Bills vs Bears Showdown DFS: EMac's Week 9 MNF Top-10

Buffalo Bills Overview

Wide receivers Josh Palmer and Tyrell Shavers (PUP-knee) are out, with offensive linemen Dion Dawkins (ribs) and Alec Anderson (ankle) questionable. For the defense, lineman Greg Gains (calf) is questionable.

Quarterback

Tonight should be a spirited affair as each team has only one loss on the season. The Bills have scored 33 or more points in five of their seven games, with a still strong 50 combined points in the other two tilts. Minnesota allowed a season high 22 points in the opener against Green Bay, with a league leading 13.3 points per game overall.

Josh Allen has been the MVP frontrunner for most of the season and he leads the league with 8.7 yards per attempt and 13.3 yards per completion. He has “only” 11 passing touchdowns, but he has added nine more on the ground, trailing only the 10 posted by D’Andre Swift.

Minnesota has a tremendous defense, so this is a strength-on-strength matchup as Allen leads all quarterbacks in fantasy scoring and the Vikings cede a league low 159.4 passing yards per game with only four touchdowns, holding opposing signal-callers to a 64.9 QBR.

Running Back

James Cook III is averaging 101.0 rushing yards per game, which ranks third behind Jahmyr Gibbs (105.9) and Kenneth Walker III (109.0). Cook also has seven rushing touchdowns, despite competing with Allen in the redzone, though he has only 17 targets. Still that is on pace for his passing game involvement over the last two seasons, so we are all aware of that “shortcoming” for the three-time Pro Bowl nominee.

Ty Johnson and Ray Davis share the RB2 role, with Johnson getting the passing down work and Davis low-leverage carries between the 20s when Cook gets a breather. Each is likely to see a dozen offensive snaps with 2-3 targets going to Johnson and 3-4 carries for Davis as a baseline expectation.

Wide Receivers

DJ Moore (shoulder) was back after missing two games, putting up 4/82/1 on seven targets, along with a four yard carry. He was limited all week in practice, though is expected to play tonight.

Last week Palmer played just nine snaps before his injury, with Moore basically filling his on field presence, with Keon Coleman and Khalil Shakir seeing a comparable play volume to when Moore was absent.

Shakir leads the team with 38 targets, while Coleman is tied with Moore for 27, despite playing two more games and 142 more snaps. Palmer has only 12 targets, so there is not much to redistribute in this low-volume passing game.

Greg Dortch returns punts and kickoffs, though he has just 15 offensive snaps to his credit, with no targets.

Tight Ends

Dalton Kincaid is second on the team with 35 targets and he functions more as a giant slot receiver than a tight end. He is typically on the field for around two-thirds of the offensive action, with traditional tight end Dawson Knox a tick higher.

Knox has a dozen targets this season and TE3 Jackson Hawes has three, so there is not much in the way of fantasy relevance, even in the single-game format.

Kickers and DST

Tyler Bass is perfect on the season, connecting on all 16 field goal attempts. He does not get many attempts from beyond 50 yards, though he has converted his last seven from that distance across the last two seasons and change.

In his limited action, Carson Wentz has been sacked six times and Buffalo is averaging only two per tilt, with a tick over one takeaway per game.

Chicago Bears Overview

Kyler Murray (hamstring) is out, along with wide receiver Jauan Jennings and running back Demond Claiborne, while defensive backs Theo Jackson (quad) and Jay Ward (knee) are questionable.

Quarterback

Wentz had three touchdowns in his first appearance, leading the Vikings to a 39-22 win over the Packers in the opener when Murray suffered a concussion in the first quarter. In his second start, he was 11-for-20 with 143 yards, with Minnesota eking out a 9-3 win in crummy conditions at Soldier Field.

Tonight will be the 16th start for Wentz in the last five seasons and we know the 34-year-old is a capable pocket passer, but there is a reason he has been on four teams during this timeframe, which excludes his last full season as a starter in 2021 with Indianapolis.

The Vikings are averaging only 20.0 points per game, though Buffalo is allowing 25.6, so there should be a decent chance that Wentz can help the offense generate 3-4 touchdowns.

Running Back

Mediocre, crowded and hard to decipher. That is the assessment for the Minnesota rushing attack, which produced 113.9 yards per game at a 4.0 per carry clip. The biggest knock is that there have been only three rushing touchdowns this season. There are 30 players in the league who have rushed for at least three scores, including Omarion Hampton, Emanuel Wilson, Brian Robinson Jr., Tony Pollard and Joe Burrow.

Jordan Mason will be the mainstay on early downs, with Aaron Jones Sr. the main pass catcher (21 targets), with DeeJay Dallas lurking for a dozen or so random plays. Rookie Max Bredeson has been playing a couple dozen snaps per game, but he is more of a fullback/tight end that focuses on blocking, seeing one target thus far.

The price is right for whomever lucks into a touchdown and there should be some positive variance in this area at some point, right?!

Wide Receivers

Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison played on all but three snaps last week, so there is not much room for them to go higher. Wentz at the helm boosts the projections for both.

Some mix of Myles Price, Tai Felton, Jeshaun Jones and Odell Beckham Jr. will be filing in as the WR3 for Jennings, but good luck guessing who, if any, gets more than one offensive opportunity.

This should underscore how much of a priority Jefferson and Addison are tonight and savvy gamers will have at least one on every lineup.

Tight Ends

T.J. Hockenson keeps chugging along and he has a 20% target share, 18% of the air yards and a strong 58% route participation rate. In the two games with Wentz to start the season, the soon-to-be 30-year-old had five and four targets.

The rest of the tight end position has just 16 targets and seven of those came in Week 5, when Hockenson was injured after two snaps. Six of those went to rookie Gavin Bartholomew, who was a sixth-round selection out of Pittsburgh. He has played on just nine snaps in the last two games, with Ben Yurosek pushing close to a 50% snap share as a blocker, with three targets to his credit.

Josh Oliver (IR-bicep) is out, but he did have five targets in the two games with Wentz, so that bodes well for the position to get some overall looks.

Kickers and DST

Will Reichard was honored as the First-Team All-Pro kicker last season and he has a 90% success rate on his field goals this year, including 6-of-8 from beyond 50 yards.

Buffalo is allowing two sacks per game, while the Vikings are collecting three, along with 12 takeaways.

NFL DFS Week 9 MNF Showdown: Top-10

1. Josh Allen: Captain, my Captain!
2. Justin Jefferson: It feels like projections are a little light for his rostership at 40%, savvy gamers will want to push this closer to 60%, at the expense of the Minnesota running backs.
3. James Cook III: If he can break through the line of scrimmage up the middle when the Vikings are bringing pressure from the edges, we could see some chunk plays.
4. Jordan Addison: Flag plant!
5. Will Reichard: Salary relief with a booming leg for upside.
6. DJ Moore: Still managing a shoulder injury, but expected to play.
7. Dalton Kincaid: Key part of the passing game, cheaper than Shakir by $1,000 on FanDuel.
8. Khalil Shakir: Coinflip with Kincaid on DraftKings where they are separated by $200.
9. Tyler Bass: Not quite the distance of Reichard, but still a solid foundational play.
10. T.J. Hockenson: Another candidate for increased production with Wentz under center.
11. SECONDARY TARGETS
12. Jordan Mason: Decimal back unless he scores.
13. Aaron Jones: Decimal back unless he scores, he will be 32 in a couple weeks. In the last two games with Mason, he has seen his volume fall to 13 carries versus 23 and his three targets are only one more than Mason.
14. Minnesota DST: Despite the frequent blitzes, the team does not have a lot of fantasy production from sacks and takeaways.
15. LOTTERY TICKETS
16. Ty Johnson: Reasonable discount dandy on both sites.
17. Keon Coleman: Will be on the field a ton, targets are a different story.
18. Buffalo DST: Would move to the top of this section if the game were being played in front of the #BillsMafia.
19. Ray Davis: More of a contingent play with something befalling Cook in-game. Also returns kickoffs with Dortch.
20. Dawson Knox and Jackson Hawes: Most of their focus will be on stemming the new generation of Purple People Eaters.
21. DeeJay Dallas: Needs one of his position-mates to be injured or seriously ineffective to get more than a touch or two.
22. Ben Yurosek: Will at least be on the field and Wentz leans on tight ends.
23. Myles Price, Tai Felton, Jeshaun Jones and Gavin Bartholomew: Most likely to fill in the WR3 role, yes Bartholomew is a tight end, but the team could go for two-tight end sets. Price is the main kick returner for Minnesota.
24. Greg Dortch: Main kick returner for Buffalo, there is an outside chance he sees a few snaps on offense.
25. Skyler Bell, Keleki Latu and Odell Beckham Jr.: All are at the $200 minimum on DraftKings, Bell is the most likely to be active.
26. Max Bredeson, Randy Moss and Thurman Thomas: Better luck next week!

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