Sunday Night Football DFS Showdown Analysis: Kansas City Chiefs at Las Vegas Raiders

What is likely the top week for primetime Showdown games continues with Kansas City trying to avenge their only loss against Las Vegas. My thoughts for Showdown are below, and be sure to check out Rich Hribar’s Fantasy Football Worksheet for a full breakdown of the Chiefs at the Raiders.

Stacking the Chiefs passing game of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Tyreek Hill will be the most popular starting point for lineups. With Sammy Watkins ruled out again, Mecole Hardman and Demarcus Robinson become better plays, with the former projecting as the top DK value and the latter being a more contrarian pivot. They have produced very similar results since Watkins has been out. Nick Keizer is viable as a min-priced dart-throw who has been targeted one or two times in four of the last five games.

A contrarian strategy would be to prioritize one of the KC RBs and hope for increased usage coming off of the bye. A big score is unlikely, as no KC back has exceeded 13 DK points against Gruden’s Raiders. I would recommend making a rule for at most one of Clyde Edwards-Helaire (way overpriced) and Le’Veon Bell (underpriced) per lineup. However, Bell is cheap enough that you could consider just negatively boosting to discourage it.

Derek Carr is doing well as a home underdog this season, exceeding 20 DK points all three times. The Raiders target WRs at the lowest rate in the league, so we can’t count on volume. My preference is to limit my bills to at most two Raiders WRs. Nelson Agholor is my favorite WR for stacking with Carr because he is the only one with multiple end zone targets. Henry Ruggs III projects best and will likely be the most popular, while Hunter Renfrow is the cheapest and lowest upside choice.

Being that I am not interested in loading up on these low-volume WR options, I’ll be looking to mix in Darren Waller and the RBs more than the field in my CPT Carr lineups. Josh Jacobs is the main guy, but Devontae Booker did get plenty of work last week and that could continue if Jalen Richard (Q) is ruled out with his chest injury. If Richard is active, he is worth mixing in as a punt. None of these guys are being heavily targeted, but Jacobs has gotten more recently.

(UPDATED) Ownership:

4-2 and 5-1 Chiefs onslaughts will make up the large majority of builds. Flipping it to Raiders onslaughts, using unique stacks and leaving salary on the table will help avoid duplicates.
Mahomes is projected for the most CPT ownership at >26%. I prefer Hill and Kelce, who are next in the 10-12% range.
Carr, Jacobs and Waller are all projected <10% and have optimal CPT potential.
There are vastly different ownership projections for Agholor and Robinson, with one set having them near 7-9% and the other 17-20%. Either way, I like both for leverage options to help differentiate chalky stacks. Using one or both together would help avoid duplicates in Mahomes CPT builds.
Booker is projected 11-15%, which will likely increase if Richard is ruled out. I like him as a contrarian salary saver either way. Darrell Williams is a similar play that I don’t like as much. He is lower priced and will be even lower owned.
Edwards-Helaire looks to be quite popular in the 28-40% range at flex. Based on his high price, he is my favorite fade play. I won’t use him at CPT much, if at all, and will aim for <15% flex usage.

DK Values: