The first day of the Divisional Round in the 2020 NFL playoffs is capped with what should be a tight, high-scoring game.
The over/under for the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens game is 49.5 points, and of all four Divisional Round matchups, the 2.5-point spread (favoring the home Bills) is the closest.
We have two stellar quarterback options, so how does that affect the slate?
Before we dig in more, don't forget to brush up on some single-game perfect lineup trends and leverage our Sharpstack single-game optimizer for correlated lineup plays.
High-Level Simulation Results
I simulated this game a thousand times -- using numberFire's projections -- to see some high-level takeaways. Here's what I found.
| Player | Salary | Median Simulation FanDuel Points | Top Score Odds | Top-5 Score Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Allen | $17,000 | 23.5 | 45.6% | 90.5% |
| Lamar Jackson | $16,500 | 20.0 | 23.7% | 76.7% |
| Stefon Diggs | $14,000 | 16.7 | 11.9% | 66.2% |
| Devin Singletary | $11,500 | 12.1 | 4.3% | 40.2% |
| Mark Andrews | $11,000 | 10.8 | 2.4% | 34.4% |
| Marquise Brown | $12,000 | 10.5 | 2.4% | 31.2% |
| Cole Beasley | $10,000 | 10.4 | 3.7% | 30.5% |
| James Proche | $5,000 | 10.0 | 3.0% | 30.1% |
| John Brown | $9,500 | 8.3 | 0.7% | 22.8% |
| J.K. Dobbins | $12,500 | 8.9 | 1.1% | 19.7% |
| Chris Moore | $5,000 | 7.6 | 0.8% | 17.1% |
| Justin Tucker | $9,000 | 8.1 | 0.0% | 10.2% |
| Tyler Bass | $8,500 | 8.2 | 0.1% | 9.9% |
| Gus Edwards | $8,500 | 7.2 | 0.1% | 8.3% |
| Gabriel Davis | $9,000 | 5.5 | 0.1% | 4.9% |
| Dawson Knox | $7,500 | 4.8 | 0.1% | 2.6% |
| Dez Bryant | $7,000 | 4.5 | 0.0% | 2.5% |
| Willie Snead IV | $8,500 | 4.4 | 0.0% | 2.0% |
Here's a snapshot of how these two teams stack up, based on numberFire's opponent-adjusted Net Expected Points (NEP) metric.
| Team | Total Offense | Passing Offense | Rushing Offense | Total Defense | Passing Defense | Rushing Defense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore | 8 | 16 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 3 |
| Buffalo | 1 | 1 | 18 | 16 | 14 | 23 |
Slate Breakdown
Using numberFire's projections as the base, Josh Allen (45.6%) and Lamar Jackson (23.7%) combine to be 69.3% likely to lead this slate in FanDuel points. That's very relevant for how we handle our MVP choices. I can't (and won't) make much of a case to avoid either of them outright, but we should get leverage on literally anyone else at MVP.
Just to posit this: both are good plays. Yes, the Ravens are a top-6 adjusted pass defense, but Allen has played nine games already against top-12 adjusted pass defenses. In those games, he has averaged 302.4 yards and 2.8 touchdowns for 28.5 FanDuel points per game. His Passing NEP per drop back should've been 0.03. It was 0.43. That's wild.
For Lamar, the Bills are just around NFL average in adjusted pass defense and are a soft adjusted rush defense. They are also 25th in Rushing Success Rate allowed to quarterbacks. It's a very good spot for a passer who is averaging 10.9 carries per game. He's also been just above NFL average in efficiency when we cut out his matchups with top-10 pass defenses, too.
The real question is can you -- and should you -- roster both? Doing so leaves you with $8,833 remaining for your final three players. So yes, it's possible. However, across 124 optimal lineups from single-game slates last year, just 29.8% of them featured both quarterbacks. You're banking on no big games elsewhere if you're rostering both quarterbacks. It's viable some of the time. Not necessarily all of the time.
Stefon Diggs is the next-most likely player to lead the slate in fantasy points at just 11.9%. Given the heavy emphasis on the quarterbacks, he'll be a surefire MVP pivot. Diggs -- in eight games where he, John Brown, and Cole Beasley played relevant snaps together -- has a 27.4% target share (9.6 targets per game for 95.6 yards per game).
Beasley is next with an 18.5% target share and a 7.9-yard average depth of target. Brown's marks are 16.7% and 12.9, respectively. Coming off of his donut game (zero catches on four targets), he's a prime bounce-back candidate, given his usual role. It's also a revenge game for the former Raven.
Devin Singletary is actually fourth on the team in this sample with a 10.3% target share, and with Zack Moss out, Singletary stands to benefit in a big way. In Weeks 3, 4, and 5 without Moss this season, Singletary averaged 14.0 carries and 4.0 targets for 76.7 scrimmage yards and "only" 11.3 FanDuel points per game. I say "only" because it's not a slate-altering total, and Singletary has never really flashed elite upside consistently.
A lot of the running back attention will go toward Singletary, but for the Ravens, it'll be on J.K. Dobbins. Dobbins handled 9 carries for 43 yards last week (plus 1 target for -6 yards) and 10.2 FanDuel points. Everyone seems to love Dobbins.
That said, Gus Edwards is my favorite pivot in this game. He had 8 carries for 38 yards and also had a red zone carry, same as Dobbins, last week. In 10 games shared since Week 8, Dobbins does have the better role (11.8 carries and 1.1 targets with 2.8 red zone chances per game), but Edwards is close behind (9.5 carries and 1.1 targets with 2.3 red zone chances). The $4,000 salary gap seems too large.
Since Week 8 with Mark Andrews healthy, he has really churned out a lead role with 27.0% of the targets, but that's only 6.9 per game. What helps is the leverage attached to them: 1.4 downfield targets per game and 1.2 in the red zone. Weighting the targets for the added value, he's closer to getting 8.7 targets per game. Marquise Brown has a 21.7% target share in this span with 7.0 weighted targets (and just 5.6 overall targets).
The workloads behind them are mostly dispersed, and behind Brown (93.8% of the routes last week, via PFF) and Andrews (75.0%), nobody else ran even 60% of the routes. The closest guys were Willie Snead (59.4%) and Miles Boykin (56.3%). Boykin did get a 36-yard deep chuck thrown his way for what it's worth.