 Join us as we shed a tear for the final multi-game NFL DFS slate of the entire year, but it's shaping up to be a dandy because we have got four fun teams on the slate for the conference championships. Lions versus 49ers, cheese versus Ravens. It is going to be a delight. We're going to break down both those games for today, breaking down our thoughts on them from a DFS perspective to get you ready to fill out some good FanDuel lineups for Sunday. Welcome on into the Heat Check Fantasy podcast. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and FanDuel Research. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a managing editor of digital media for FanDuel Research. Joined here as I am every Thursday by Brandon Cadulla. Check him out on Twitter at Cadulla13. Find his work at FanDuel Research where he is a senior managing editor Brandon Conference Championships coming up on Sunday. How are you doing today? I'm good. Got some good football games to close out, as you said, the final multi-game slate of the year. Royal Rumble is coming up this weekend, so it's going to be a good one. I don't know. You're distracted by Royal Rumble. It's not allowing you to focus on the bush clash coming up next weekend for NASCAR, the opener of... For next weekend. Yeah. Yeah, okay. You took your eye out at the ball, man. What are we supposed to do? Lie to you? No, I'm not going to cover up for you. I'm not going to cover for you in the face of all of our audience out there who are like, oh, Brandon, messed up. I'm not going to cover your foot tracks here. You just got accountability, Brandon. Have some. How does NASCAR fare compared to F1 in terms of how many realistic winners there are each week? A lot better. Okay. I thought so. I think the leader in wins this year had five out of 36 races versus 18 or whatever out of 22 for Max this year. Tune in. Yeah. I love NASCAR bobblehead coming pretty soon, too, as a result of my taking you behind the woodshed and beating you by three points in the NFL bobble hat for this year. That's one of the most frustrating ones that we've had. And you're already beating me in PGA, so I got to relish it while I can. But no head to head for us this week, but we do have a pretty fun DFS slate. We're going to talk a bit about the single game slates here as well for both games, but we'll do the same format as the previous playoff shows go game by game, break down our thoughts on the players, then those games primarily focusing on the two game slate. We'll also talk about the single game slates, too, as you are playing those, which they're a lot of fun. So would recommend for sure if you are so inclined, we'll dive on in and do all that here in just a second. But first, don't forget we have a free play up on a faddle research, two more left for this year. We'll vote for the Super Bowl as well to get the free play to get to play for this two game slate with no entry fee. Go to faddle.com slash research and click on the link on the front page. You can find the link in there for the free play faddle.com slash research to get a link to the free play. Also, make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a PGA better, trying to get some golf bets down. We're now talking golf betting and daily fantasy in the heat check fantasy podcast for PGA. That goes up every Tuesday here in the same feed, along with over on fan dual TV plus Tom Beckio talking NBA DFS every weekday on the daily ISO and Austin Swain talks UFC betting and DFS as well on the heat check on Fridays when they have events as well all right here in the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed. If you like what you hear, leave us a five star rating or leave us a thumbs up over on YouTube as well. 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Fan dual is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas darkest, you know, LLC gambling problem call 1-800 gambler over to faddle.com slash rg in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia and Vermont. Call 1-800 next step or text next step to 533-42 in Arizona. 1-888-789-7777 over to ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut 1-800-9 with an Indiana 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming and Kansas or visit ksgamblinghealth.com in Kansas 1-877-770-stop in Louisiana, go to mdgamblinghealth.org in Maryland or 1-800gambler.net in West Virginia. Let's take a look now at these two games here coming up this weekend in the NFL. Let's start things off with the first game here. That is the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Baltimore Ravens right now at Fan dual sports book. The Ravens are three and a half point favorites. They've gone to four a lot of places. So Fan dual has the three and a half right now total for this game is at 44 and a half weather for this game currently 10 mile per hour winds projected in this one out in Baltimore. So not as bad as it was last week for the Ravens Texans game, but still definitely noteworthy there, especially relative to the other game on this slate. Injuries to note for this one, Mark Andrews back at a full practice once again Wednesday got two full practices last week, despite being inactive. He was full on Wednesday, not a lock that he's back, but it does seem to be setting up that way. Gus Edwards not on the injury report despite getting banged up late against Texans. Isaiah Pacheco missed practice Wednesday with a toe injury. He told reporters he'd be good to go. I think that's from when he turned his ankle a bit on that one run down the sideline. But it looks like he's going to be good to go sounds like he will at least. And then guard Joe Tune, he didn't practice due to a pec injury. Sounds like he is on the wrong side of questionable for this game. So Brandon, we get sheets Ravens from a football perspective. I got nothing to nitpick here. This game is going to rock. What are you seeing here from your perspective as it pertains to this game and DFS? Yeah, much more concerned about this one being low scoring than 49ers Lyons. And I think that'll be, you know, the prevailing opinion based on what the totals are. Ed Fandle sports books. I don't think that that's, you know, necessarily groundbreaking in terms of how I'm viewing things. But I think it's, it's very reasonable to sort of go that way, especially with how run heavy Baltimore is and can be really interested to see how Mark Andrews progresses. As you mentioned, two full practices to end last week and then didn't play, but full in practice on Wednesday, which is usually a good sign there, but it doesn't sound like it's necessarily, it still seems pretty up in the air in terms of whether he'll play on the sort of the, the sentiment seems to be like whole play when he's ready to play, but not before that. So that's interesting. And one thing that I was looking into just out of curiosity on, you know, I've someone who has begged this team to play Isaiah likely when Mark Andrews is healthy. I just don't know if that's really going to necessarily be the case. So I think that that's going to be kind of a tough situation based on the news we have about Andrews, even if he suits up, if it's not, if it's still this level of uncertain, I kind of think that he'll be limited. I think that'll limit Isaiah likely. And this team was bottom four in their percentage of plays that they had 12 personnel on the field this year. So, you know, we're looking for every sort of angle we can. It's hard to to lead off the injury section with Mark Andrews news. And it just sort of like bury it and get back to it. But as Mark Andrews, someone with the type of upside that can match a Travis Kelsey, we've got tight ends lively in each of these games, which is appealing for both sides of each game. The one thing that I'm really trying to figure out is how I would handle Andrews. But we can talk more holistically about this. That's just sort of where my mind went initially with Andrews. And Andrews impacts the other paths catchers, too, because he earns targets when he is out there. Now, I agree with you where I don't think he's going to be like a full, full go assuming he does play. But it's going to be enough to make likely, I would say less attractive, not out of play, but less attractive at least given the salary for like this week checks into 54. It's a pretty good number. But it's also not like a massive value compared to guys who are really desirable in George Kittle Travis Kelsey, Sam LaPorta, same thing. So, you know, Andrews 57, that's pretty decent. I would want a Shifter report, a Shifter or Tom Pelicero report on Sunday mornings and hey, he's like, going to be a major factor in the game plan. I don't think we're going to get that. So to me, it's more so I want to be up in this range at tight end this week, which is tough because when you look at quarterback salaries, Lamar Jackson is $8,800. And that's $1,000 more than any other quarterback on this slate. So if you want to get to Lamar, and you want to get to Christian McCaffrey, who is $11,000 on Bandool, there isn't Senate to pay down. Now, I think that because I like guys like Kittle as much as I do, I don't think I'm going to be able to get to both in the same lineup, Lamar and McCaffrey. I'll have builds where I do, but like if I'm talking one, two or three lineups, I'm not sure I'm going to get there. Do