NFL Prime Time – Week 13 Sunday Night Football (FREE)

Week 13 Sunday Night Football

Greetings Gamers!  Sunday Night Football should be a fun one with two potent offenses squaring off with playoff hopes on the line with the 7-3-1 Pittsburgh Steelers leading the AFC Central Division and hosting the 8-3 Los Angeles Chargers who are only a game behind the 9-2 Kansas City Chiefs for the AFC West Division crown and in the lead for a Wild Card designation.

Thursday’s analysis

Monday’s analysis

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Los Angeles Chargers at Pittsburgh Steelers -3.0 / 51.5

Los Angeles Chargers 24.3 implied points

Quarterback – Philip Rivers has once again been outstanding in his 15th season and is on pace to set a career high in touchdown passes and come close to doing the same with passing yards.  Pittsburgh has been in the bottom third of the league this year against the pass (#19 DVOA) and the hope would be that gamers are following along with the “tough” matchup from the fantasy points allowed perspective.

For example, the line “Since Week 5 the Steel Curtain has held four opposing-signal callers under 200 passing yards and the other three did not top 230…” now that sounds daunting, however which of these totals really feels like a surprising outcome Case Keenum 197, Blake Bortles 104, Cam Newton 193, Joe Flacco 206, Baker Mayfield 180 and Andy Dalton 229.

While P-Riv is not going to get much consideration on the full-slate, he is absolutely in play for any of the “sub-slates” without question.

Running Back – Austin Ekeler will have the backfield with Justin Jackson instead of Melvin Gordon III who is highly doubtful with a knee injury and we should see him ruled out on Saturday.  Maybe, just maybe the average gamer is going to feel that the price increase which had plenty of time to take place for the single game contest generation is “too high” – don’t worry, it is not and as long as Gordon is out, Ekeler will be the Chargers’ version of James Connor this season and not lose a beat.

Wide Receiver – Keenan Allen sees about half of all wide receiver targets and just over a quarter of all targets.  It then becomes a bit of a jumble with Tyrell Williams, Mike Williams, Austin Ekeler and Antonio Gates splitting the remainder with Gates getting his love in short yardage or in the red zone.

There is a decent chance that Tyrell Williams misses this game as he has been dealing with a quad injury that is not getting any better (no targets last week on just nine snaps) as he has been limited all week in practice.  Our hope should be that he is active, but we can “fade” him and look to teammates Mike Williams or if a differentiation play is desired, then Travis Benjamin (44 snaps last week with three targets including one in the red zone).

Tight End – Antonio Gates continues to get it done, though he has had between 0-2 targets in six of his eleven games.  Virgil Green is the Fantasy TE2 and contrarian option, even though he plays on double the snaps that Gates does.

Defense/Special Teams – while Ben Roethlisberger is #2 in the league with 12 interceptions, he has only been sacked 16 times and even though the Steelers are #7 in the league with 19 total turnovers, it will be a tough ask to count on much outside of a “fingers-crossed” big play from this unit in the return game (#19 with a 22.8 kickoff return average and a long of 37, #6 with a 10.3 punt return average and one 91 yard score).

Pittsburgh Steelers – 27.3 implied points

Quarterback – Ben Roethlisberger is going to have his work cut out for him as the Chargers have allowed the second fewest fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks and they have the #8 DVOA per Football Outsiders.  Roethlisberger is no stranger to difficult matchups and he has enough options to overcome most defenses.  For perspective his is checking in as the QB4-7 on most projection systems for the full-slate.

Over the last three weeks, Los Angeles has had cupcake matchups with the opposing QB-trio of Josh Rosen, Case Keenum and Derek Carr combining for 55 of 88 62.5% which is great, however the 553 yards, one touchdown and one interception are very, very bad.

Roethlisberger is a solid play in all formats on all slates, particularly when paired with one or two of his teammates as part of a synergy strategy.

Running Back – James Conner has been outstanding this season as the “fill-in” for Le’Veon Bell and the Pittsburgh offense has barely missed a beat.  On the season the Chargers have the #15 rushing DVOA and they are middle-of-the-pack by most other pertinent metrics.  Though they have allowed only seven touchdowns on the season to opposing running backs, Los Angeles is allowing the third most receiving yards and seventh most receptions to running backs. Connor should see about 90% of the opportunities barring injury and he is a RB6-10 in all scoring formats this weekend.

Wide Receiver – JuJu Smith-Schuster is #6 in the league with 95.9 receiving yards per game and Antonio Brown is having a “down year” at #16 with 79.5 receiving yards per game though he is leading the league with 11 receiving touchdowns (tied with Tyreek Hill).  This duo is also #9 and #3 in targets and #6 and #10 in receptions, respectively.

Do what you can to get them in your lineups (particularly on the Thurs-Mon or Sun-Mon contests on DraftKings where they are “relatively discounted” and potentially going overlooked because it will come at the expense of rostering a top-end running back.

Ryan Switzer popped back in the mix with eight targets last week, but he had seen only a dozen combined in the six games leading up to Week 12.

Tight End – Vance McDonald is the “better” play as he sees more consistent targets, but Roethlesberger doesn’t play favorites and will go to Jesse James if he is in the game and open.  The key thing to be cognizant of is that McDonald is dealing with a hip injury, though he was a “planned” limited participant in the early week practices, he was back to full participation on Thursday.

Defense/Special Teams – while Philip Rivers has been sacked 19 times (the Los Angeles is T5 for the fewest allowed this season), he has thrown only six interceptions and the Chargers are T4 for fewest total turnovers at ten.  Pittsburgh can bet considered as a reasonable discount or differentiation option at home in prime time, particularly since they lead the league in sacks with 39.

