Showdown for Sunday Night Football in Week 1 features the Bears visiting the Rams. My thoughts for Showdown are below, and be sure to check out Rich Hribar’s Fantasy Football Worksheet for a full breakdown of Chicago at Los Angeles.
Strategy
With the Rams bouncing between 7.5- and 8-point favorites, we can expect the prevalent build strategy to be 4-2 and 5-1 Rams onslaughts. Andy Dalton is making his first start for the Bears, and his lackluster performance from 2020 doesn’t inspire confidence. Using three to four Bears will be an effective way to differentiate from the field if building for alternate game scripts. Matthew Stafford projects to be the most popular player at CPT and overall (68-78%). Fading him will be the easiest way to be contrarian and is worth considering for some RB heavy or low-scoring game-script builds. Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, and Allen Robinson are clustered together in projected ownership (42-53%) with no clear order.
When making Rams heavy builds, I recommend including one or more of: WR3/4, RB2, Bears TE or Bears DST. I prefer going under the field on Dalton and David Montgomery. My favorite low owned plays to go overweight on are Damien Williams, Tyler Higbee, Sony Michel and Cole Kmet.
DK Values:
- DeSean Jackson ($1,400) or Van Jefferson Jr. ($800) – Risky WR3/4
- Damien Williams ($2,200)
- Either K ($3,600/3,200)
DK Leverage:
- Tyler Higbee ($7,000) – Expensive but nice pivot off of popular WRs
- Marquise Goodwin ($4,200) – WR3 priced much higher than Rams
DK Build Guide:
- Max 1 DST, Max 1 K
- If CPT RB, negative boost opposing DST/K
- If CPT Stafford, Triple stack
- If CPT WR/TE, force at least 1 QB, boost team QB
- If using DST, negative boost opposing QB/RB/K
- Leave salary on the table, especially with chalky CPTs
- Cumulative ownership under 250%
- Use ownership product to reduce duplicates
- Max 1 of Jackson, Jefferson, and Atwell
- Max 1 of Byrd, Goodwin, and Perriman
FD Values:
- Tyler Higbee ($8,500)
- Allen Robinson ($11,500)
- Either K ($8,000/9,000)
FD Leverage:
- Any WR3/4 ($7,500 or less)
- Damien Williams ($8,000) – RB2 with uncertain workload
FD Build Guide:
- No K MVP
- Focus on 3-2 build construction (3 Bears for leverage)
- Max 1 QB (wins nearly 3x as often)
- If WR CPT, boost QB
- Leave salary on the table, especially with chalky MVPs
- Include more dart-throws when mass entering large-field MME