you think based on what you've seen from a salary perspective, from a value perspective, getting Lamar plus McCaffrey is viable? Or is it worth it to do one or the other in order to get to guys, the really fun tight ends we've gotten this late? I think it's possible. Like you said, though, it's not going to be something that I can realistically prioritize and just assume that it's going to work out if I roster value wide receivers. There are some lower salaried running backs that you can definitely consider. Plugging in there, this might require a double tight end flex kind of situation, but that inherently means one of Andrews are likely. And like I did go double tight end this past week, I was willing to do that there, which means I should probably be willing to do it here too on an even smaller slate. Even smaller. And I mean, again, really good slate. Like let's say if Andrews plays, he's viable to some degree, likely I still think would be viable because unless we get the news that Andrews is just going to play every snap, which I'm not anticipating, there are really five tight ends. And I think that you could probably do worse than a limited marquee Andrews or Isaiah likely in the flex spot or tight end if you're flexing, you know, someone in the later game. But so just be mindful of that this week. But yeah, I mean, the default intention would be Lamar and McCaffrey, but I don't know if there's the value here. If you go with Lamar plus McCaffrey, and then we'll just put the Raven Z fence in there as a placeholder, you got 6000 left per slot for a running back through receivers tight end and flex like that's that's a lot of value plays. Now there are guys down there who are fine, and you couldn't make that happen. But you're going to be relying on, you know, guys with pretty low median expectations and like a 90th percentile outcome of like 10 points in Jameson Williams, Rashad Bateman, Marquess Valdes, Scantling, Justin Watson, like that's that's tough. I'm willing to do it, but it's it's not going to be my main, I don't think is is Lamar plus McCaffrey, I think I'll pick or choose one or the other there. Yeah, and we're going to do a lot of, I mean, we have two games, four teams, we have a lot of time to really dig into recent usage, market shares and relevant games. But a lot of this comes down to game theory and what I just mean by that is figuring out how you think games will play out even on a per lineup basis. Like if you're building 10 lineups and you think there are just sort of the 49ers role and Baltimore and Kansas City is tight but low scoring, like you can build 10 lineups with that sort of assumption, but you can assume a different thing on each lineup as well if you want to go that route. But for me, when it comes down to, you know, just a two game slate, there is a lot of game theory and you can say, look, Christian McCaffrey by far has the best matchup of, you know, he's on the, he's on the team with the best matchup because there's basically one week defense lining it up this week. You can say like they're just going to ride McCaffrey because Debo is not 100%. He's not going to lose as many carries or red zone touches to Debo. I think he scores like 33 points. You got to find a way to play him, right? And you can also say the same thing for Lamar. I know you're going to have some stats on Lamar's rushing output in playoff games. And you say like, look, this offense is going to go as Lamar goes. He's going to, you know, we kind of joke about how unselfish he is and he will hand the ball off to anyone at the goal line to score. But you know, you can make that case. And if you say that they're both going to score 30, that makes those, I'll just call them reaches down in the value range, much more viable because you're going to have Lamar and McCaffrey in the perfect lineup if that's how you see things playing out. So again, we're going to talk about matchups and usage and everything, but a lot of this slate comes down to like picking and choosing how you, how you see things playing out in that specific instance of how you're playing that lineup. Right. And with Lamar going back to the rushing discussion, you don't need this game to shoot out for him to be a really good DFS play. And his rushing totals and five playoff games have been 54, 143, 136, 34 and 100. So he's topped 100 yards and three out of five playoff games. And we talk a lot about how Mahomes runs more in the playoffs. Joe Burrow runs a bit more during the playoff, stuff like that, but like Lamar runs during the playoffs. And that's pretty tough to turn down. 88 is like objectively low for him. Whereas I think McCaffrey is appropriate at 11,000. I'm not saying that I, that makes me prefer Lamar over McCaffrey, but I think it's worth considering. But I also think that on the opposing side, you could go to Mahomes pretty easily at $7,500 and stay in this same game. I think there is a path to a shootout here because this game could be pretty tight. We've seen at times the Ravens defense be vulnerable when, I think that the situations in which they struggle most are when it's a team who can both run and pass. Like last week against the Texans, you can sit in too high, you can sit in too high all day and prevent the pass because they can't run on you with Devin Singletary. But with the chase, you kind of Kenneth Pacheco. So I think they're still going to do that and try to force them to run. But it's an offense that I think can give them some issues move the football. It's why I think Mahomes at $75 is very interesting. Six rushing attempts this past week, only 19 yards. But again, he does tend to run more during the playoffs. He's due, I don't think he has a rushing touchdown yet this year. So he's due for some regression, probably some regression in that regard. So I think, I think Mahomes is a pretty solid option at $75. I'm not saying I like him more than Lamar, but I like Purdy a lot. I've got Mahomes like right there with Purdy. And that's an endorsement of him because I like Purdy a lot. So where are you on Mahomes compared to Jackson and Purdy? Yeah, so what I was going to say before you started talking Mahomes is we're looking into like Lamar versus everyone else. The Chiefs have not done a good job of limiting quarterback rushing their 32nd and rushing success rate allowed. And Lamar did what he did last week against the Texans who were number one in rushing yards over expectation per carry, allowed to quarterbacks going into that game. So Lamar is going to run. He's going to be efficient running. But yeah, I'm with you where it like, look, it sounds like Lamar's are one. Purdy and Mahomes are like two A and two B. And then I don't know if I'm playing a lot of Jared Goff this week. Yeah. I think that game goes over, but I don't think I'm going to play Goff. So yeah. So for me, it does come down to like Purdy and Mahomes. I think there's one play who's safer and it's the guy who has a lot of weapons and is playing a very beatable past defense. Right. And then there's Patrick Mahomes who has a much tougher matchup and frankly, just a lack of weapons by comparison. But a couple of things about Mahomes against good past defenses. He's faced 10 top 10 past defenses this year by EPA per dropback, averaging a shade under 250 yards per game, 7.3 yards per temp, which isn't bad. One and a half passing touchdowns, 0.03 EPA per dropback, which is solid. But if you adjust for opponent expectation, 0.19 per dropback over expectations. So again, that number would be zero if he played exactly to what opponents let up. That's a really, really good number. And he's also in these matchups had a 27 rushing yards per game on 5.3 carries. And one thing that you always have to look into with Mahomes is what a team allows in terms of their ADOT. You know, you can just sort by ADOT for him and he kind of has his more conservative games against teams that limit downfield passing in terms of, you know, average depth of target. Buffalo last, you know, first matchup last week, they were I think top five in ADOT. Baltimore 17th, they are first in yards per target allowed on downfield passes. They're a good defense, but I do think that there's going to be opportunities. And last week Mahomes did kind of air it out a bit more than usual against a team that tends to limit downfield passing 7.9 yard ADOT. So I like Mahomes. I'd probably have a hard time justifying him over Purdy, which is such a weird sentence to say. If I was building like one lineup and I just want a semblance of safety, but Mahomes, I know you talk to me, I've realized that you've just replaced floor with median expectation. Well, because I think the floor is very flawed and you shouldn't look at the floor. Median expectation is fine. Like 100% is. But again, it comes back to the game theory. And while I think more likely than not, the other game is higher scoring than this game, in those instances where this is the higher scoring game, which, you know, those realities exist. Once this game kicks off, we got all these different simulations and realities that we, you know, in some of those, this is going to be the higher scoring game. And in some of these, Mahomes is going to be the highest scoring quarterback of the week. So I like Mahomes. Who are you stacking him with? I mean, primarily. Yeah. So that's