Dec 16, 2017

By:@SMich_5

This will be the busiest week of the year in terms of football coverage during the week, as we have four days of games with the Thursday nighter in the books, a double header on Saturday, and the usual slate of games on Sunday and Monday. With such a quirky schedule, I wanted to send out a quick piece about one target that I am especially interested in for the Saturday games. The rest of the targets will be posted on Sunday as usual but I wanted to get this one out before the games start.

Adam Shaheen, TE, Chicago Bears

I am really intrigued by the value offered by the Chicago Bears rookie tight end Adam Shaheen. He is a huge bargain at only $2700 and the biggest thing keeping him from being talked up more is DraftKings refusal to put together game slates that make any kind of common sense. Saturday games are only available for people who set a Thursday to Monday lineup, only want to play the two Saturday games, or want the late Saturday game and early Sunday games. Shaheen has shown some interesting flashes of chemistry with fellow rookie Mitchell Trubisky but hasn’t been a consistent source of production yet. He has yet to have more than 5 targets in a game and has only caught multiple passes in three games, despite the loss of almost every viable receiver in Chicago. But, he’s a 6’5”, very athletic beast of a man who has shown the kind of skills that would translate to success in the professional ranks. He’s a bit of a throwback to the late 2000s when every GM was searching for a basketball player they could convert into the next Antonio Gates or Jimmy Graham, as Shaheen was initially focusing more on college hoops. One school transfer and several Division II tight end receiving records later he’s now playing in the NFL. Now, he’ll look to do work against the Detroit Lions, who of late have been very generous to opposing tight ends. On the season Detroit has been giving up the 9th most points per game to tight ends in DraftKings (13.1), but if you look at just the last 5 weeks, they have been giving up just a shade under 16 point per game, which on the season would be the 3rd most. In case you were scared of Trubisky and head coach John Fox’s conservative approach with him, he has actually thrown 30+ passes in 5 of his last 6. Most of that is a product of bad game script rather than a shift in coaching, but Detroit is good enough to move the ball against Chicago’s defense so passing attempts should be on the higher end of Trubisky’s range. Shaheen is so cheap that a couple of catches and a TD will have him hit value, leaving room for some of the nicer high priced options this week.

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