Frustrated that you can’t play Julio Jones, Carson Wentz or anyone else from the Sunday night points fest in your DFS lineup this week? Well, then maybe you should try a Showdown.
In case you haven’t played, a Showdown is a DFS contest centered on a single game. You fill a lineup of 5 players, including at least 1 player from each team. The “captain” in your lineup gets his score multiplied by 1.5.
On DraftKings, that player also has his salary multiplied by 1.5, adding a strategy wrinkle to selecting your captain. On FanDuel, that player’s salary doesn’t change. So you just need to pick the guy you think will score the most points.
The format doesn’t allow you to fit all of the top options from a given game. So the keys are to correctly select a high scorer for your captain slot and to find a low-priced sleeper to help you fit as many points as possible into your lineup.
These contests include kickers on both sites, defenses as well on DraftKings.
DraftKings
The showdowns also come with different salaries than the other contests. Here are our Week 2 PPR projections for Eagles and Falcons, their DK showdown salaries and dollars-per-point rates based on those 2 numbers:
Dallas Goedert’s a good name to keep in mind here because of that extremely low salary. You’ll probably want to try to fit both QBs and Julio Jones into your showdown lineup here. Jones has seen 16+ targets in 3 straight meetings with the Eagles, who just allowed 380 yards and 3 TDs to Case Keenum and his band of who-are-yous. Although the QBs don’t sit high in dollars per point above, they’re likely to easily outscore the rest of the group and carry the highest point ceilings.
Jumping on Goedert’s $800 will make it easier to get that trio in, especially with 1 of them in your captain slot, which multiplies the player salary by 1.5. Some other attractive mid-to-low salaries:
-- Miles Sanders checks in $2200 cheaper than Devonta Freeman, the lead RB on the other side. He faces a Falcons D that allowed the 4th most RB PPR points last year and got trampled by Dalvin Cook in Week 1.
-- Mohamed Sanu costs $2000 less than teammate Calvin Ridley but gets arguably the best matchup in the Philly secondary. Eagles slot CB Avonte Maddox graded out 107th among CBs in coverage last week, according to Pro Football Focus.
FanDuel
The FanDuel showdowns don’t involve as much strategy. You still choose one player to have his score multiplied by 1.5. (Here he’s your “MVP” rather than “captain.”) But his salary isn’t multiplied. So you’re just selecting which of your players you think will score the most points.
For Philly-Atlanta, I’d again start with the 2 QBs and Julio Jones as the scoring focal points. Here are our half-PPR projections (the FanDuel system) and the players’ showdown salaries on FD:
You can kinda see that the pricing is clunkier on FanDuel than DraftKings for these contests, as Wentz and Ryan top the dollars-per-point projections.
Goedert shows up again as an attractive low-salary option. His 44 targets as a rookie last year doubled the 22 Atlanta WR Justin Hardy (in the same salary range) drew in what was his 4th season. Hardy did garner 5 looks at Minnesota last week, though. And both players saw 3 targets inside the 10-yard line last season, according to Pro Football Reference. You could steal a TD with either guy in your FD showdown lineup.
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