the question of am I using McCaffrey? Because if I'm using McCaffrey, then it's tougher to get to Rishi Rice and Travis Kelsey. But both their salaries are objectively low, right? Like Kelsey is 72 and Rishi Rice at 71. I was pretty surprised when I opened the player pool and saw where those two guys were at personally. I think once you account for the defense, they're reasonable. I wouldn't say that they're like, they can't get much lower. They're on the low end. But yeah, like it's a really difficult matchup. No matter how you like slice this one this week. But he's got two guys to throw to realistically, right? Their numbers on like a per route basis are just pretty absurd. There weren't a ton of routes last week. Yeah. But Kelsey ran 20 of them had four downfield targets. The thing for me with Rice is that he doesn't get it because he's got a low eight odd. He can't get downfield work, but he doesn't get a ton of it. It's more like a vault. His deep target rate since the buy is 12.2%. So he's not getting a lot of downfield work, but he does a lot with his short targets like after the catch and stuff. And he also has a 28% red zone target share in that time. So I agree with that assessment. I worry more about his eight odd when his salary is 78. When it's 71, I'm more willing to just take the targets and run kind of thing and on a smaller slate too. Yeah. So I think in a single lineup, are you kind of going out of your way to target Rice because of the salary? Is it that good to you? I guess is probably the best question I can ask. I think that he is, if I can get there, I'd like to. And I prefer him over Zay. Zayflower salary is 64. I think Richie Rice is a better play than Zay Flowers this week. Do you disagree with that? It's not like you do. No, I just don't think that they're super comparable due to the salary. I mean, you can get to Richie Rice in the Lamar McCaffrey bill we were doing before. You can get there more easily if it's the Lamar or the Mahomes McCaffrey build. So I think he's pretty gettable at 71 for this week. And I think he's pretty under salary too. So then at that rate, if you can play Kelsey or Rice, Rice, what's your preference there? Rice because I can more easily replace Kelsey's production with Kittle. And I think that's the main differentiator for me is I like Kittle a lot. And I want to get to Kittle a lot. Yeah, Baltimore top five in both catch rate over expectation and yards per outrun allowed to receivers. Their fifth in yards per outrun allowed to tight ends, but 24th in catch rate over expectation. I want to get to Kelsey in lineups where I'm playing Mahomes. Best question I can ask from here, though, is your, let's say you're playing Lamar, you want to bring it back. What's like your split of Pacheco, Rice, Kelsey that you're kind of bringing it back with? If you give me 10 Lamar lineups, I have Pacheco in eight, probably seven, eight. I would have Rice in, like I think Pacheco is like the biggest priority as a bring back or the biggest priority chief is what I would say. Yeah. And then I probably have Rice in five, Kelsey in five somewhere in there, or maybe, maybe six, four, Rice and Kelsey, but I'll probably both in the same one a couple of times too. But you know, stuff like that. I mean, probably Lamar, I'm probably gonna, I'm gonna have like a decent number of chiefs because I'm basically making the assumption that that game is pretty competitive. And like that game shoots out, which it has potential to do, despite the fact that I've got the total pretty low in my numbers. Like I still think it has shootout potential. What's nice with the chiefs is they've got their four options, if you include Mahomes. Other than that though, it gets a little iffy. Again, not a lot of, not a lot of drop backs last week. Marquez Valdes scaling 61% of the routes, 14 of them did have three downfield targets. I know he's someone that we struggle with, but he, he can, he got a slagger back, man. The yips are gone. He caught a pass. Then he caught a second one. It was crazy. Yeah, but Noah Gray, 52% of the routes, Justin Watson, 44%, Meekhole, 39%, and after what could have been a disaster, I don't know if that's going to expand. Where are you with these, well, I guess there should be quaternary options at best if these guys are fourth. I think because of the route data from last week, MVS is going to be my favorite guy. As you mentioned, 14 routes for him versus 10 for Watson, nine for Harbin. I think that Harbin might be inactive this week with Tony being back. It seems like Tony be back. Like there's not a good option there, but at least Tony didn't fumble twice last week. So I feel like there's a shot Harbin winds up being inactive. Am I going to use Tony? No, that was, that was 2023 gym. We have left that gym in the past. We're not doing that, but MVS does get deep work. Looking at him since the bi-week, excluding week 18, he has a 22% deep share. That's lower than Justin Watson at 29%. But again, with MVS running more routes than Watson last week, I do feel like he's the preferred play here. So I'm willing to use MVS at 48 if it gives me flexibility elsewhere in my lineup. Yeah, I think you need to consider at least someone else within this offense. And Vaude's scaling is, I think, the best route in terms of probability of giving you something based on the fact that he runs routes. And again, like this juice offense is not really trying to force a ton against teams that suppress the downfield pass. But Baltimore is like league average in ADOT. Again, they've been efficient on passes traveling at least 10 yards downfield, number one in the league in terms of yards per target. However, we saw Mahomes, again, push it last week with again, MVS getting three downfield targets. Kelsey had four against a team that sort of doesn't necessarily allow that. So I feel pretty, I feel as good as with MVS, I think, as I maybe have all year. And it just took a two-game slate to get there. Once he made that catch down the sideline, it was like, okay, we're back, baby. You know, log that in the brain, the yips are gone. They're going to come back the second he drops one again. But like, hey, until then, so until seven minutes in the first quarter, we're back, baby. Let's talk about the other low salary plays in this game. And that means the Ravens pass catchers and the Ravens running backs. From a pass catching perspective last week, this is again with Edward or with Mark Edward or Mark Andrews, Mark Edwards. Who's Mark Edwards? Mark Andrews being it. Oh, I was looking at Gus. That's why. With Mark Andrews inactive, keep that in mind. But on 25 drop backs, Isaiah, likely, and Zay flowers both ran 21 routes. Rashad Bateman ran 17. Nelson Aguilar ran 16. Odell ran seven. So Odell was out. I'm not touching Odell. I have been down that road and I have regretted it a lot. So I'm done with Odell. Problem is like, I like Bateman's talent. And it seems like he's been a lot better recently. However, like I looked at their target per route race since the bi-week, it's at 22%, but he's still at 1.4 yards per route run, which is not good. It's fine for 49, I guess, but it's not great. And now they might add Andrews back in the fold. So I like Bateman. I don't love him at 49, but I think it's a good salary. How do you compare Bateman to Aguilar and MVS in this game? Oh boy. Yeah, these are the game script specific types of questions that you start asking. You got to like the salary, and especially when it comes tied to Lamar, because if I'm playing anyone other than Lamar, I don't think I have to kind of get to Bateman. It'll still help, of course. But I don't really anticipate playing Bateman as a one-off in my Brock Purdy lineups. Of course, the other two quarterbacks I'm using will be in this game. And even if I'm using my homes, I can be open to Bateman. But yeah, I mean, it's solid. I think the yards per route numbers getting better. Yeah, it was really bad before. So it is getting better. You're right. I guess it didn't have a whole lot of room to go down, frankly. But yeah, I would say I probably prefer MVS a little bit. I feel like I would rather get access to other... Do you think Mark Andrews is playing? Yeah, I think so too. And I think even if he's limited, it's going to make this be a real mess. And I think that there's a chance that even if Bateman scores and has 33 yards, it's not necessarily going to be enough. I don't know. I don't have a strong... I feel strongest about MVS relative to the other Chiefs. I don't really feel that strongly about any Raven. I think I want to keep my exposure pretty even between Bateman and MVS, just because they're both crazy volatile. And I'd rather split that up than commit to one over the other. So I will probably have a similar amount of Bateman. I'm not going to get to Aglar. I know he's played really well and he's not a bad receiver. I feel like at some point it's got a collapse. Let's talk about the Ravens running back. I think he's got 0.87 yards per outrun since the buy. Okay, cool. Then I can fully dismiss him. Let's talk about the running backs here. Gus Edwards' salary is $5,800. Justice Hill is $5,500. Dalvin Cook is $4,500. Cook did not do anything really last week until that game was pretty far out of hand. So I think that kind of confirms what we talked about last week, where it's like he's pretty dusty. He does downgrade Edwards and Hill, because he may get some of those garbage time chances. But now that's pushed him out of play. And I think that Justice Hill has played pretty well recently. He's looked good. So I do think that Hill is pretty interesting at $5,500. 