Monday Showdown – BAL @ LAR – Hunter’s Corner

This week we end week 12 with the run smashing Ravens taking on the pass heavy Rams.

My name is Hunter Sinclair and I occasionally write about showdowns and game breakdowns for the main slate in the Slack channels. I have had a long history with DFS for football going back to the very beginning with Kevin the Football Geek.  If you were around back then you might remember me from Hunter’s Corner where I used to do heavy defense breakdowns, matchup analysis and various other write-ups.  In this article I’ll break down how how I personally approach attacking these showdown games using this weeks game as an example.

Additionally, @Burns273 and I have been doing a pod for the DFSArmy called the “Off-Chalk Pod” where Burns and I go through the main slate and breakdown how we see each game playing out and which off-chalk (lower owned) plays are our favorite and which ones are most likely to pay off in GPP contests.  This is a GPP tournament focused pod as both Burns and I have chased and been successful with getting Live Final qualifier tickets over the last several years.  The plays and methods we use are also relevant for playing in most of the regular GPP tournaments as well.

So How Does Showdown/Single Game work?

If you want more detail on this – checkout @DFSUpNorth’s articles as he goes into much more detail on Showdown lineup construction.

Each site runs their contests a bit different but for the most part they are very similar. You pick 6 players from the game (5 on Fanduel), and choose one to be your Captain (MVP on Fanduel) and that person scores 1.5x points than everyone else.

On Draftkings you can play QB, RB, WR, TE, K, and DEF while on Fanduel you can play QB, RB, WR, TE, K but no Defense.

Scoring is the same as normal NFL DFS contests. On DraftKings there is a full point for PPR and that makes pass catchers more valuable while you only get a half point on FanDuel.

You need at least one player from each team on your roster. So you can’t just load up all on one team. Optimally I like to build with 4 of one team and 2 of the other on DraftKings and 3 of one team and 2 of the other on Fanduel, though 4-1 seems to be pretty solid there as well.

Looking for a podcast to listen to on your way to work or while mowing the lawn? Check out our Podcast Page for some great listens from @ffootballgeek and other coaches.

Join the DFS Army Today and gain access to the best content/tools/projections/coaching in the industry!

Game Breakdown:

The approach I take with every showdown I play is to come up with what I think it the most likely scenario to play out on the field for that game.  In order to do this I need to consider a lot of variables and then make my best educated guess of what I think all that means.  I will try and break it down in slightly more simplified version for everyone below.  We talk about doing this a lot (although maybe not exactly how I approach it with applying the theory to the projections), but we do preach about making your lineups “tell a story”.  It’s like those old “Choose your own adventure” novels you might have read when you were a kid.  You fill in the blanks, make choices along the way and in the end the story and ending can be completely different based on all those small incremental choices.  So let’s choose our adventure for this game…

One way that I breakdown rosters is through our Research Station. We will have a stand alone research station for the Thursday games this year, which I’m pumped about, check it out here! –> Showdown/Single Game Research Station

Want to try a free month of DFS Army VIP Membership? See How

Stats for this game:

I start by looking at the specific team matchup, the vegas line, O/U, and recently I have been using the Power Rankings that @statsational puts out each week for everyone to see under the Beat The Bookie NFL section.  This is where I start, and where pretty much every DFS player starts.  Let’s be honest – I don’t think there are many DFS players out there who are not at least using Vegas Lines, O/U, and DVP rankings to determine who they will play in games.

Anyhow, I get a first read on the game this way and for this game you can see on the surface that BAL is a slight favorite -3 on the road in what should be a pretty high scoring game 49 O/U.   BAL has recently been better and better at defending the pass ever since Marcus Peters joined and Jimmy Smith returned, oppositely they have been progressively worse against the run than they were earlier in the season.  On the other side LAR have been pretty good against the run recently but have really fast mostly shit teams from a running perspective in the last 4 weeks, also since Ramsey joined they have been better at shutting down the #1 WR on the opposite side.

A couple injury notes to consider: Michael Pierce DT will likely be out for BAL and that is a slight boost for Gurley as Pierce is a pretty good run stuffer.  For the Rams they will be without their Right Tackle Haverstein.

Once I have a general idea of what the teams are best/worst at and how to attack each side, I start to dig a bit deeper.  What I am looking for are anomalies or indicators where there is some match in opposing skills (like if one team sucks at protecting the QB and the other team is racking up the sacks).

