Just one game remains in Week 1 of the 2021 NFL slate, and it should promise some scoring.
FanDuel Sportsbook pits the over/under of the Baltimore Ravens at Las Vegas Raiders matchup of 50.0, and the Ravens are a 4.0-point road favorite.
How will the high total impact the expectations, and which players are most likely to post a big game?
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lamar Jackson | $17,000 | 21.9 | 49.9% | 87.9% |
| Derek Carr | $14,000 | 16.4 | 17.8% | 67.5% |
| Darren Waller | $13,000 | 13.3 | 7.0% | 52.0% |
| Josh Jacobs | $12,500 | 13.0 | 8.8% | 50.2% |
| Mark Andrews | $11,000 | 11.4 | 4.2% | 40.2% |
| Marquise Brown | $10,000 | 10.4 | 4.0% | 35.2% |
| Henry Ruggs | $9,500 | 9.8 | 3.0% | 31.1% |
| Justin Tucker | $9,000 | 9.6 | 1.0% | 25.6% |
| Ty'Son Williams | $12,000 | 8.9 | 1.7% | 26.0% |
| Daniel Carlson | $8,500 | 8.4 | 0.4% | 15.5% |
| Kenyan Drake | $8,500 | 7.9 | 0.6% | 17.7% |
| Bryan Edwards | $7,000 | 7.8 | 1.0% | 19.0% |
| Sammy Watkins | $8,000 | 6.6 | 0.4% | 12.0% |
| Devin Duvernay | $7,000 | 6.0 | 0.2% | 8.8% |
| Hunter Renfrow | $7,500 | 5.3 | 0.1% | 6.1% |
| Le'Veon Bell | $9,000 | 5.1 | 0.1% | 4.0% |
| Latavius Murray | $8,000 | 3.4 | 0.0% | 0.7% |
| Willie Snead | $6,500 | 2.9 | 0.0% | 0.5% |
| Josh Oliver | $5,000 | 2.1 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Foster Moreau | $5,500 | 1.8 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Alec Ingold | $5,000 | 0.7 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Trenton Cannon | $6,500 | 0.4 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Patrick Ricard | $5,000 | 0.2 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Zay Jones | $6,000 | 0.2 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Derek Carrier | $5,000 | 0.1 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Trey Quinn | $5,000 | 0.1 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Marcell Ateman | $5,000 | 0.1 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Peyton Barber | $5,500 | 0.1 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| James Proche | $5,500 | 0.1 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Slate Breakdown
Using numberFire's projections as the base, we see Lamar Jackson ($17,000) just dominate the baseline and ceiling projections. His median projection works out to 21.9 FanDuel points, and no other player is within 6.0 points of him. You'll have to pay a lot of salary for him, but last year, Jackson was the MVP in the perfect lineup in 8 of 13 games for which a single-game slate was offered on FanDuel. It's going to be more about differentiating elsewhere or taking the slim chance odds that he is bodied out of a perfect lineup slot. That typically only happens when the opposing offense lights it up.
Derek Carr ($14,000) is next up and is the most obvious pivot away from Jackson as a quarterback. If you're gutsy enough to fade Lamar and play Carr at MVP, you're virtually guaranteed a minimally-duplicated lineup. Carr, though, put up an MVP performance in just 1 of 13 Raiders games with single-game offerings in 2020.
An elite pivot away from the quarterbacks -- or an addition to Carr-anchored lineups -- will be Darren Waller ($13,000). Waller was also just once an MVP when a single-game slate was offered last year (13 games for the Raiders), but we've seen him erupt when volume gets funneled his way.
The model likes Josh Jacobs ($12,000) well enough, but we are looking at a game where the Raiders are 4.0-point underdogs, and like we saw with Carr and Waller, Jacobs only once returned MVP-caliber outings in the 13-game sample. Jacobs ultimately faces a difficult defense and likely lacks the true ceiling to punish us for not building around him, so I'd be fine leaving him out of the MVP conversation.
Ty'Son Williams ($12,000) is going to get RB1 treatment to start the season. That likely doesn't mean 70.0% of the snaps and all the work he can handle, but he's the clear priority in this backfield. As a favorite running alongside the lethal Lamar Jackson, Williams -- despite what the simulations say -- would be preferable for me to Jacobs as a non-Jackson MVP choice.
Last season, the Ravens' pass-catchers were primarily just Marquise Brown ($10,000) and Mark Andrews ($11,000). Brown maintained a 24.6% target share in his healthy games, and that mark for Andrews (get it?) was 24.5%. However, historical trends have not been kind to tight ends as MVPs, so Brown would earn the edge for that discussion.
Sammy Watkins ($8,000) is also a name to consider. The model is lukewarm on him overall, yet there are positive remarks surrounding Watkins from Lamar Jackson.
Shades of salary relief exist with Henry Ruggs ($9,500), Bryan Edwards ($7,000), and Hunter Renfrow ($7,500). Ruggs, last year, managed just a 9.8% market share, but Nelson Agholor is gone. Edwards is listed as the team's WR2. Renfrow managed a 13.8% target share in 2020 and should have a floor of targets running out of the slot.