13 carries last week. Pretty good number, given that most of his value comes from what he does as a pass catcher for the most part. In the game, he split work with Gus when there's been no heavily involved Keaton Mitchell, no JK Dobbins. Hill is at 56.4 yards in scrimmage per game, 14% red zone share, whereas Gus is at 70 yards per game with a 24% red zone share. So Gus's role is better. But I like Hill more. And I know that's very stupid. But how do you view Justice Hill versus Gus Edwards? It's hard to look at the salary and knowing that he played 57% of the snaps last week had 13 carries, shouldn't theory have a better receiving role long term. I know that they both had two targets last week, but it's hard to look at that workload, at that salary and downplay at a ton on a two game slate where a lot of value could be, I mean, like, if Hill is the key or one of the keys to get to our Lamar and McCaffrey lineup, I feel better about that than I do just with multiple value receivers who might end up with two targets apiece. Right. So I think by that, if I use that logic, I'm going to be relatively high on Justice Hill. I think it's a fair question, though, to compare him to David Montgomery at a 6,000 salary on the two game slate. But it sounds like we're both better with Hill than Gus. Is that correct? Yeah. And then where are you with Gus? I'll have him because I think the Ravens can move the ball on the ground against the Chiefs. So if I kind of make the assumption that 49ers Lyons is the highest scoring game, I think that Gus fits pretty well into that kind of lineup. And it allows me to get to McCaffrey, pair him with Purdy, pair him with Kittle and go to Gus in this game. So like if I have five lineups, I can't guarantee Gus will be in any of them. But above that, I think that there are enough situations in which he is viable where I would get there. So not a primary lineup guy for me, but someone I would like to get to because I can very easily envision the path to him being good play. Yeah. So if you just look at recent games with Gus and Hill, Week 16, it was about 60-40 in terms of Hill over Edwards and Snaprate. Week 17, it was like 60-30 the other way in terms of Edwards. And then last week, 55-35 or so for Hill and Edwards. So this could easily just flip back into Edwards' favor depending on how Baltimore plays it. So while I feel safer with Hill because in the event that the Chiefs play from ahead, Hill's going to probably have the better role. Gus is very, very interesting. I don't think I'd play them both together. No, no shot. Especially with Lamar, anyway. Yeah, exactly. With Lamar much more likely now in the playoffs to hold on to those goal line carries. But one lineup is Hill. Do you see enough with Hill or Edwards, but I know we prefer Hill. Do you see enough to go with Justice Hill in that one lineup this week? He's a player I'd consider. Me, too. Yeah. Okay. Finally, guys, we have not really dug into here are Isaiah Pacheco and Zay Flowers. Starting with Pacheco, salary is $7,800. Again, I think he'll be good to go for this game, despite the fact that he turned his ankle hurt his toe in that Bill's game. His role without McKinnon has been amazing. Looking at the games, his five full games with no McKinnon, 105.2 yards from scrimmage per game, 18 carries, 3.6 targets and a 55% red zone share. That red zone share is actually better than McCaffrey's in his 15 full games this year. So I think because of the red zone work, because I think the Chiefs will be competitive in this game. And because I expect the Ravens to play things where they invite you to run the ball against them. I think Pacheco is like really, really good. The problem is like, if I'm going Lamar McCaffrey, really tough to get to Pacheco, but I think he's part of the pitch. Why I'm more okay going with just one is because he's pretty attractive and can help replace some of the production I lose by not jamming in both guys. So that is where I settled in on Pacheco. How do you differ from that? Pretty much echo that sentiment. Don't think I need to reiterate the same things that you talked about. I do want to ask, do you think based on his health, we see CEH a little more involved? No. Okay. If we get bad practice reports on Thursday, Friday, sure. But as of right now, I think if he's limited Friday, then we can have a different discussion. That would worry me and I downgraded. Yeah, we won't have that discussion, which is why I kind of wanted to talk around it now. I'll slack you Sunday morning. Yeah, but not ever unless it's on our slack, thankfully, nothing sure about that. Nobody would ever want to be in that slack. I think it's a lovely place, personally, a place to thrive. So if anyone were to ask, well, CEH, 26% snap rate, Pacheco, not 100% maybe for that salary. I don't think I would consider him unless, like you said, we would get more info on Pacheco with Hill Edwards in Montgomery. I know it's a leap, but we've got multiple options with expected better roles. So I wouldn't quite get there. Did you see what Pacheco said yesterday? No. He was talking after practice and he was like, they were asking me, like, have you seen what people say about your running style? And he's like, yeah, people say that I run like I bite people. And it's just like the funniest description that I've ever heard. I've never seen that. I've, I've, everyone always says, always angry at the ground. Like it's like a thing and kind of played out honestly. But like saying that he runs like he bites people is very funny. And whoever said that to him, kudos. Proud of you. It's a great moment. Zay flowers, $6,400. In the games he's played with Andrews, he does get a lot of deep work, 37% deep target share for Zay in those games, 21% overall target share, 18% in the red zone. So like, he's had a good role when Andrews has been there. His salary is down. I just like, for whatever reason, the yardage upside bothers me. And I think he kind of ran hot on touchdowns for a bit. So I don't know, am I wrong to be pretty wishy-washy on Zay despite the low salary? I think he's the perfect example of why you need to tell yourself how you expect the game to play out. Zay in a higher scoring game with more passing volume makes way more sense than Lamar carving it up on the ground, which is possible. You need more than just passing volume from, you know, passing volume itself is not the goal at quarterback, but you need the efficiency, which Lamar has been efficient and he runs what you need. But that does start to like wear on your pass catchers. Lamar's had 22 attempts in his last game, 21, 35, 24. This team can run the ball. It's, you know, people who like analytics like myself hate running the ball whenever it's inefficient. This is a whole different situation. This team runs the ball extremely efficiently. They don't have to throw it a ton. If Lamar throws for like 200 yards and we get Andrews back and they're involving Agalore, Bateman, Flowers doesn't quite have the role where you feel like, okay, you have to play him at this salary. So it's more of a, well, what if Lamar doesn't run these touchdowns and he throws for three of them? Or, you know, this is a higher scoring game. Lamar throws 35 times for, you know, 275 yards. That's when you play Zay. So you got to think about, you know, when it comes down to these two game slates, think about how you expect this game to go. That's how I'm going to get to Zay Flowers. In those lineups where I think that this is the higher scoring game, frankly, I don't see it be in the case where I just play Zay. You know, if he were, if this were a full slate, 6400, good game that could go off, I would probably consider it. But this one specifically, I think it's more game script dependent. I agree. Before we move on to the second game, let's talk a bit about the single game slate here for the Chiefs and the Ravens. You ran Optimals in games with similar bookmaker setups, where it's a relatively tight spread, total is middling. It's basically around the median. What did you see when you looked at those past perfect lineups with similar setups here? Yeah, so I just keep track of Optimal or perfect lineups after the fact for a single game. And there's a lot of games to compare this one to, because this is a pretty pretty basic sort of spread in total. But one of the things that stands out to me is that wider receivers tend to be a little more likely to be the MVP on Fandall. That said, I don't think that this game lends itself to a lot of wide receiver possibilities other than Rishi Rice in terms of being the highest score. Running backs and quarterbacks are a bit lower. But again, this is a very quarterback centric type of game. But this is just as likely to have a defense around 37% or a kicker 42% of these perfect lineups, or one or the other, which is 63% of all lineups that fit this build as any other game. And also, it's about 28% likely that both quarterbacks will be in the perfect lineup, same as the full sample. So there's not a whole lot of strong takeaways