Sunday Night Football DFS Breakdown: Steelers at Bills

Sunday Night Football gives us two AFC division leaders, as the 9-3 Bills are 2.5-point home favorites against the 11-1 Steelers in a game with a 48.5-point total on DraftKings Sportsbook. Pittsburgh lost their first game of the season last week against Football Team, while the Bills beat the 49ers for their fifth win in the past six games. Both teams have excellent offenses, ranking third (Pittsburgh) and fourth in the AFC in points scored, though the Steelers defense comes in having allowed the fewest points in the NFL (211), significantly fewer than the Bills' 306.

QUARTERBACKS

Few quarterbacks in the NFL have been as good as Josh Allen ($12,200 DK, $16,500 FD), the most expensive player on both sites. He comes in with the sixth-most passing yards (3,403) and passing touchdowns (26) in the NFL, and only Cam Newton (11) and Kyler Murray (10) have more rushing touchdowns (six) among quarterbacks. He is coming off a monster game against the 49ers when he threw for 375 yards and four touchdowns, and he's accounted for multiple touchdowns in all but one game this season, which came in Week 7 against the Jets when he passed for 307 yards and rushed for 61 more.

However, he faces a tough task Sunday night against a Steelers defense that has allowed the second-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks this season, including zero 300-yard passers while holding each of their last five opponents to one or zero passing touchdowns. If there's one thing to push back on that it's that they faced Garrett Gilbert, Joe Burrow, Jake Luton, Robert Griffin/Trace McSorley and Alex Smith, the latter of whom beat them by throwing for 296 yards and a touchdown. So, maybe Allen's matchup isn't that bad at all and he'll still be very popular because he should be, including as captain/MVP.

Ben Roethlisberger ($10,800 DK, $16,000 FD) has almost an opposite situation, as he faces a Bills defense that's allowed the sixth-most fantasy points to quarterbacks, including at least 316 passing yards in three of their last four games. Part of those struggles against quarterbacks include six rushing touchdowns allowed, which is tied for the most in the NFL, so it may be more valuable to note they've allowed the 12th-most passing yards while 17 teams have allowed more passing touchdowns. That's important because Roethlisberger has more games with zero or negative rushing yards (nine) than positive (three) this season.

While he also spreads his passes around, Roethlisberger's top receivers have solid floors since he throws so many passes (more than 40 in five straight games, including 104 total in the last two) and good upside, so they should get more attention and potentially lower Roethlisberger's popularity. Of course, we'll see plenty of two-QB builds despite their high prices, but it that may not be the right path for tournaments.

WIDE RECEIVERS AND TIGHT ENDS

Roethlisberger has a lot of mouths to feed, and we now have to consider the recent increase in work for James Washington ($2,600 DK, $8,000), who seems like a pretty interesting option considering how much cheaper he is than Diontae Johnson ($9,000 DK, $12,500 FD), JuJu Smith-Schuster ($7,000 DK, $11,000 FD) and Chase Claypool ($8,400 DK, $11,500 FD), not to mention tight end Eric Ebron ($6,400 DK, $9,500), who has the second-most targets in the past two games. I could go into the details, but Jerry Donabedian broke down the Washington increase in this week's Hidden Stat Line:

Steelers

		Snaps	Targets	Target Share	Air Yards	Routes	Routes per Dropback	Receiving Line
1	JuJu Smith-Schuster	85.90%	10	18.87%	50	40	0.75	7-28-0
2	Eric Ebron	80.30%	11	20.75%	61	32	0.60	7-68-0
3	Diontae Johnson	80.30%	12	22.64%	66	36	0.68	8-71-1
4	James Washington	53.50%	4	7.55%	72	24	0.45	2-80-1
5	Chase Claypool	43.70%	4	7.55%	68	21	0.40	2-38-0

• In the second half, Washington got 70% snap share and 0.69 routes/db, while Claypool was at 36% and 0.35. No injury was reported, and the rookie didn't have any drops or flagrant mistakes. No matter, he was the one benched to accommodate more playing time for Washington, who scored a 50-yard TD in the second quarter. Washington made a contested catch in double coverage to seal a win over Baltimore five days earlier.
• Johnson dropped three passes, giving him a league-high 10 drops for the season. He had six drops on 92 targets last year.
• Smith-Schuster did get one downfield look, but eight of his 10 targets were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. His 5.4 aDOT this season is way down from 8.8 in 2018 and 9.7 in 2019. The current role isn't exactly helping his earning potential in free agency, but he's at least getting plenty of those short targets, and coach Mike Tomlin recently went out of his way to discuss JuJu's importance to the team. My instinct is still that Smith-Schuster will leave Pittsburgh in the offseason, but it could go either way.
• Ebron got 11 targets for a second straight game, and he now has five in a row with six or more targets.
• Ben Roethlisberger has thrown 46 or more passes in four straight games, and he's averaging 45.6 per game over the last seven weeks. During that stretch, they lead the NFL with a 70% pass-play rate, up from 52% over the first six weeks of the season. James Conner and Benny Snell have combined for just 3.4 YPC over the past seven weeks, and the Steelers have been quick to bail on their running game when it struggles.

