Speed, Speed, Speed.

The Baltimore Ravens have been ravaged by injuries and they haven’t even played a regular-season game yet. Running backs J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards are out for the season as is the case for star cornerback Marcus Peters. One person they do still have healthy is quarterback and former MVP Lamar Jackson. He’ll likely be asked to use his legs even more now with how thin Baltimore is at running back. Speaking of legs, this game has two of the fastest receivers in the league in Baltimore’s Marquise “Hollywood” Brown and the Raiders’ Henry Ruggs. Both hope that this season will have with it great improvement. The Raiders start another season under Jon Gruden with Derek Carr at quarterback. The weapons are improving around Carr which will hopefully translate into success throughout the season for Las Vegas.

NOTE: All pricing references pertain to DraftKings

Showdown Strategy

When Showdown slates first became available I was not a big fan simply because I don’t often like change. When these slates were designed we hadn’t ever seen anything like them in the DFS world. Come to realize a few years later I really enjoy them. On a normal slate with multiple games, I would typically describe myself as a cash game player primarily. That’s where my focus typically lies; cash games/single entry tournaments and from there I’ll build lineups for multi-entry GPP contests. For me, the cash game/single entry strategy kind of goes out the window as I’ll hardly if ever play double-ups and single-entry contests in showdown. Instead, I’ll take a core of players, more than often three to four players in the game that I want in virtually every lineup, typically 20 or so, that I build. The core will usually include both quarterbacks and one to two skill players that I have to have. Like much of fantasy football volume is king but it comes with a price. The wrinkle is the captain’s spot in showdown lineups. The captain’s spot generates 1.5 times the amount of fantasy points scored however a player’s salary goes up in the captain’s spot obviously. Locking in a core and deciding on a captain is how I’ll start building lineups. From there I’ll fill in the rest of the spots with correlation and value plays. Don’t be afraid to get a little weird with these lineups because virtually anything goes!

Core Plays

Baltimore Ravens: QB Lamar Jackson

Las Vegas Raiders: QB Derek Carr, TE Darren Waller

It’s no secret that Lamar Jackson is in this core. He’s the one offensive player on Baltimore that isn’t a question mark at this point in time and it’ll be a surprise to me if he doesn’t have at least 10 carries on top of all the production he’ll have throwing the ball. The Raiders secondary leaves a lot to be desired here as Jackson has a reliable tight end and good receivers to spread the ball around to. More on them later.

Derek Carr to Darren Waller has been poetry in motion for years now and don’t expect that to change anytime soon. Carr had the most passing yards of his career last season with 4,103 as well as 27 touchdowns to just nine interceptions. Waller also had a career year with 1,196 receiving yards and nine touchdowns. He also saw a 28.2 percent target share which led the team by far. Building lineups around Jackson, Carr, and Waller is the route that makes the most sense to me and there’s value on this slate allowing it to be done.

*NOTE: All plays above are obviously “Captain” viable

Captain Plays

*Captain plays will always be options other than those mentioned in the “core plays” section.

RB Josh Jacobs

The former Alabama running back handled 273 carries last season for 1065 yards, quite a drop from the year prior in which he ran for 1,150 yards in 31 fewer carries and two fewer games. Jacobs’ role did however expand in the passing game where he caught 33 passes as opposed to 20 from the year prior. I have to imagine that the Raiders are going to want to keep Lamar Jackson off the field and running the ball heavily early with Jacobs effectively would help in doing that.

TE Mark Andrews

Like the Raiders, Baltimore has a great tight end that they feature heavily in their offense in Mark Andrews. Two years ago Andrews hauled in 64 balls for 868 yards and 10 touchdowns. His production took a bit of a dip last season but he still saw a high target share (25.4 percent) as well as 17 red-zone targets. Andrews is always on the field, sure-handed, and should have a mismatch in most cases to his advantage.

Flex Plays

WR Marquise Brown (BAL)

The speedster they call Hollywood is a big play waiting to happen but his issue has been consistency. Brown had four games last season with 85 or more receiving yards but he also had nine games under 50 receiving yards. With a little boom or bust comes his massive upside relative to his salary ($7,600) which is friendly for a teams number one receiver.

WR’s Henry Ruggs and Bryan Edwards (LV)

The top two receivers on the depth chart for the Raiders are young and hungry playmakers in the making. Ruggs is a big-play threat with his blazing speed who averaged 17.4 yards per catch last season, the second-highest mark of any receiver. Edwards was used sparingly last season but is listed as a starter opposite of Ruggs on the outside. He has some good size to him at 6’3″ and could see some work in the red zone. Both are substantially underpriced as the top two receivers with Ruggs at $5,000 and Edwards at $5,600.

RB Ty’son Williams (BAL)

Before this sason Williams was a practice squad running back. Let’s keep that in mind before we start running to start him in lineups spending money we’ve worked our asses off all week earning. Can Williams come out and carry the ball 16 times, run for 100 yards, and score a touchdown? Sure he can but I believe the range of outcomes sways to the other end, you know, the end that has him carry the ball 9 times for 27 yards or something crappy like that. Will I have exposure to him? Yes. Am I loading up on him? No way.

K’s Justin Tucker (BAL), Daniel Carlson (LV)

Value Flex Plays

WR Hunter Renfrow (LV)

• Renfrow is a supreme value play as the teams top slot receiver. Renfrow hauled in 56 balls for 656 yards last season with 65 percent of his snaps coming out of the slot. He’s just $2,800

WR Devin Duvernay (BAL)

• Much like Van Jefferson last night, which payed off, Duvernay is a flier but he’s more expensive ($2,800) than Jefferson was last night. He’s a burner with big-play ability and could find himself on the field more often than usual with some other receivers on Baltimore banged up.

No Thanks

WR Sammy Watkins (BAL)

RB Kenyan Drake (LV)

GOOD LUCK!!