here. But it does speak to the fact that if you're trying to jam in Lamar and Mahomes, it's about 30% likely, 28% likely long term, that this is how this game plays out. So just want to touch on that a little bit. I don't know if anything jumps out to you. Yeah, I think it's a good discussion to look at those. I think for this specific matchup, I'm putting Lamar and MVP every single time, because he's like the single game cheat code doesn't have super concentrated usage to any of his past catchers. The opposing side like Mahomes is good and could not score Lamar. But I think I'm just going to go Lamar and MVP and figure it out from there where she writes under salaryed, I think at $12,500. And then scrolling down further, Justice Hill is 9000. That's pretty good for a guy who can say some salary. And then also Rashad Bayman, 8000 guys that feel good about MVS 75. So I think you can, you've got the horses to get to a Lamar plus Mahomes lineup. But I think it makes a lot of sense to try to do that here based on what you were saying, where despite the fact this total is not very high, it's still an okay setup for double quarterback, perfect lineups. Yeah. And this is this type of game where both quarterbacks could have rushing touchdowns. And so I actually simmed this one out. It's about 52% likely that Lamar leads in fandal points, making him the MVP in a perfect lineup. Mahomes is about 24%, Pacheco about 9%. Pacheco is a good pivot if you're moving away from one of the quarterbacks, just because he would take quarter, or he would take touchdowns away from Mahomes. Right. And maybe in this instance, can't see the place from ahead, but yeah, it's very likely that Lamar leads in scoring, which isn't a surprise. Any final thoughts for you on this game? Nope. All right. Let's go to the second game then. That is the Lions at the 49ers. Right now at Fanjul Sportsbook, the Niners are seven point favorites. Total has gone up a point. Oh joy. I had 50 over 50 and a half and it is now 51 and a half. So we're feeling good about that until just now. Total is 51 and a half. That has risen a point from where it was yesterday. The spread was six and a half is now seven for the Niners and the Lions. Whether in this game looks fantastic, a three mile par wins right now in Santa Clara, which means it's much better than it was last week for Brock Purdy. And it also means we're getting outdoor Jared Goff, but not playing in adverse conditions, where he's playing with the low wind speeds. Big story here, of course, is Debo Samuel didn't practice Wednesday. Status is up in the air for Sunday. Kyle Shanahan did say that Debo is feeling better on Wednesday. I lean toward assuming Debo plays, but it's not a lock. And I don't think he'll be a hundred percent. Like I think he'll play a lot of snaps, but I think his usage rate could decline as a result of his not being a hundred percent. For the Lions, their interior lineman, Jonah Jackson and Frank Ragnow, both missed practice Wednesday. Ragnow is a more important guy. He's the center, which is kind of like the, you know, the quarterback of the offensive line. I care in order of importance, it's left tackle first, center, right tackle, then the two guards. Jonah Jackson is very good. But I don't care as much about a guard injury as I do a center. I think Jackson will probably wind up sitting, whereas Ragnow will probably play. So Lions Niners, what do you see in this one, Brandon? I think the 49ers are a really good football team. Whoa. I think the Lions are a really good football team. I think this one could. Based on the splits that I look at, I see this one being close. But if I step back and kind of adjust for everything, I think that the spread is accurate. I do think that it's going to be a high scoring game. That's why we spent a long time, you know, digging into this first, the first game. I think this one though is my preference, even though it's a one QB game, which feels wrong. So maybe I'm a little too low on Jared Goff. Maybe I'm a little too high on the game if I don't like Goff so much. But I think this one scores more points in line with the totals. I had the total in this game, nine and a half points higher than the other game. Nine and a half points higher than the total. Oh, no. I don't think I can get to 60. I would need like a 40 point spread. Yeah. It's like college football stuff, yeah. Right. So I think this game is also the better game environment. But I think that that's kind of similar to the setup last Sunday, where the Lions box game had a better game environment. But I still found myself gravitating towards chiefs bills a lot because I liked the intensity is not the right word, but that's kind of what I'm going for. Like I liked how high leverage that game felt. And I think we get the same thing for Ravens versus cheese. So I like this game more like from a total perspective, but I still think the other game is at least on its level from a DFS perspective. That's pretty counterintuitive, I know. But that's just kind of a feel about it right now. Yeah. It doesn't get much higher leverage than a trip to the Super Bowl, but I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah. I mean like it's chiefs bills like, you know, and chiefs Ravens. Ravens are like the trying to throw in the king kind of thing. Come at the king you best not missed and Baltimore. So I can't explain why it feels that way, but that's why I like Lamar more than Purdy. And that's why I think that Mahomes is the 2B versus the firm 3 at quarterback here. Despite the fact Purdy is objectively, I think a very good play. Yeah. That's, I think where a lot of things start is can Purdy match Lamar? Yes. In certain, you know, iterations of how this thing plays out. Can he outscore Lamar? Yes. The probability of it, how much you want to bank on that, how you consider Purdy whenever you're playing Christian McCaffrey, that's another thing to consider. So let's say you're building 10 lineups. What's your QB distribution? I'm going to go Lamar in five. I'm going to go Purdy in three and Mahomes in two. And if I were to change that, I'd probably Lamar six and then two of each for Purdy and Mahomes. Yeah. I think that's about where I am as well. Okay, cool. That's a good way to gauge kind of where we're at with those guys. And I'll take a look here at this game and dig into Brock Purdy. And I think I kind of want to explain why I'm high on Purdy despite the fact that Debo Samuel is banged up. So we know earlier this year, the offense struggled with Debo Samuel out. However, in that sample, Trent Williams was also out and Trent Williams, again, ordered importance on offensive line, left tackle as one, and they had both those guys out. And they struggled last week too, but that's with Debo like leaving mid game. And when he's like part of the game plan and he leaves, that's tough. Like that's why you get, that's how you get a handoff to Juwan Jennings and you get a couple targets to someone I'm not going to name because I don't want to besmirch. Say it. I don't want to besmirch him. No, Chris Connell is great. He's great. I don't want to besmirch him, but like you'd rather throw the ball to Debo. That's how I'll phrase it. Nothing against Chris Connelly, who is the best receiver of all time, but you'd rather throw the ball to Debo. But let's look at their numbers here, with and without Debo this year. Now I'm omitting week six, which you could view as cherry picking, which is fair, but that was on the road against Cleveland in bad weather. And McCaffrey also left that game early. So really rough set up there. If you omit week six, when Debo's been on the field, their EPA per drop back is 0.28, without him it's 0.15. So that does go down, but a lot of it's based on costly interceptions because their success rate is actually higher without Debo. 56.6% versus 54.2%. And their completion percentage over expected also is higher without Debo. So it's a downgrade for this offense. I need to be very clear about that, not of Debo Samuel, but if they don't have him, but they'll be able to game plan around it this week, whereas they could not before. And they had Trent Williams this time and it's not as big of a downgrade, especially when you're facing a, let's say leaky defense for the Lions. Lions defense ranks 30th against the past based on number, fire, schedule, adjusted metrics, including data from the postseason. So that's why I like Purdy and it sounds like you're on the same page and being okay with him despite the fact Debo is not healthy at best. So if you're removing week six, do you know how many games by chance you're looking at with this one? Well, it includes all drop backs. All drop backs where Debo is not in the field, but it means I'm including all of game, all of week seven and all week eight. Those are the games they lost to the Vikings and the Bengals, right? Yeah. They lost those games, but I thought Purdy played okay beyond the interceptions in those games. Like his EPA per drop back numbers were pretty good if you exclude turnovers and stuff like that. So I thought he played well. And so then you're also excluding last week? Well, no, last week's in the sample. Last week was in that sample. Okay. All right. I was just curious. But yeah, there are numbers do drop. You can chalk it up to interceptions, but it is at least noteworthy, but that's not enough for me to move away from Purdy. Again, there's, if you look back, based on historical data, number fire team rankings and everything, three of these teams fit the bill of eventual Super Bowl champs. Because of the Lions defense, they really don't. It is a big outlier to make the final four with the defense that's played to that level long-term with opponent adjustments, all that kind of stuff. So with that in mind, it's really hard to, even if Debo's not 100%, even if Debo doesn't play, he's got McCaffrey, he's got Iyuk, he's got Kittle, he's got Chris Conley, but more specifically, like, I think Joanne Jennings is fine if he's your fourth option, right? Yeah. Like, he's a good, like, grit player, you know? Yeah. Yeah, he's fun. So I kind of just, I feel really good with Purdy. From a sort of median expectation standpoint, and if you're building a Purdy lineup, unless you're just down on Lamar in general, you're building a lineup where you're like, look, Lamar's not going to score like 30 or 35 in some of the times. And in those instances, I don't want to play that much, I don't want to put that much salary. You think if he scores 20, you could be okay fading him. