Colts vs. 49ers Sunday Night Football Showdown Game Breakdown & NFL DFS Picks

Welcome to the NFL Showdown Matchups Showdown Highlights for Week 7 Sunday Night Football. Here we will provide a quick overview of the game’s key storylines and highlight some of the key insights from Awesemo’s world-class suite of tools to find the best NFL DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel showdown lineups. Let’s dive into the NFL DFS picks today for the Week 7 Colts vs. 49ers Sunday Night Football matchup.

Week 7 Sunday Night Football NFL DFS Showdown Picks

The 2-4 Colts head to San Francisco to take on the 2-3 49ers, who are four games back in their division. The 49ers move back to Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback but are still without the team’s best overall player in George Kittle as he rehabs a lower leg injury. The Colts will be without much of their top receiving corps Sunday, having lost Parris Campbell for the season and T.Y. Hilton at least for this game. The Indianapolis defense is in even worse shape and just lost their starting safety for the remainder of the season due to a torn Achilles. With heavy rains in the forecast and sustained winds above 15 mph, it is safe to say this game could get extremely ugly, but that also means there will be some unique strategies to tackle this single-game slate.

The Quarterback Projections Are Uninspiring

Typically in a single-game slate it is important to nail the quarterback selection if not planning to spend the salary for both. Having access to the highest number of raw points is incredibly important on a single-game slate. But the Awesemo projections are unenthused by the prospects of either quarterback, especially considering their lofty salaries compared to the rest of the field. On DraftKings this seems like a night to roster just one quarterback, possibly even in cash games, with Garoppolo and Carson Wentz ranked eighth and ninth, respectively, in value projections. Garoppolo projects slightly higher against the Colts’ bottom-five defense, giving him the slight edge when choosing just one quarterback.

Deebo Samuel Is a Legitimate MVP Option in Cash

For cash games on FanDuel, where the MVP position does not see a salary increase like on DraftKings, it is advantageous to roster a quarterback at MVP, as placing the player with the highest fantasy points in that slot is the mathematically correct choice. But this week looks like an exception, as one skilled player projects to outpace the rest of the field, including the quarterbacks. Deebo Samuel not only leads all active skill players on either side in target share and air yards share, but he also ranks top 10 at his position in yards after catch, yards receiving and touchdowns. He has a projection nearly 3 fantasy points higher than any other player, making him a logical choice at Captain and MVP, especially when considering his lower salary compared to the quarterbacks.

Jonathan Taylor Has a Mediocre Projection but a Stratospheric Ceiling

Taylor is only averaging a 51.3% snap share, outside the top 25 at his position, but he ranks eighth in the NFL in carries and first in the NFL in red-zone touches, averaging five per game this season. Taylor has also seen 2.5 targets per game, but he has made the most of those limited opportunities, averaging 14 yards per reception. His 2.63 yards per route run also rank top five at his position. And while San Francisco ranks slightly above average in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed, they also lean towards being a run funnel. With weather a potential factor, the Colts could be forced to lean on Taylor.

Eli Mitchell Leads a Likely Three-Headed Monster in the 49ers Backfield

Despite spending Day 2 draft capital on Trey Sermon, he has failed to impress throughout his rookie season, being thoroughly outplayed by Eli Mitchell, who already has two games with at least 19 opportunities. Though Sermon will mix in and JaMychal Hasty will be active for the first time in four weeks, Mitchell still projects for 12-plus opportunities with potential for much more. Plus, he has a salary $2,000 less than Samuel and middling projected ownership. Mitchell is looking like a rare low-owned value play with serious blow-up potential. He has a floor projection of 9 fantasy points and a 20-point ceiling.

Michael Pittman is the Unquestioned Leader of the Colts Passing Attack

The Colts are hurting at the wide receiver position. They will likely use Zach Pascal for a majority of the game and will be giving legitimate playing time to Keke Coutee and Ashton Dulin. In other words, they have nobody outside of Michael Pittman and will need Pittman to have a monster performance if this game turns into any semblance of a shootout. Fantasy gamers need to hope that Pittman’s three-target performance in Week 6 was an anomaly, as Pittman had yet to see fewer than seven targets in a game prior to that. At $12,000 on FanDuel, his value is rather unexciting, but on DraftKings at a more modest $8,800, Pittman has a 36% chance of appearing in the optimal lineup, fifth highest among all players and tops among Colts skill position players.

Roll Out Kickers and Defenses

With limited offensive weapons for either squad and potentially bad weather, it is worth considering the defenses from either side as sneakily strong plays in this low Vegas total. Joey Slye has a 25% chance of appearing in the optimal lineup on DraftKings, seventh highest among all players, and the 49ers defense is right behind him at just $3,200. Even Michael Badgley has a 19% chance of being in the optimal.

The Bottom Line

One could argue that regardless of the weather or myriad injuries to both squads, the player with the most to prove is Garoppolo. With Indianapolis a complete mess in the secondary, Garoppolo has a chance to look more like he did in Week 1, when he averaged 12.6 yards per attempt and threw for 314 yards. More likely, however, especially with the wind and rain, this game will ultimately turn into a run-heavy, low-scoring affair where the team that makes the fewest mistakes ultimately gets the win. The Colts still have enough firepower on offense to score three-plus touchdowns and will have no problem letting Taylor dominate the middling San Francisco run defense.

Week 7 Sunday Night Football Prediction: Colts 26, 49ers 20

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Author
A middling athlete who was offered his first sports analytics position at age 14, I've been working on NFL and fantasy football data science since 2017. With a particular passion for data visualization and dashboard building, I love to make data accessible by using graphs and charts to communicate ideas that are difficult to explain with words alone. You can contact me by e-mailing [email protected].

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