In Monday night’s Showdown, the Chicago Bears visit the Pittsburgh Steelers. For a breakdown of this game, check out Rich Hribar’s Fantasy Football Worksheet.
As large favorites, I expect the Steelers to be heavily rostered by the field in 4–2 builds. Given the low total, the 5–1 onslaught will likely go underutilized even for the favorites. It looks like a tightly priced slate, especially on DK, leaving no strong values.
Strategy
As usual, underdogs are like to go under-rostered, with 5–1 Bears builds expected to be used just 1% and 4–2 only 10%. Next lowest used looks to be the favorite heavy onslaught over 13%. The other nearly 75% is 4–2 Steelers and 3-3 builds, so make sure to differentiate heavily with the strategies I've mentioned in previous weeks, and in the Build Ideas below, when using those constructions to avoid duplicates.
Najee Harris projects to be most popular by far; 18–26% CPT and 64–82% total. He should be a great play, but going underweight will help differentiate. Diontae Johnson should be next with 11–13% CPT and over 53% total. After him, it gets a bit unpredictable between Justin Fields, Ben Roethlisberger, Darnell Mooney, and Chase Claypool, who are all expected between 7–11% CPT. Even though the total is low and QB play has been subpar with these two, we have an opportunity to go overweight on QBs at CPT as our competition has shifted to preferring WR or RB. Given the tight pricing and low total, don't be too strict with your restrictions and correlations via build rules, because we could be in for another game that plays out strangely like last night's Titans vs. Rams. Besides the QBs, I like Claypool for leverage off of his more-rostered teammates, Mooney, David Montgomery and the Bears DST.
DK Values
- Bears DST ($2600)
- Either K ($3600–3800)
DK Leverage
- James Washington ($5200)
- Marquise Goodwin ($4200)
DK Build Ideas
- Max 1 DST, Max 1 K
- Max 2 depth WR/TE/RB
- Max 1 dart throw group (or 1 per team if MME)
- Negative boost same team RBs
- If CPT QB, include one depth option in stack
- If CPT RB, negative boost opposing DST/K
- If CPT WR/TE boost team QB and force at least 1 QB (either team)
- Cumulative ownership under 250%
- Leave salary unspent
FD Values
- Pat Freiermuth ($8000)
- Cole Kmet ($7500)
FD Leverage
- Anyone $7000 or lower
FD Build Ideas
- No K or TE at MVP
- Focus on 3-2 build construction
- No solo CPT in 1-4 construction
- Negative boost opposing QBs (Lineups with both only win 30%)
- If WR CPT, boost QB
- QB is overused but RB and WR are underutilized at MVP
- Don’t stack 3 pass catchers from the same team
- Don’t force the max salary
For more optimizer build rules to consider, check out the list for each DK and FD here.