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't want to say that Brock Purdy is going to score 20 in this matchup, but boy, he sure can score 20 in this matchup. He's also had, like, tangible upside in the past, right? I know, look, Debo's a phenomenal player. He really changes things. And if you want to nitpick Purdy and say, well, he's really only doing stuff because Debo, like, runs screens to the house, I kind of understand it. I think that's a little bit dismissive, but in a matchup this good, it's really hard to downplay Purdy to a substantial degree. If you look at Purdy against, let me see, got the wrong team filtered here, but Purdy, sorry, Purdy against bottom five past defense. He's got four games, 267 yards per game, 9.6 yards per attempt. This doesn't adjust for Debo or anything, but 66% passing success rate. He's going to find a way to win. He's going to find a way to win. Both games against the Cardinals, that's the commander's game and what was the... Oh, Philly. So, yeah, I think we'll be fine even without Debo. Yeah. But I still think Debo suits up and they give him some touches. I agree. And I think that it's worth looking back then, because there was a time earlier on this year where Debo was playing, but he was banged up. And that was so excluding week three because Ayuk missed that game. And then looking at weeks four and five, it's basically weeks four and five, where Debo played banged up through a shoulder injury. In those games, Debo averaged just 45.5 yards in scrimmage per game, four carries per game. So they still gave him the ball, or was it four carries total? No, it was four per game. And 1.5 targets per game. So still got the ball, still had a pretty good red zone share at 12.9%, but it was very much lower usage. And I think shoulder injuries are pretty tough for wide receivers, especially for guys as physical as him. So even if Debo plays, I'm not sure I'll get to him at 8,000. And I think it does upgrade Ayuk at 78 and my favorite play on this team outside of McCaffrey and George Kittle. Kittle's salary is $6,600, even in the games where everybody's been fully healthy. So emitting last week where he had a really nice game, Kittle is at 66.3 yards per game. Really good number for a tight end. In the games Debo sat, it was only two, but Kittle had nine targets per game, 114.5 yards and scrimmage per game, because he had a carry in there too. And a 21% red zone share, not red zone target share, he had 21% of their red zone opportunities, three out of 14. So if there's no Debo, I would consider putting Kittle in every lineup, honestly. And I'll be high on him, even if the Debo does play. Is that too high for a player who we know isn't going to get, me had one game with 10 targets, but like we know he's probably not going to get 10 targets. Well, you got to adjust for this matchup too. And if Debo is 900%, like realistically, we're looking at, you can't go into a game without Debo and just have Kittle be like a non-factor. Detroit 27th and 8th allowed to tight ends. They've been kind of solid, but they just allow volume-based production to tight ends. So I'm not going to sit here and say that it's the easiest matchup of all time. But again, it goes back to, if you don't think that Debo gets in full, it would be an embarrassment not to get Kittle seven or eight targets. And there's a good chance Bailey wins the woman's rumble, so he might have some like wrestling-based narratives going in. Does he like her or? She's a big Niners fan. There's like footage of them hanging out before last week's game. I think it was last week. Like hanging out or? Yeah, she's from the Bay Area. Okay. Hence the name. Oh, he's married, never mind. Or engaged, never mind. Yeah. But you know, probably be nice weekend for the Bay Area with a big game for Kittle and a rumble win for Bailey. See, I was going for a different narrative. And that's, I got to show the world who the real Iowa tight end is. Is he's faced the same point. Yeah. Like a lot of narratives. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think everything just converges to make Kittle a great play. You can go with your wrestling narrative. I'm going to go personally with the I'm the better Iowa tight end narrative. You could use data, but that's that's stupid. Don't do that. I'll say this much. I like Kittle enough to where where I would consider flexing him. Yeah. Let's say you're in this range. Kittle or is a and you've already got Kelsey or someone to tight end. Yeah. Like if you're talking, you have tight end filled and it's it's Kittle versus others. I think I'm going Kittle over Zay. Yeah. I'd go Kittle over probably Jamir Gibbs. Not Rishi Rice. I wouldn't. But I might give him. I should probably give over Kittle, but like if it's lower than this. Yeah. I would go Gibbs over Kittle. Yeah. All right. Let me see here. Yeah. Gibbs over Kittle, but I would not be disappointed if I have 6900 or lower for a flex and just play Kittle. Yeah. Kittle over La Porta. Kittle over Zay. Kittle over Montgomery. Oh yeah. So basically everyone at his salary or lower. Everyone below Gibbs. Yeah. Exactly. I agree with that wholeheartedly. I use salary 78. Not bad. Honestly. If there's no Debo. If there is Debo, I'm more wishy washy. He just hasn't had the same rec you for not using him kind of upside that he had earlier on this year. Now with that said, if you look at the games where everybody's been fully healthy. So playing alongside Debo, you can set 83.9 yards from scrimmage per game, which is a pretty good number for a salary at 78. So I prefer Rishi Rice. Given his lower salary. And I prefer Kittle. But like, I feel like Ayuk still has that like make you regret it kind of upside, even though we haven't seen it for a while. In the games where Debo is playing, but banged up, Ayuk had 103 yards from scrimmage per game across two games. 6.5 targets per game, which means he was insanely efficient. But you know, I'm just more wishy washy on every receiver on this slate, basically, than I am on the tight ends. I think that's where it settles in. Yeah, so Ayuk's top 10 in receiving yards over expectation on downfield passes, so passes traveling at least 10 yards downfield. I'm trying to break this out into the hardest part with these smaller slates is it sounds like it's easier to sort of just cover fewer teams, but you need to get deeper on stuff. So I have so many more things open than I typically do. Right. Because I can't cross people, like I can't cross off games. So it feels like I've probably been a little scattered with stuff. But he's like, yeah, so I think on downfield passes, he's a little bit, been a little bit less efficient. Lately, that could change. Oh boy, since week 15, Chris Conley leads in receiving yards over expectation among this team. So I'm just saying. Alpha. Alpha. I have targets, baby. That's not even per target. That's total. What a champion. Wow. So yeah, I think there's probably some of that flukiness. He also, right, then he scored a lot of touchdowns early on. Like, you have some multi-touchdown games. So I guess he didn't week one. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. But then he had a strategy at four in a row. Yeah. That also gets factored in to how we perceive him. But you know, two 100-yard games over the past four. What would that be? Three in the past six. And then the others are just really down games. So if there is no Debo, again, it just comes back to one of those easy match-up, relatively, you know, all things considered. Hard to game plan where you just have Juwan Jennings and Brandon Ayuk drawing the same number of targets. I could see Chris Conley out-targeting Brandon Ayuk for sure, but that's a joke just to clarify. Unless you just say, look, no Debo. McCaffrey plays 105% of the snaps and gets even more work, which is reasonable. But Ayuk is probably just someone who I would play when I stack Purdy, not necessarily going out of my way to play Ayuk whenever I'm stacking Raven's Chiefs. Yeah. I think that makes sense. If you go with like Purdy, McCaffrey, Ayuk, Kittle, and then Raven's Defense, 56.75 left. That's tough. I think you'd probably omit McCaffrey from that one. When you go Hill, like MVS. Yeah, yeah. You could make it, but you're playing a lot of prayers down there. And then another question, just because there's a possibility to do like a true onslaught situation. Could you play McCaffrey, Ayuk, and Kittle all together? Do you think there's that much production and do you think there's any other, it's probably, could you play like La Porta, Amon Ra and Gibbs together? No. Yeah. There should be enough offense. I can for the Niners, just because I have higher offensive expectations for them. Can you play Pacheco, Rice, and Kelsey together? I can and I will. Okay. And then Baltimore, a little less likely to do that just because there's the interest levels lower. Right. The reason I'm okay playing all three is, in the two games with Debo out, here are their yards and scrimmage per game for the, it's a two game sample, but in those two games, McCaffrey 107, Kittle 114.5, Ayuk 83. If you get that production from three players, like sure you're missing out on some touchdown equity because they kind of cannibalize each other, but like, hey, McCaffrey, probably going to have a passing touchdown. Like, you know, that's going to happen on Sunday. It's going to happen. I guarantee it. Guarantee is not a word I would actually use there, but I don't know what the odds of that are if it was sportsbook. Anyway, never mind. The all three can eat simultaneously. So I'm very okay with going with all three in the same lineup. If there's no Debo, Juwan Jennings last week, I thought looked really good, kind of like I said, in the two games without Debo, he had nine targets in one game and he had zero in the other one. He played, he played an 81% snap rate in that game, 54 yards in the one game. I would be okay with Juwan Jennings if there's no Debo. And I think I'd rank him above, like Bateman and guys like that, but I'm not like putting him in every lineup kind of thing. How are you feeling about Jennings in the events? Debo does not go. Yeah, I think Jennings in like the MBS tier, the Bateman tier, where I still I'm probably playing them when I'm in his instance, because I'm not going to play golf. I just don't want to play all four quarterbacks. I got to draw the line somewhere. I think you can differentiate with both Mahomes and Perty plenty. So I think Jennings is going to be in my lineups only when I have Perty. Other than that, probably don't expect enough from him. That could be a little goofy. If I really need to like, if I'm going super stack for like Raven's Chiefs and don't have any other options, sure. Because like you said, was all or nothing, basically 81% of the routes, 85% of the routes in those two games scaled up to 68% last week. I do feel like we'll have a role. Oh, yeah. But it's not enough to want to go out of my way to play him. So I think he's going to be... Like he'll play Snaps, but it's hard to earn targets over Kittle. Ah, you can make half, or even if there's one less guy to eat out there. So yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the lion side of things. So we've ignored them to this point. Yeah. We're in agreement on golf. We're not using him. That's fine. We can skip over there. Let's start with the running backs. Junior Gibbs salary is $7,000. David Montgomery is $6,000. I have stared long and hard at betting some Gibbs Unders this week. And that kind of breaks my heart because he's like really fun to watch, but his role has been just okay. I don't care about the snap rate personally. It's been in the 30s for each of the first two playoff games. I don't care about that. But like in the games with Montgomery, 11.2 carries 4.2 targets per game. And last week, he actually ran fewer routes than Montgomery. It was 20 to 16. Now part of that is because they were facing the Buccaneers. Todd Bowles is a psychopath as far as blitzes go. And Montgomery is the typically more steady pass blocker. And Gibbs did show up pretty well there. So maybe he gets an improved role this week because he kind of proved himself hopefully in that game. But I think there's a lot of fragility here with Jameer Gibbs, the $7,000. I like him. I can't go beyond that though. And I don't think I'll get to the primary lineup. And I also think I will not get to a running back in the flex unless I decide to use Justice Hill. So I think Gibbs is probably an RB4 this week considering salary behind Hill, Pacheco, and McCaffrey. How do you settle in with Gibbs? Sour is not bad. She's like, I worry a bit about the role. Yeah. You don't want to overthink things. And you want to say, well, they're going to get the ball to a playmaker. But since Montgomery and Gibbs have been playing together, post the Gibbs breakout and everything, he's got a 44% opportunity per snap rate. That's a little bit higher than the position average of about 41%, but not substantially. So I felt like I got away with some stuff last week based on how low his snap rate was. That's exactly what I felt. Yes. He's very good. He can do things with limited snaps. It's not safe to assume because he had a good game last week that he will earn more opportunities. And against this defense, it's also not safe to assume that he only needs 11 touches to get what he got us last week. So in Montgomery ran more routes last week, which was kind of weird. He also just played so much more that was sort of natural. But I think, what type of game environment is it going to take you to play Gibbs in Montgomery? Under. I would need to assume the game goes under to play them, I think. Or maybe it's like a total shootout for Gibbs. For Montgomery, that says to me I'm using Lamar or Mahomes. I can't use Montgomery in a purdy lineup. No shot at that. Yeah, I think, again, there are instances where that is how the perfect lineup plays out, but you're doing yourself a disservice, I think, of making that a primary assumption. Right. It's going to take some randomness, and you're kind of doing the wrong correlation there. So I agree with you. Montgomery is under salaried for his role, but when you consider the matchup, I don't care. It kind of just makes you like he's fine. Montgomery are gusts for you because we're pretty low on both. I would go gusts due to offensive expectations. That's where I'm at as well. I'd agree with that. Like his role is better than $6,000. Honestly, that's part of, yeah. His role is better than $6,000. That's the hardest part is that the salary is so low, and I don't want to be stupid and just say like, well, I don't like the offense that much, and Jimeer Gibbs had a good game. They're kind of telling us still that they like Montgomery a lot. He's been fine. Yeah, it's totally okay to like him too. Yeah, exactly. So I'm probably a little too low on him, but the threshold of burning us on a two-game slate is a lot lower. I still don't know what the odds that he burns us are. I don't know if the yardage is ever going to get incredibly high, and I don't know. I don't know how many touchdowns Detroit scores either. Yeah, I'm not really sure either. I also realize this is a very Iowa game because Montgomery and Purdy both went to Iowa State as well, so keep that in mind. His rushing and receiving prop on Fandalsports books 53.5. That feels low, but also I understand why it's there. Yeah, do you know McCaffrey's? 119. 126.5. Okay, fair. I mean, he's a 133.9 in his 15 full games, and Debo might not play. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, his ult over for like 150 plus is probably like plus 130. Okay, I'll start with the pass catchers here with the Lions. Amon Ross, St. Brown, $9,000. Then it jumps down to Josh Reynolds. His salary is $5,600. Jameson Williams, $5,000. And of course, Sam LaPorta, $65. I do not use tight ends against the Niners as like a rule. I know Tucker Kraft scored last week, and I might have had like a lineup with him, but I didn't go very hard. I just like, I'm just going kill every time there. So not really into LaPorta. Amon Ross's salary I think is too high when we consider the context of I gotta save to get to Lamar and McCaffrey. So to me, it's really about the lower salary guys in Josh Reynolds and Jameson Williams. Reynolds was limited on Wednesday. You can see the Q tag here on, if you're watching the Fandal TV plus or the Fandal YouTube page, he had a rib injury. He got hurt against the box and kind of got hit, but he came back in the game. So it'll be good to go, I think. I think to me, it's really about the lower salary guys in Reynolds and Williams also because I just, I want to use outside receivers against the Niners to avoid Fred Warner. And they fit that and they're also lower salary. So where are you on the past catchers for Detroit? I still think there's a case to be made to get to Amon Ra in the event that you're playing Purdy because you're saving some salary. And I think it's going to be hard to justify St. Brown just from a baseline standpoint. It's not like shocking news to say that, but you have to kind of factor that stuff in a bit. That being said, he's in a lot, I looked around at a lot of optimizers. He's making a lot of them, which is kind of peculiar. Yeah. But I think it comes down to the fact that on the two game slate, we have Lamar who stands out a quarterback. We have McCaffrey who stands out at running