Week 6 of the NFL season kicks off with a throwback game between the NY Giants and the New England Patriots. By throwback I obviously mean the history these teams have had more recently under the Bill and Brady regime where the Giants have been a thorn in there side. But with this game being in New England, the Giants rolling rookie QB Danny Dimes out there and just overall not being good it’s hard to imagine that the game lives up to the hype of previous meetings.
The spread on this game is around -16.5 (as of the time I write this) and the total on the game is 42. Needless to say the Patriots defense is the dominant spot in this match-up as they come in having allowed 0 TD and 11 INT to opposing Quarterbacks this year. Now, while they haven’t faced anyone worth ANYTHING in terms of opposing QB’s, it’s not like we need to be crowing Daniel Jones as the next elite QB at this stage in his very early career. Throw on top of that Bill Belichick’s success vs rookie Quarterbacks in his career and it’s nothing more than being a Drama Queen if you try to come out saying the Giants are gonna light up the Patriots tonight…. But hey, sometimes the Drama Queen wins.
ARTICLE FORMAT
Going into this week’s Showdown Series (we have FOUR Showdown games to look at) I am trying a new approach to providing content/picks for them. First, I am going to walk through the player pool, the main CORE of guys to consider. This will be the top 7 CORE players on the slate that I like. Then I will go through the guys who are potentially VERY sneaky or longshots. There will be no more than 3 of these on a given article. Then, finally, we’ll cover the CAPTAIN spot pick of the week for me. Just one player that I would suggest you get into your lineups with atleast 3 spots as him in the captain.
I am not going to give you the perfect article for exactly every type of build. Nobody can do that. But what I can do is offer the most accurate and consistent approach to building a certain type of build on Showdown slates so that you can use this with whatever other tools and data points you need to approach your Showdown DFS fix.
I will be using these plays personally to build 10 lineups with one of them being my ‘favorite’ to play in SE or if I am really bored, Showdown CASH.
MY OPINION ON THE GAME
This is very important because it’s gonna sway about 70% of my picks for every Showdown game. I will definitely mix in some variance into the player pool away from what I expect, but the CORE will always be focused on what I anticipate in the game from a flow perspective.
I love the Patriots AIR attack, specifically Brady to be the way that they score. It’s not a spot where I see Brady racking up a ton of yards, but when they are inside the red zone, Brady will have time to throw and pick apart the Giants secondary for touchdowns. This means he and the Pats WR/pass catchers are at the top of my list. But the core of the game will no doubt be the Pats ground game chewing up clock and making it so that they get the game over with as quick as possible.
Given a new kicker in town for the Pats I’m sure they’ll get him a kick or two for field goals, but no doubt I see them scoring touchdowns in the red zone.
THE PLAYER POOL
5 of these guys minimum on every lineup … pricing indicates their FLEX price
Tom Brady – $11,800
Sony Michel – $7,600
Josh Gordon – $9,000
Jakobi Meyers – $4,800
Patriots Defense – $6,200
Jonathan Hillman – $5,800
Golden Tate – $7,000
Mike Nugent – $3,800
OFF THE WALL SLEEPERS
This really isn’t the type of game where you want an off the wall sleeper in the Captain spot, although when we do get games projected to be lower scoring it only takes one touchdown from a really off the wall player to be the difference.
Matt LaCosse – NE … Because of injuries he could creep up in ownership.
Cody Latimer – NYG … Daniel Jones and the Giants best approach in my mind is to spread the field and just go balls out. Latimer should get ignored by the Patriots.
Damien Harris – NE … He’s been inactive all season, but you know the drill if you see he is suddenly active for this game. Lock him in. Classic spot for BB to get him some run.
CAPTAIN’S CHOICE
Patriots Defense … Sorry, I just don’t see how the Giants are legit going to score this week, but if you wanted a 1B option it would be Brady to throw for 4 TD and pad his stats.
TNF-MNF Slate Considerations
The only spot to consider using on a Thursday-Monday lineup would be the Patriots Defense, and I would anticipate they come in around 20% owned on this slate.