Here are Stats for this game that I specifically looked at in considering my scenarios – these are adjusted for the matchup against each other:

	LAR	BAL
OFFENSE STATS
Hurries	36	22
ADOT	8	9
Drive w/Scores	37.1%	52.7%
Drive w/TO	15.2%	9.9%
passTD/rushTDs	11/11	16/15
Sack %	4.3%	6.7%
Int %	2.8%	2.3%
DEFENSIVE
Pressure	29.6%	21.5%
TO%	12.3%	14.0%
Sacks per game	2.9	1.8
Hurries	16.7%	7.6%
Drives w/Score allowed	32.1%	39.8%

 

These I calculate by comparing the teams average production this season vs the defenders average production

TEAM:	LAR		TEAM:	BAL
Snaps	62.0		Snaps	68.0
TDs	2.6		TDs	3.0
FGs	2.4		FGs	2.2
Punts	3.8		Punts	3.5
TOs	1.5		TOs	1.3
Rush	22.0		Rush	32.0
Pass	38.0		Pass	33.0
Pass %	63.3%		Pass %	50.8%
Comp %	60.8%		Comp %	64.5%
RY/Play	4.1		RY/Play	4.6
PassTDs	1.2		PassTDs	1.5
RushTDs	1.3		RushTDs	1.3
PassYPer	11.9		PassYPer	10.8

All these stats above help me to form a picture of how I might see the game playing out.  How many TDs, Field Goals, Punts, Turnovers, etc are each team likely to have.  All these individual parts are important for showdowns since we want to know how much we can expect from a kicker or defense in addition to the other skill players.Then I look at what these teams do both offensively and defensively for the below stats and take an average between the offensive and defensive stats to come up with a projection for each of these:

Here are the projections I am coming up with for the general game outcome for each team based on the above:

For tonights game I have a come up with a few scenarios of what might happen, there are plenty more you could come up with on your own using this same method and information, but these are what I am using for my lineups.  Below is the description of each, why I think it might happen that way, and if it does what the projections for players might be in that case.

IMPORTANT:

Before I jump into the Scenarios, I want to highlight a very important aspect to doing these scenarios.  If you are interested in playing a turd in your lineup like a guy that may only get 1-2 catches and a touchdown then you should adjust the other players from the same team to compensate.  Here is an example.  Let’s say we want to run Seth Roberts or Boyd in our lineup and we are projecting BAL to score a total of 3 TDs and 1 of those coming by way of pass and 2 by rush.  So, in order for Seth Roberts or Boyd to be in the Nuts he has to either get the lone TD or like 4+ catches.  It is more likely that they get a 40+yard pass for a TD vs getting a ton of targets unless there is an injury.  If he gets 1 catch for 40-50y and a TD then that is 11-13pts.  That is enough to be in the nuts.  So if Seth Roberts or Boyd gets the TD then we need to adjust projections for other receivers which means Andrews, Brown, Ingram, etc don’t get a receiving TD and have to get points on volume and yards instead.  Then we have the 2 rushing TD between either Lamar or Ingram or maybe Edwards.  What this means is that our projections for these guys may come down enough for a guys on LAR to be better plays due to higher pass reception volume or yardage and such.

SCENARIO 1:

Based on my normal projections I have the Ravens winning by 10. (See above) . Which is due mainly to them being able to convert on nearly 50% of their drives into a scoring play (TD or FG).  Vegas has this as a closer game but I think the BAL def has come on strong and will create some turn over opportunities for this BAL offense in scoring range.

I expect the 3 TDs by BAL to either come by 1 passing TDs and 1 Rushing TD by Jackson and 1 rushing TD by the RBs.  For the Rams I am predicting 1 passing TD and 1 Rushing TD.  I have BAL kicking 3 FGs – which might be high, but thats were I landed.

This prediction only has BAL def getting 2 TOs and a couple of sacks – so nothing crazy – I expect those TO to turn into additional FGs or scores.  See below for different scenario where BAL def gets a score.

Consider alternate versions of the below lineups where M. Brown either scores 9 points or 15 depending if he gets in the Endzone or not on one of this 3-4 catches.  Similarly you can adjust M. Andrews if you think he gets the score.  You might run a lineup with either option.

 

Player	MyDKProj	CAPT	FDProj	FD_CPT
Lamar Jackson	24.8	37.2	24.8	37.2
Cooper Kupp	17.8	26.7	14.8	22.2
Mark Ingram	17.8	26.7	16.3	24.4
Todd Gurley	15.1	22.7	14.1	21.2
Jared Goff	12.4	18.6	12.4	18.6
Justin Tucker	12.0	18.0	12.0	18.0
Mark Andrews	11.8	17.7	9.8	14.7
Robert Woods	9.6	14.4	7.6	11.4
Marquise Brown	9.0	13.5	7.5	11.2
Brandin Cooks	8.1	12.1	6.6	9.9
Greg Zuerlein	8.0	12.0	8.0	12.0
Gerald Everett	7.8	11.7	6.3	9.5
Baltimore Ravens	7.0	10.5	7.0	10.5
Gus Edwards	5.0	7.6	5.0	7.6
Nick Boyle	4.9	7.4	3.9	5.9
Willie Snead	4.5	6.8	3.5	5.3
Seth Roberts	4.4	6.5	3.4	5.0
Los Angeles Rams	4.0	6.0	4.0	6.0
Hayden Hurst	3.9	5.9	2.9	4.4
Malcolm Brown	3.7	5.5	3.7	5.5
Darrell Henderson	2.8	4.2	2.3	3.5
Josh Reynolds	2.6	3.9	2.1	3.2
Tyler Higbee	2.6	3.9	2.1	3.1
Miles Boykin	2.5	3.7	2.0	2.9
Justice Hill	1.4	2.1	1.4	2.1

SCENARIO 2:

I call this one “Our Secondary is our Primary”

In this scenario BAL defense crushes Rams with 3 TOs and a score – I didn’t modify the BAL scoring otherwise, but all the Rams passing game was affected.  Rams still find a way to score a rushing TD and couple FGs.  37 Ravens to 13 Rams final score.

PROJECTIONS BASED ON SCENARIO 2

Player	MyDKProj	CAPT	FDProj	CAPT
Lamar Jackson	24.8	37.2	24.8	37.2
Baltimore Ravens	18.0	27.0	18.0	27.0
Mark Ingram	17.8	26.7	16.3	24.4
Todd Gurley	14.4	21.6	13.4	20.1
Cooper Kupp	14.1	21.2	11.1	16.7
Justin Tucker	12.0	18.0	12.0	18.0
Mark Andrews	11.8	17.7	9.8	14.7
Robert Woods	9.6	14.4	7.6	11.4
Marquise Brown	9.0	13.5	7.5	11.2
Brandin Cooks	8.1	12.1	6.6	9.9
Jared Goff	7.6	11.4	7.6	11.4
Greg Zuerlein	7.0	10.5	7.0	10.5
Gerald Everett	6.6	9.9	5.1	7.7
Gus Edwards	5.0	7.6	5.0	7.6
Nick Boyle	4.9	7.4	3.9	5.9
Willie Snead	4.5	6.8	3.5	5.3
Seth Roberts	4.4	6.5	3.4	5.0
Hayden Hurst	3.9	5.9	2.9	4.4
Malcolm Brown	3.7	5.5	3.7	5.5
Darrell Henderson	2.8	4.2	2.3	3.5
Josh Reynolds	2.6	3.9	2.1	3.2
Miles Boykin	2.5	3.7	2.0	2.9
Tyler Higbee	1.9	2.9	1.4	2.1
Justice Hill	1.4	2.1	1.4	2.1
Los Angeles Rams	1.0	1.5	1.0	1.5

SCENARIO 3:

Lets name this last scenario “Don’t you scoff at my Goff”

This is the scenario where Goff pulls out a win and LAR def somehow hold BAL to 2 TDs and 2 FGs.  Goff and team go 2 passing TDs and 1 Rushing.

PROJECTIONS BASED ON SCENARIO 3

So now you have a few possible scenario outcomes you can think about when you play this game.  There are countless other ways this could go, but what I like to do each week is try to determine the most likely to happen outcomes for the game and then divi up the targets, runs, yardage, TDs based on all the factors I discussed above and that is where I come up with the projections. Best of Luck Army….

–Hunter’s Corner