back. And then if you assume Debo either doesn't play or is limited, it's basically Amon Ra as the guy who can get a 40% target share. And you got to ask yourself as well, what are the odds that Detroit in this game doesn't force St. Brown like 12 plus targets? If they don't, it's hard to look back and say, well, we didn't get him involved enough. I know it's a difficult matchup from an interior standpoint, but overall against receivers, it's a much better matchup against the Niners than it is for tight ends. So I see it, but it's also really hard to get there as a baseline. I think for me with Amon Ra, it's just going to be in those purdy lineups because I'm not playing golf. But yeah. Yeah, I think that's... Yeah. I'm trying to be very sweaty the entire game with the amount of Amon Ra. I have just worried that he's going to bust one open. What are your target expectations for St. Brown? High, but at $9,000, he needs to go for like 25 to make me like really hurt for not using him. And I don't think that's like a... That's like probably a 90th percentile outcome for him. And so like in that, you know, other 90%, I'm okay. Yeah. His receiving props 85 and a half. It's reasonable. I use those 80 and a half. Which is, you know, a $1,200 savings is kind of appealing. I don't think he's got a multi-touchdown game, which is not necessarily a good way to think about it. But Amon Ra, yeah. Amon Ra has like a massive red zone share, but always gets tackled the one and then Monty comes in. And he's like the deondre swift of the Lions. I know he scores touchdowns, but like, he should have more than he has, based on how often he is running inside the five yard line. He's got a lot of touchdowns, but yeah, I don't know if the yardage upside in this particular matchup is... Yeah. So we're on the same page. What were you thinking with the other past characters here? I'm leaning towards being high on Reynolds at 56. You were on him last week, and he had the one touchdown, didn't do a whole lot outside of that. But I think the encouraging thing for him in that game is that he ran 37 routes on 45 drop backs and Williams at 30. Laporta is at 35 with Amon Ra at 43. So if you're going to give me a, you know, 85% of route rate for $5600 and a team that has to throw a lot and it's a better like mesh with the opposing defense, that's pretty attractive. So I do think that Reynolds is solid at 56. I'll use Williams too, but I think I'll have more Reynolds than I have Williams. I think Reynolds, a consideration for one, for like a primary lineup for me. Yeah. Because you're going to have to play some Detroit guys in like your top three lineups or so. You don't, I mean, you technically have to, I guess, but. He's my favorite lion, considering Sally. I think all things considered, he's my favorite lion as well, which could be, could be goofy because if I, if I were to flex, if you have someone to flex, and you got 6,000 left, are you going to Montgomery or Reynolds? It depends on if I have other things that set up for like, if I'm going with like Lamar. Like in a vacuum. In a vacuum, probably Reynolds. Okay. I think I'd lean Montgomery there. No, you're fine. No, you're right. You're right. I should go Montgomery. But it's not a fair, it's not just, Reynolds is still our favorite lion, but that's because you need three receivers. Yeah. You don't need three running backs this week. I like, if I had to flex one, I'd probably go Montgomery over Reynolds, but because you need three receivers, Reynolds very much still our favorite lion, which is such a weird thing to say, but that's what a two-game slate does. I will still use Williams for targets last week. We knew, I knew that. Yeah, yeah. It's like him and Pacheco. Like, I would say beating my head against the wall, but like Pacheco's actually been good. Williams, if he had had like two more catches, could have done some nice stuff for me last week, but he didn't. So, alas. But I like the talent. I like the way he's been used recently, or not used, but like, usage from like a route type, route or route flavor, I don't know, whatever. I like that he's been running better. More route, more diverse route tree. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the single-game slate here for the Niners and the Lions. You ran the same analysis, running optimals for games with similar spreads and totals. What do you see in similar games to this one? Yeah, not a ton of games that fit this because the spread's pretty big and the total's high. So, I kind of expanded it out, but one thing that is noteworthy is that it's a big quarterback script, which again, you have to apply back to the matchup itself. And that does, it's just another reason why I feel like maybe we are too low, or at least maybe I'm too low on Jared Goff, but building around all four quarterbacks on a two-game slate is, it's a good way to kind of end up with a lot of solid lineups, but nothing like your core might not hit. But I'm much more open to Goff in the single-game slate, but MVPs are quarterbacks over 50% of the time. There's a 45-game sample that I would say somewhat similar to sort of how this one shapes up in terms of the total and the spread. For one script, so like the heavy Niners, or if you want to get weird with it, four Lions in the Niners, a little bit more lopsided, about 40% likely for those lineups to work out that way. It's not the best receiver scripts, which is kind of interesting because the total is high, but I guess it's because the spread being big. And also because you're occupying a lot of salary with two quarterbacks a lot of time. Yeah, I will say what's fun about this is it's less likely to have a defense in the perfect lineup in these games. 27% of the time versus 37% for the full sample. Same for kicker, 31% down from 39%. And under half of these lineups, 49% had one or the other kicker or defense, and it's about 63% for the full slip. That's the America I want to live in. Kicker's no defense, so let's go. You can definitely pick a side and stack up, but we know that there's a real outlier with what we're looking at here. And it's Christian McCaffrey being... He's the Lamar of this game where you just put it and figure out the rest. So I'm going to have McCaffrey to MVP. I like Kittle a lot for this set up to $11,000 for him. Honestly, I use pretty low salary here at $12,000. So I think you can go McCaffrey and then jump down. You'll be able to get to Perty or whoever you want, but I do think that these guys here are pretty attractive. Kittle specifically $11,000. If I'm going for one, then I'm pretty likely to have a Niners defense in there or a Kicker as a result of that. Lower salary, guys. Did I miss Josh Reynolds? He's 95. Wow. Why is he so high? For a single game, I much prefer Jameson Williams, $8,000 over Josh Reynolds, just given the salary. But also $8,000 isn't even that low, so... It's not. It gets tight. It does. So I'm probably looking at like a zero-quarter back lineup as if I have a single entry. Looking at McCaffrey and then jumping down to Kittle, I think that might wind up being where I settle in. Do you run optimals or simulations for this one too? Yeah. Numbers are pretty high on Perty. I would disagree with that. But McCaffrey's still about 45% likely to lead in fantasy points. Then it's sort of Perty and Goff naturally and Amon Ra around 10% each. But yeah, it's still the heavy favorite for McCaffrey getting there with... Yep. Especially if there's no Debo. I mean... Yep. Any final thoughts for you on this game or on this two-game slate? I just always like to ask, what are you doing at defense? I am probably using a defense in the opposite game of where I have my quarterback. That's probably it. Are there defenses or are you crossing off the Lions? No. Okay. $3,300. If I'm... I think you can see a scenario in which they struggle without Debo. I'm not... I'm not thinking it'll happen. But like 32 is pretty low. So no, or 33 is pretty low. So no, I'm not crossing them off. I should ask, get a standing check on... Because it's nice to pencil in the Lions and then build off from there. But I don't... That's not how I'm going to do it. I just want to see if you were ever going to get to the Lions. Yeah. Basically what I'll do is I'll put my corner back in and then put the defense... A defense in the other game in there. That's the way I'll work. Okay. That is all that we have here for today. We are going to be back with you once again in two weeks to preview Super Bowl 58's LVI. 58, yes. Super Bowl 58. We'll talk about the single game slate next, not that next Thursday, the following Thursday to get you ready for that. That'll be on the Fandall YouTube page 10 a.m. Eastern, up on Fandall TV Plus and the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast week after the fact. Brandon, if people have questions for you on Twitter, where can they find you there? I'm on Twitter at Goodwill13, GDULA13. And I'm on Twitter at Jim Sonnis. You can find me on threads at Jim.Sonnis. And you can find Fandall Research on Twitter at Fandall Research. Good luck to all of you with your lineups for this weekend. Enjoy our final multi-game slate of the year. We'll talk to you once again in two weeks to break down Super Bowl 58. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast right here on the Fandall Podcast Network.