From a recency and price perspective, it sure feels like a good opportunity to buy low on Claypool, who had at least eight targets in five straight games before last weekend. Claypool leads the team with 1,017 air yards and a 12.9 aDOT, followed by Washington's 468 and 11.1, respectively, which theoretically means they can have impacts without a ton of opportunities. Johnson is the target hog of the group, leading the team with 106, including at least 10 in six of the past seven games. His 7.5 aDOT is fine, and certainly higher than Smith-Schuster's 5.6, which is the lowest of his career. Smith-Schuster leads the team with 73 receptions despite 12 fewer targets than Johnson, but he likely needs to get in the end zone to have a big fantasy impact.

Ebron actually has the same number of targets and two more receptions than Claypool this season, and his 7.1 aDOT is between Johnson's and Smith-Schuster's. Similarly to the latter, he likely has to get in the end zone to have a meaningful fantasy score unless it's a really low-scoring game. Despite 22 targets in the past two games, Ebron has only 122 yards in that span and only one touchdown in his last four games.

Washington is the cheaper Steelers pass catcher that many will go to because Ray-Ray McCloud ($800 DK, $6,000 FD) doesn't get enough targets, and even when he does, he hasn't had more than 20 receiving yards in a game this season.

The Bills' targets are dominated by Stefon Diggs ($10,000 DK, $14,000 FD) and Cole Beasley ($7,600 DK, $10,000 FD), who have accounted for 202 of their 311 wide receiver targets this season, with Diggs' 120 the second-most in the NFL. He also co-leads the league in receptions (90), and his 1,037 receiving yards trail only four players while his 1,114 air yards trail five. Meanwhile, Beasley had 28 targets in the past three games, twice finishing with at least nine catches, 100 yards and a touchdown. The two are likely to be very busy in this one even though the Steelers have allowed the third-fewest receptions on the 15th-most targets by wide receivers this season. They aren't the only ones, of course, but we'll steal from Jerry again to nail that point home:

Bills

		Snaps	Targets	Target Share	Air Yards	Routes	Routes per Dropback	Receiving Line
1	Gabriel Davis	97.30%	4	10.53%	58	39	0.95	3-68-1
2	Stefon Diggs	94.50%	11	28.95%	83	40	0.98	10-92-0
3	Cole Beasley	75.30%	11	28.95%	114	32	0.78	9-130-1
4	Dawson Knox	67.10%	4	10.53%	8	28	0.68	4-27-1

• Davis posted a very similar stat line the previous week, going 3-79-1 on four targets and 97% of snaps. He isn't seeing a ton of passes while filling in for an injured John Brown (ankle), but the rookie does have two red-zone targets and four downfield targets (20-plus) among his eight chances the past two weeks.
• Davis caught each of those four deep passes for 114 yards and two TDs, and he's now hauled in seven of 11 for 218 and three TDs on the year.
• Beasley is averaging 8.3 targets with Brown inactive, compared to 6.1 when Smoke plays.
• Diggs is averaging 11.8 targets with Brown inactive, compared to 9.3 when he plays. However, Diggs has seen just one pass 20-plus yards downfield in the four games Brown has missed, averaging 71.3 yards without any touchdowns. For whatever reason, Diggs has seen far more downfield chances (5-160-1 on nine targets) in the eight games with Brown playing. It doesn't really make much sense, but I'm also not sure we can reject it as random.
• Knox played more than 60% of snaps for a third straight week. He's caught seven of nine targets for 45 yards and two TDs in that stretch, while Tyler Kroft hasn't played since Week 9. Kroft was on the COVID list at first, but now he seems to just be a healthy scratch, with blocking specialist Lee Smith (34% snap share) complementing Knox.

Gabriel Davis ($5,000 DK, $10,000 FD) seems likely to be the pay-down option for those who want to get access to the Bills' passing game since Isaiah McKenzie ($1,800 DK, $7,500 FD) doesn't usually get many targets. He did score a touchdown last week, but so did Davis, his third in the past four games. If anything, they offer a little more upside than tight end Dawson Knox ($4,600 DK, $7,000 DK), who had his best game of the season last week against the 49ers when he caught all four targets for 27 yards and a touchdown, his second consecutive week with a TD. However, his upside is very limited, so he doesn't offer much as captain/MVP.

