The Week 11 NFL Dashboard
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Dolphins at Rams
The Dolphins make their way west to Los Angeles, where they are projected to be 1.5-point road favorites against the Rams. This game currently has a Vegas total of 40 points, the lowest of Week 11. The Dolphins are currently implied for 20.75 points; the Rams, 19.25.
Miami Dolphins
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Ryan Tannehill
He’s struggled to get much of anything going this season, but he did throw for multiple touchdowns last week for the first time in five contests. He has a tough matchup this week against a Rams defense that has allowed just 5.8 net yards per pass attempt this season, the seventh-best mark in the league. The Rams defense has held seven of nine QBs to no more than 16 DraftKings points and ranks 12th against the pass in Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA).
Tannehill’s currently 29th in the NFL in Quarterback Rating (52.3), making him hard to consider even in GPPs. He currently has the fourth-lowest ceiling of any QB and likely lacks the upside to use even in guaranteed prize pools. We’re projecting Tannehill to be owned in zero to one percent of Millionaire Maker lineups.
RB – Jay Ajayi
If you have been riding the Ajayi train the past four weeks . . .
. . . congrats. He’s been, on average, the No. 1 DK RB over that period based on our Plus/Minus metric.
To the extent that Tannehill has done nothing for this offense lately, Ajayi has done everything, averaging 25.75 touches for 158.25 total yards and one touchdown per game over the past four games. He’s now fourth in the league in breakaway runs of 15-plus yards (per Player Profiler). However, his numbers have decreased in each of the past three games, and the Rams are tough against the run, ranking eighth in rush DVOA. They’ve allowed just one 100-yard rusher on the season (LeSean McCoy).
Priced all the way up to $7,600 FD and $6,800 DK, Ajayi is in consideration for GPPs on account of his volume, but he’s playing in a game that, in the words of FantasyLabs Co-founder Peter Jennings (CSURAM88), doesn’t have much “fantasy goodness.”
RB – Damien Williams
On the one hand, Williams scored two TDs last week and has four in his last four games. On the other hand, Williams touched the ball three times last week and has a 1.1-point floor projection on DK this week.
Don’t be that guy.
WR – Jarvis Landry
The emergence of Ajayi and a power running game has done a lot to open things up downfield off of play action. However, Landry (with his extremely low average depth of target) is unlikely to benefit. He’s also seeing very limited work in the red zone. Head Coach Adam Gase last week said that he needed “to do a better job of getting Jarvis the ball” — and then he gave him the same number of targets (six) that he had the week prior.
Per our Trends tool, road favorite FanDuel WRs with comparable salaries and point projections typically hover around salary-based expectations:
That said, slot receivers have fared slightly better against the Rams, with a +2.64 FD Plus/Minus in 2016.
Landry (shoulder) is questionable for Week 11 but expected to play. He practiced fully on Friday.
WR – DeVante Parker
The downfield passing game has really opened up with the Dolphins running the ball so well, and the big-play potential for Parker is real. He is getting a ton of valuable targets downfield, highlighted by his 20.60 yards per reception in Week 10, when he out-snapped WR Kenny Stills 80-70 percent. Parker carries risk — his offense has proven at times to be very inconsistent — but at $4,100 he’s in consideration for GPPs with a projected ownership of two to four percent. Parker is currently the No. 6 DK WR in the Tournament Model for Week 11.
WR – Kenny Stills
Like Parker, Stills targets are down the field. Through nine games, he boasts a 10.4 yards per target and is now fourth in the league in fantasy points per target. That said, keep in mind who is throwing to him. Stills is a GPP dart at best, as he has seen just four targets over the past two games and has a scary floor of 1.8 DK points.
Stills (calf) is questionable for Week 11 but expected to play. He practiced fully on Friday.
TE – Dion Sims
Sims returned to action in Week 10 and continued to prove that TEs on the Dolphins “are who we thought they were” with zero catches on just one target. MarQueis Gray did have two catches for 18 yards!
Tannehill has never paid much attention to his TEs, as he’s targeted the position on just 13 percent of his pass attempts over the past 12 months.
