Week 4 TNF Showdown Analysis
A statistics and projection-powered breakdown of the Week 4 Showdown Matchup on DraftKings - Lions vs. Packers
These showdown previews are free, but here’s a tip jar if you appreciate the analysis and want to buy me a sweet, sweet pumpkin cold brew.
We have a good one tonight! A divisional matchup in Lambeau featuring two 2-1 teams that figure to be in the playoff picture this season. And now we have three weeks of data to use here, which is about the point where we can start feeling decent about our insights.
Game Environment
Line: DET -2.5
Over/Under: 45.5
Vegas thinks it will be a tight game with a slight nod to the road Lions, which is not something we’re used to seeing in this matchup every year!
I’ve updated the main NFL dashboard this week so I have more stuff to show! Here’s the up-to-date defensive yards allowed scatter plot.
Both defenses are in the top ten in yards allowed per play. Green Bay has allowed 70 plays run against them per game, the sixth-most in the league - and Detroit is eight spots behind them at 64 plays. There’s still a lot of variance in those numbers with just three games in the books.
Last year, Green Bay allowed the fifth-most yards per rush at 4.9, and both of these defenses were in the bottom six in yards allowed per play. Both of these defenses have been better so far this year - but again, figuring that puzzle out doesn’t really matter that much since we’re not comparing this game environment with any other games.
A tight spread means there’s no real obvious narrative to chase after. It’s less likely that one team really dominates, so there’s not a RB+DST combination we want to lean into or anything like. Now let’s get into the individual teams.
Lions
Pass Rate OE: -7.4% (27th in league)
Pace Rank: 28th
Yards/Play: 6.0 (5th)
Yards/Pass: 8.0 (4th)
Yards/Rush: 3.6 (23rd)
So they like to run the ball but haven’t been super successful with. They have been quite successful when going to the air - so it’s a good mixture on the Lions offense, this is an above-average unit overall.
Quarterback Play
Jared Goff is more of a game manager and because of that he hasn’t been much of a fantasy asset in his career. His completion percentage is high at 70.6% (6th-best), and that’s with a league average ADoT (7.8 yards) - so that’s pretty impressive stuff.
His lack of rushing (3, 0, and -1 rush yards this year) puts a lot of pressure on him to clear 300 yards and have multiple touchdowns in order to get there for fantasy purposes, and so far here’s scored 14, 26, and 18 fantasy points in his three games (vs. KC, SEA, ATL respectively). That 18 against Atlanta was with the benefit of a rushing touchdown, so that could have been a very bad game for him.
Goff is certainly not a must-play guy here in a showdown, and I could even see a full fade of him if you’re trying to take down a tournament. The Lions like to run, the Packers have been beaten on the ground - so the chance of the Lions just winning this game on the ground are higher than normal - and that would be very bad for Goff’s fantasy point production.
Running Backs
David Montgomery missed week three, but he’s back for tonight - so we should just look at the usage in weeks 1-2:
Montgomery: 37 rushes, 3.8 yards per carry, 2 TD, 1 target, 1 catch
Gibbs: 14 rushes, 4.2 yards per carry, 0 TD, 11 targets, 9 catches
In the first two weeks, Montgomery dominated the red zone usage with seven carries to Gibbs single carry.
Last week showed that they aren’t afraid of giving Gibbs the ball as he had 17 carries to lead that backfield by a lot. That could mean that he’ll slowly take up more and more of the carries, and there’s a good chance it’s a pretty even split tonight with Montgomery coming off of a thigh injury that we initially thought would cost him multiple weeks.
Gibbs would seem to be the better play with his pass game role and big-play upside, but the prices even that out in a hury:
Gibbs $9,600
Montgomery $6,800
It would seem the pricing model assumed Montgomery would miss, and $9,600 is a pretty steep price to pay for a guy that projects for 8-12 touches rather than 15+.
Pass Catchers
Target Shares:
St. Brown :: 28 targets, 29% share
LaPorta :: 22 targets, 23% share
Reynolds :: 13 targets, 13% share
Raymond :: 10 targets, 10% share
Jones Jr. :: 6 targets, 6% share
Pretty concentrated there between St. Brown and LaPorta - the rookie tight end. St. Brown has 4 targets in the red zone and a solid enough 8.8 ADoT, while LaPorta has a lower 6.3 ADoT and one red zone target (the team only has seven red zone targets overall so far).
The lottery ticket play would probably be Kalif Raymond ($5,200) with his ten targets and huge 16.6 ADoT. He actually leads the team right now in yards per target at 12.1 - but that role makes a complete and total bust pretty likely as well
Priority Plays:
Amon-Ra St. Brown $11,600
Secondary Plays
David Montgomery $6,800
Jared Goff $10,400
Sam LaPorta $8,000
Other Plays
Jahmyr Gibbs $9,600
Kalif Raymond $5,200
DET DST $4,000
Riley Patterson $4,800
Packers
Pass Rate OE: -3.2% (19th in league)
Pace Rank: 25th
Yards/Play: 5.1 (15th)
Yards/Pass: 6.8 (16th)
Yards/Rush: 3.4 (25th)
The numbers above are skewed by Aaron Jones having missed two of the team’s three games, and he’ll return tonight which can only help the offense. Even without Jones in the lineup the last two weeks, they have been in the middle of the pack in pass rate, so chances are that they don’t want to really put a ton of pressure on Jordan Love at this point. But the Lions are an offense that can put points on the board, so there could be some urgency here.
Quarterback Play
It’s been a mixed bag for Jordan Love so far. His 53% completion percentage is right there with Zach Wilson for the worst in the league, however he has a positive EPA (0.19) and a high ADoT of 10.4 which has gotten the yards per attempt up into the middle of the pack. And he’s done all of that without their best wide receiver Christian Watson, who will make his season debut tonight.
The bad completion percentage is really the only bad thing we can say about Love right now, and it would seem that Watson being back could really, really help him a lot. Watson is a fantastic down-field threat and that’s what Love has shown that he wants to do so far - so this could be a pretty exciting duo.
Running Backs
Injuries are messing with us here too since we have two games without Jones, but again - he’s back tonight. Let’s look at how their workload broken down last season
Jones: 17 G, 213 attempts, 5.3 YPC, 73 targets, 59 catches
Dillon: 17 G, 186 attmepts, 4.1 YPC, 43 targets, 28 catches
Dillon was not good at all in his two starts this year averaging just 3.4 yards per carry and seeing one lone target. He’s clearly not someone you want to play in this spot at $7,000. Jones $10,800 is a pretty appealing play with his great efficiency and pass game role, so this is a pretty clear-cut backfield to me as far as this Showdown Slate goes.
Pass Catchers
Things are going to get scrambled now with Watson returning, so the past data doesn’t really tell us as much in this situation. However, here it is:
Doubs :: 20 targets, 11 catches, 3 TD, 11.9 ADoT
Reed: 20 targets, 9 catches, 2 TD, 12.6 ADoT
Musgrave :: 15 targets, 11 catches, 0 TD, 11.5 ADoT
Wicks: 12 targets, 6 catches, 1 TD, 11.3 ADoT
Toure :: 9 targets, 3 catches, 18.3 ADoT
I haven’t written up a ton of football games in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team with every viable receiver having a double-digit ADoT. Pretty wild stuff in this pass game, this game could be really, really fun to watch.
Last year, Christian Watson was just fifth on the team in targets (66), but he played just 14 games. In those games, he caught seven touchdowns and had a really high 9.3 yards per target (influenced by Aaron Rodgers, for sure, but Love seems to competent at the very least). That 9.3 Yd/Target was 14th-best in the league, so this guy has already shown that he can be a very successful receiver in the league.
The prices:
Doubs $8,800
Watson $8,200
Musgrave $6,400
Reed $5,600
Watson would appear to be a screaming value here.
Priority Plays
Aaron Jones $10,800
Christian Watson $8,200
Jordan Love $9,800
Secondary Plays
Luke Musgrave $6,400
Jayden Reed $5,600
Other Plays
Anders Carlson $4,600
Full Game Projections
Projection-Powered Optimal Lineup
CPT David Montgomery
Jordan Love
Jared Goff
Christian Watson
Josh Reynolds
Riley Patterson
Correlation Ideas
Shootout:
Love → Watson, St. Brown + Raymond
Ugly game:
Montgomery, Jones, LaPorta, St. Brown, One Kicker
Lions dominate:
Montgomery, Goff, St. Brown, Jones, Lions Kicker
Packers dominate:
Jones, Watson, Love, Musgrave, Gibbs
Okay that’s it, I think this was my best one so far - hope you enjoyed it! Let’s make some bank tonight!