Diggs is surely to be the most popular of the Bills' pass catchers, followed by Beasley, and given just how many targets he gets there will certainly be enough people who use him as captain/MVP, with Beasley a decent pivot.

RUNNING BACKS

The Steelers will get starting running back James Conner ($8,000 DK, $12,000 FD) back from the reserve/COVID-19 list, which is certainly good news after Benny Snell ($1,400 DK, $9,000 FD) could only manage five yards on eight carries and Anthony McFarland ($600 DK, $7,500 FD) picked up 15 on his four carries last week against Washington. We did see a bit more work for Jaylen Samuels ($400 DK, $7,000 FD), but that still only resulted in one carry for one yard and three catches on four targets for 11. Conner's return will likely come with a full workload, though he failed to get more than 15 carries in his last four games. And while he had a run of three games out of four with more than 100 yards in Weeks 2 through 6 (they were off in Week 4), he hasn't reached 90 rushing yards since.

On the plus side, the Bills have allowed the ninth-most fantasy points to running backs this season, and Conner surely offers plenty of leverage against the Pittsburgh passing game, which figures to be popular.

One of the benefits of the Steelers' rushing attack is that we know Conner is likely to get a vast majority of the touches, which hasn't been the case for much of the season in Buffalo, as Devin Singletary ($5,800 DK, $11,500 FD) and Zack Moss ($4,800 DK, $11,500 FD) have shared many opportunities. Singletary leads the team in carries and rushing yards, but Allen's propensity to rush for touchdowns hurts, as does the fact that Moss actually has more red-zone carries than Singletary (19 to 17), including an eight-to-five advantage inside the five-yard line. 

Singletary did take advantage of an early Moss fumble last week, rushing 18 times for 61 yards and catching three of four targets for 22 receiving yards. Moss played eight of the first 12 snaps on the Bills' opening drive but fumbled on the next one, clearing the way for Singletary to dominate the workload. The 18 carries tied a season-high, and it was only the second time this year he's had more than 15. One has to assume Moss won't get benched again this week, but there's probably more concern in the fact that the Steelers have allowed the third-fewest fantasy points to running backs, helped by their low 3.84 yards per carry allowed and only 302 receiving yards to the position.

From a leverage standpoint, Singletary offers an interesting push away from the Bills' passing game, the Steelers' passing game and the Steelers' running game, all of which have reasonable paths to being successful. It'll take plenty of touches, or lots of success on the somewhat limited opportunities he gets, but those making plenty of lineups should certainly consider Singletary in the captain/MVP spot, more so than Moss purely because of the expectation of more carries and targets.

KICKERS

Two good offensive teams and a game total close to 50.0 likely won't have many people considering the kickers even though they offer solid floors and are priced near players who seem unlikely to match them from that perspective. Of course, kickers are highly unlikely to score touchdowns, which is why they are generally not considered much for GPPs, but it's tough to ignore that Tyler Bass ($3,600 DK, $8,500 FD) has scored in five of his last six games, including each of his last four, and he plays for the team that can move the ball well but is now facing one of the league's best defenses. If there was a wide receiver with his fantasy scores and price we'd be all over him, but he's priced down because his ceiling is limited. Here's a fun table to nail the point home:

The same applies to Chris Boswell ($3,800 DK, $9,000 FD), though his fantasy returns haven't been as prolific. Looking at the players in their price ranges makes you realize why fantasy players won't target them much in GPPs, as Washington and McKenzie are actually cheaper on both sites, while Ebron is only $500 more on FanDuel. The realistic paths to double-digit fantasy points favor the kickers, but Washington could score 20+ on three long plays, something Bass and Boswell can't match.

DEFENSE/SPECIAL TEAMS

The defenses are similarly priced to the kickers on DraftKings, with the Steelers ($4,200 DK) more expensive than the Bills ($3,400 DK) despite being road underdogs. That comes from the fact that they scored double-digit fantasy points six times this season, including three of their last four games, with a combination of sacks and turnovers helping them in some cases and three touchdowns helping in others. However, they're now facing a quarterback that doesn't really throw many interceptions nor take a lot of sacks, so they're likely going to need some unlikely plays to help pay off their price.

The Bills have given up too many points to be a valuable fantasy defense this season, though they did have at least three sacks in three of their last four games, a span that saw them force multiple turnovers three times as well. But while they now face a very immobile quarterback, Roethlisberger has only been sacked 10 times all season, and coupled with only seven interceptions and there's not as much enthusiasm that they'll be helpful. That being said, if most people ignore them, there's every reason to keep them in the player pool for those trying to win large-field GPPs since the variance can always swing in their favor for one night.