly of their other wideouts. Puka is, of course, an elite play who is a huge favorite to see double digit targets without Adams. Working against him is a matchup against an elite pass defense that held Matt Stafford to his fewest yards per pass attempt of the season by a huge margin (just 4.6), but matchup be damned, Puka’s still one of the best two plays in this Showdown.

Behind Puka will be some combo of Jordan Whittington, Konata Mumpfield, Tutu Atwell, and Xavier Smith. Mumpfield is the guy who’s been on the field the most lately, but he has only 9 targets on the season. Whittington has also been a consistent presence in the offense, and his 24 season targets are the most among all of the non-Puka WRs, but his disappearance last game is concerning, and I have no idea if his role may increase in this game. Smith is another low target share option whose snap count plummeted last week (just 3 offensive snaps), while Atwell just returned from a lengthy absence and only played 4 snaps but saw 2 targets on those snaps. These guys are all shaky, and it’s very plausible that none of them put up tourney-viable scores, but of the group I prefer Atwell. It’s possible they eased him in slowly, and his snaps will increase. He’s probably the most talented of the bunch, and while he barely played last week, they did get him the ball when he was on the field.

At tight end, Colby Parkinson, Terrance Ferguson, and Davis Allen all played 75%+ of the snaps last week, and that looks like the likeliest path for the Rams in this game, meaning these guys can be played together on rosters. Parkinson is the primary guy here and is coming off a huge 5/75/2 game on 7 targets last week. It’s especially important to note that Adams is leading the NFL in red zone and end zone targets, and kind of humorously, has more than some entire teams – it’s a massive role he’s vacating, and since Puka has never historically been heavily used in the red zone, it looks likeliest that the Rams tight ends will benefit most from Davante’s absence. Colby is chief among that group. At a modest $5,400, he looks like a tremendous value option, and while I expect him to be very highly owned as a result, he’s a really, really solid on-paper play. Ferguson at $1,600 is another guy I’m very interested in for tournaments. While he’s had modest passing volume this year (17 targets on the season), he has 4 catches of 20+ yards on that volume on a very healthy 19.6 yard aDOT. Low volume, but pretty awesome per-target upside. He could possibly find his way to winning lineups on a single catch, and if he gets 2 catches, he’s a favorite to help you win tourneys. He’s highly risky with no floor to speak of, but the ceiling for his price is awesome. Davis Allen is more of a blocker with low per-target upside on just a 3.6-yard aDOT, but the volume is more secure. Allen is more of a cash game option, while I prefer Ferguson in tourneys, as Allen would almost certainly need a touchdown to pay off. 

STRATEGY OUTLOOK

These are two of the league’s top teams, both featuring very strong offenses and defenses. The game total is pretty low for them, though, and I think that’s right. Last time they played to a 40-point total, and that was with a healthy Adams. Now the Rams are missing one of the key pieces of their incredibly concentrated offense, while in Seattle, Sam Darnold has struggled heavily of late with a 6:6 TD:INT ratio in his last six games (including a horrendous 4-pick performance against the Rams last time they played). Both teams are packed with talent, but there’s an obvious risk and downside to each offense, so you can build this one any which way. One team could whomp the other, they could have a shootout, they could have a low-scoring, close game like last time. We also have two very concentrated offenses, with Puka and JSN being premium priority plays and then a smattering of high-risk cheaper options around them. Of all of the non-primary plays, my favorite options are Shaheed, Tutu, Parkinson, Corum, and Ferguson in no particular order. Don’t forget about the kickers and defenses as well. DSTs especially often go lower owned than they should on slates like this between high-end teams. 

CASH GAMES

I hate cash games in this one because usually I want to prioritize running backs, but that’s hard to argue for here. JSN, Puka, and Stafford look like the strongest cash plays at the high end, while Parkinson, the kickers, and Allen are cheap options to make it work, but honestly, I would probably just avoid cash here as my normal cash game strategy of focusing on scoring equity doesn’t really work with these teams.

TOURNAMENTS

In tournaments, obviously, Puka and JSN are the top captain options. I think Shaheed, Tutu, Parkinson, and Ferguson pack enough ceiling to be considered as cheaper options, and if you want to roster RB captains as high-risk but contrarian options who can win by stealing touchdowns, that is a very viable approach as well.

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 secondary Rams wide receiver (this is a restrictive rule – you could consider going 2 here in case the Rams go with a different game plan than we saw last week with super heavy personnel packages)

• At most 1 of Kyren and Corum

• At most 2 of Darnold, Walker, and Charbonnet

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