Awesemo’s Showdown Rankings provide an additional look at how to value the player pool from Alex himself >>> premium members click here

Strategy – on DraftKings, most of the key players are above the five figure salary plateau and even the RB1s are in the 8,000s which should make for a decent amount of differentiation possibilities in our lineups.  FanDuel has also done a fantastic job with their single slate pricing for this matchup and the top seven options are all within a $4,000 price range.

We are looking at two veteran-laden squads with ample big game experience and it would not be a shock to see these offenses get in a groove.  With the pricing on both sites, it looks like the “mixing and matching” strategy and playing more lineups at a lower buy-in level is the more appropriate approach.

 

Single Game Ranking (considering projected production, pricing and popularity)

  1. Austin Ekeler (if you are going to be a bear, be a grizzly – let’s push this increased opportunity to our advantage – we know that Ekeler is going to be involved in all aspects of the game and there is a chance that gamers will tab a player with “flashier” name recognition as their Captain/MVP)
  2. Ben Roethlisberger (we know he is more comfortable at home, has plenty of prime time experience and we have a variety of targets we can pair him with to increase the “leverage and exposure” to the Pittsburgh passing game)
  3. Philip Rivers (basically the same analysis for Roethlisberger can be applied to Rivers sans the playing at home aspect)
  4. Antonio Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster (Brown leads the league with 11 receiving touchdowns, Smith-Schuster is amazingly efficient, comes at a discount and on a fun note has 23 red zone targets to Brown’s 16 – it is hard to go wrong with either star)
  5. Keenan Allen (we cannot forget about the 6th-year Cal Bear who should have is quarterback’s eye on him in the red zone with Melvin Gordon on the shelf)
  6. James Connor (these two offenses could easily supply enough talent to fill all of the skill positions for an All-Star team – over his last six games Connor has seen 4, 9, 1, 9, 6 and 7 targets in the passing game, so he definitely has multi-touchdown upside along with those previously listed players)
  7. Vance McDonald (the drop-off from the top-shelf options is stark, however, we do have another tier of potentially productive players we can look towards, starting with those players in the passing game possessing reasonable “touchdown equity” – McDonald is averaging just shy of five targets per game and he has only been below that figure three times in his ten appearances – just keep an eye on any status updates regarding his hip injury and if you have any concerns or if he is out (unlikely) then we can elevate Jesse James to this slot)
  8. Mike Williams (his role will be solidified if Tyrell Williams is out/limited with his quad injury as this duo has generally split the WR2 opportunities this season – FWIW, I will not be playing Tyrell myself, but am good with Mike as I think he makes for a nice differentiation play who has 7 touchdowns on the season with 39 targets for 24/419 with an outstanding 17.5 ypg and he also has four carries for 16 yards on reverses – if Tyrell was fully healthy I would have this duo ranked here equally)
  9. Pittsburgh D/ST (leading the league in sacks and even though Rivers only has half a dozen interceptions on the season, tell me you can’t envision the “Marmalard” face after a Pick-6 – damn, that is now two articles in a row with a nod to Drew Magary of Deadspin notoriety)
  10. Antonio Gates (touchdown and 2pt conversion upside from the future Hall of Famer)
  11. Justin Jackson (what if Austin Ekeler were to suffer an in-game injury? That of course would thrust the rookie from Northwestern into a prominent role with his popularity likely a blip on the radar.  Jackson had four consecutive 1,100 rushing yard campaigns as a Wildcat averaging just over 10 touchdowns per season along with 122 career receptions for 608 yards)
  12. Travis Benjamin (betting on his big play ability and Tyrell Williams quad limiting him once again – on DraftKings at $200 he is in play regardless of Tyrell’s status)
  13. Jesse James and Virgil Green (direct leverage against the perceived TE1s for their respective squads, “perceived” because James does see targets frequently and Green is on the field twice as much as Antonio Gates, but he misses the crucial high value spots – still he has about 60-80% of the production as Gates depending on the metric)
  14. Ryan Switzer (wild card who sees his playing time ebb and flow, but is still a discount dandy on DraftKings – he is also the primary return man with 20/404/0 on kickoffs and 23/195/0 on punt returns)
  15. Chris Boswell (has a paltry 13 FGAs on the season with 0-1 attempts in 7 of 11 games, he is 33 of 37 on PATs, but we need to keep in mind that those are no longer a gimme now they the placement has been moved back and coach Mike Tomlin is not afraid to go for 2-pt conversions – oh yeah, don’t forget that the cross-winds can be very tricky at Heinz Field)
  16. Mike Badgley (this will be game #5 for the undrafted rookie hailing from The U and he is 8 for 8 on FGAs and 11 of 12 on PATs. He has clearly supplanted Caleb Sturgis and should be full of confidence)
  17. Desmond King (primary kick returner for Los Angeles with 15/343/0 on kickoffs and 18/212/0 on punt returns)
  18. James Washington (extreme differentiation play, on the season he has 25 targets for 8/77/1)
  19. San Diego D/ST (there just are not going to be many opportunities for sacks and takeaways, so we would be banking on a big play to save the day)

As always, you can reach out to me in Awesemo.com Premium Slack or on Twitter @EMacDFS if you have any questions.

Good Luck Gamers! ~ EMac

Eric "EMac" MacPherson won the 2007 Fantasy Baseball grand prize (trip for two to the MLB All-Star game) in the Roto format on ESPN. He won again in 2008, this time in the H2H format. As one of the early adopters of daily fantasy sports, EMac has been providing content for baseball and basketball as well as both professional and college football since 2012 for a variety of websites including DraftKings Playbook, FanVice, RotoWorld, Daily Fantasy Bootcamp, and RotoGrinders. He is well into his third decade of fantasy sports and has a wealth of knowledge and experience. Follow him on Twitter @EMacDFS or contact EMac by emailing [email protected].

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