Los Angeles Rams
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Jared Goff
What’s there to really say about Goff right now? On the one hand, he’s the same guy who got drafted No. 1 overall this summer because of his great 6’4″ frame and stellar junior year at Cal, in which he completed 64.5 percent of his passes for 4,714 yards and had a whopping 43 touchdowns versus 13 interceptions. On the other hand — and stop me if you’ve heard this before — this is the same QB who couldn’t beat out Case Keenum, ‘winning’ the starting job only because Keenum lost it after 10 horrible weeks of QB play.
I’ve learned in the past two weeks that rarely will either side of a debate relent. Instead of looking at Goff, then, let’s look at his situation: He’s facing a Dolphins defense that has played very well lately and currently ranks sixth in DVOA. Further, the Dolphins are fourth against the pass. Goff may end up being a great QB, or maybe not, but for at least this week he’s the lowest-rated DK QB in the Bales Model.
RB – Todd Gurley
The past two weeeks Gurley has faced brutal matchups against the stout Jets and Panthers front seven, and this week he has to deal with a rookie QB and a Dolphins team that ranks 13th against the rush. Opportunity is never the problem for Gurley: He received 21 carries last week and hasn’t seen fewer than 17 opportunities (rushes plus targets) in any game this year. That said, this offense (with Keenum at QB) has been a drag on all players, Gurley included. He has only three TDs in nine games after posting 10 last year with 1,106 rush yards. There is underrated upside here if Goff ends up being semi-competent and allows Gurley some more room to run. Also, he’s quite inexpensive on DK, where his $5,000 price tag comes with a 60 percent Bargain Rating. Gurley has the sixth-highest Projected Plus/Minus among DK RBs at +5.7.
Gurley (thigh) is officially questionable for Week 11. He was limited in Friday’s practice, which isn’t a good sign. Gurley played through the same injury last week, but his situation should be monitored via the FantasyLabs News feed.
RB – Benny Cunningham
Even though Cunningham has hit salary-based expectations in two straight games, his 10.6-point projected DK ceiling is too low for tournaments and his 0.8-point floor is too low for cash games.
WR – Kenny Britt
The passing game has a bit of uncertainty this week with Goff starting, but Britt has been the top option in this offense over the past month. Per the Market Share Report, he leads Rams pass-catchers with 20.0 percent of the team’s targets and a large 36.58 percent of their Air Yards. He’s $5,200 on DK now — way up from his $3,900 price tag to start the year — but he has shown considerable upside in the last month: He posted a 20.9-point DK game last week against the Jets and a massive 35.6-point performance four games ago against the Lions on a 7-136-2 line. Britt has been getting valuable targets and is perhaps the one player in this offense who has shown that he can do something with his opportunities. It remains to be seen if that’ll continue with Goff, but Britt’s certainly worth a GPP shot at just two to four percent projected ownership.
WR – Tavon Austin
Austin simply can’t make anything happen this year no matter how many opportunities he gets. In the past two weeks, he’s caught three balls on nine targets for a combined 36 yards. The game prior he caught 10 of 15 targets for . . . 57 yards. The most yards he’s gained in a single game this year is 82, which hints at his limited upside. In the past four games, he’s seen 17.50 percent of the Rams’ targets and only 14.70 percent of the Air Yards. Austin has a low 3.o-point projected floor on DK, although he has fairly high ratings in our Pro Models because of his cheap $3,900 price tag.
WR – Brian Quick
Quick is even cheaper than Austin at $3,400, and he owns the second-highest percentage of Air Yards on the team at 23.78 percent. He struggled last week, catching only two of his four targets for 16 yards. He’s shown a bit of upside — he had a 20.9-point DK outing against the Cardinals earlier this year — and he has almost non-existence ownership at zero to one percent. That might be worth a shot in tournaments, given the uncertainty with Goff.
TE – Lance Kendricks
Kendricks burned a ton of people in cash games last week, catching only one of his two targets for zero yards after getting 12, nine, and eight targets in the prior three weeks. He’s still not a sexy play, but he’ll A) likely be very low-owned after last week and B) still owns 19.38 percent of the Rams’ targets over the past four games — the second-highest mark on the team. That said, the Dolphins have been the seventh-best team in the league against TEs this year.
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our industry-leading DFS-focused news blurbs:
