The Week 12 NFL Dashboard
For the rest of our positional breakdowns, visit our NFL dashboard.
Week 12: Wide Receivers
As you may have noticed by the name above, I am not Matthew Freedman. That means that this week’s WR Breakdown will likely be a little shorter with far fewer clever GIFs. You win some, you lose some.
This week’s WR crop for the main slate is missing some usual studs because of their inclusion in the Thanksgiving slate: Antonio Brown, T.Y. Hilton, Donte Moncrief, Dez Bryant, Golden Tate, and so forth. Maybe more importantly, we’re also missing some of the truly terrible pass defenses that we typically pick on: Detroit (32nd in pass Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average [DVOA]), Indy (29th), Dallas (28th), and Washington (17th) are all out of the pool. There are still some bad defenses and bad cornerbacks to target, but a chunk of the usual crew is missing.
I like the structure Matt uses in his pieces, so we’re going to stick with the general guideline: Talk about the Player Model favorites and then give some quick hits about the rest of the pool. Let’s jump right in and start with the guys our Models love this week.
The Super Models
We have four Pro Models — the Bales, Levitan, CSURAM88, and Sports Geek models — and they’re mostly in consensus about the top players for this week. I took a look at the top-five highest-rated WRs in all four models for both sites and compiled the players who popped up multiple times. Here they are, in descending order of DK salary:
• Amari Cooper: $7,700 DK, $7,800 FD
• Mike Evans: $7,500 DK, $7,900 FD
• Michael Crabtree: $6,500 DK, $6,700 FD
• Doug Baldwin: $6,400 DK, $6,800 FD
• Jordan Matthews: $5,000 DK, $5,600 FD
• DeVante Parker: $4,700 DK, $6,300 FD
The New Bash Bros
Cooper and Crabtree might be California’s best sports duo since these guys:
Alright fine, the original Mighty Ducks were actually from Minneapolis, but now the NHL team resides in Anaheim so we’re rolling with it because I wanted to use that GIF. Also, I lied about using GIFs. Deal with it.
Per this week’s Market Share Report, Cooper (21.29 percent) and Crabtree (25.81 percent) collectively own a whopping 47.1 percent of the Raiders’ targets over the past four games. Oakland passes the ball on 60.55 percent of their plays this year, which is all to say that Cooper and Crabtree are an incredibly important part of the Raiders offense.
Crabtree is intriguing: He’s put up some duds in his last two games, scoring 2.0 and 3.7 FD points on his 13 targets. However, it’s hard to blame him for those games, considering that he was facing tough defenses in the Texans (11th in pass DVOA) and Broncos (first). This week should be much easier, and we get the benefit of getting Crabtree after a price decrease: He was $7,000-plus just two weeks ago and now is only $6,700 on FD, where he owns six Pro Trends and a 96 percent Bargain Rating. He’s a top-three rated receiver in all four of the Pro Models this week.
Cooper is significantly more expensive than Crabtree on both sites despite owning a lower market share of targets in the past month. However, that’s less of a big deal when you look at his individual matchup in Week 12: Per our NFL Matchups tool, Coop should run the majority of his routes against cornerback Daryl Worley, who is Pro Football Focus’ 75th-ranked corner on the year and has a poor 63.1 coverage grade. PFF has this as the sixth-most advantageous matchup of the week.
Like Crabtree, Cooper is definitely a better value on FD, where he owns a 97 percent Bargain Rating and is the highest-rated WR in the Levitan Model.
Johnny Manziel’s Former Sidekick
The former Aggie has now seen at least 11 targets in every game but one since Week 2. Evans has put up double-digit DK points in every game this year and already has 916 receiving yards and eight touchdowns. He was probably already there before this year, but he’s definitely thrust himself into the upper echelon of NFL receivers in his junior campaign.
He ranks first among all WRs this year in average FD points per game (17.41) and dwarfs all of the other elite receivers in average FD Plus/Minus at +4.3. He’s currently fourth in the NFL in target share over the last month with 30.46 percent of his team’s targets. He’s clearly been very underpriced this year, and that remains the case: Odell Beckham ($9,000), Julio Jones ($8,700), and Jordy Nelson ($8,000) are all more expensive this week, and both Odell and Julio are more expensive than Evans has been all year: His highest salary was $8,500 two weeks ago against the Bears.
Evans has a very tough matchup this week against the Seahawks, who rank fourth in total defense and sixth in pass DVOA this season. Per our NFL News feed, Evans could be shadowed by CB Richard Sherman in Week 12 because of injuries to other Seattle corners. That’s definitely a downgrade for Evans, as Sherman ranks 33rd with a 78.5 PFF coverage grade, but he’s been beaten by elite receivers: Julio put up a 7-139-1 line on him and Brandon Marshall had a 4-89-1 line earlier this year. Evans has the fourth-highest projected FD ceiling (25.0 points) despite the tough matchup. He had a ridiculous 11-150-2 line on 17 targets just three weeks ago.
The Second-Half Savior
I’ve written plenty of takes about Baldwin’s weird first/second-half seasonal splits in my weekly team breakdowns of the Seahawks. I’ll spare you in this piece, mostly because I have no clue why they’re so extreme. Per RotoViz:
This pains me to say as a data guy, but sometimes you have to fly on a plane even though you have no clue how or why it works. Baldwin’s splits probably have more to do with his quarterback than him, and I typically don’t subscribe to narrative plays when they can’t be explained, but this is an extreme example at this point. At the very least, you have to be cognizant of the splits, even if you believe that they’re totally random.
Over the last three weeks, Baldwin has hit at least 14.9 DK points in each game despite seeing only five, eight, and six targets. He owns the highest percentage of his team’s targets over the past month (20.49 percent), but that mark ranks only 41st among all pass-catchers in that time frame. For reference, running back Le’Veon Bell has owned (not counting Thursday night’s game) 23.70 percent of his team’s targets in that span. Baldwin really isn’t exciting from a volume perspective.
That said, he’s a top-four rated FD WR in all four of the Pro FD Models, ranking first in both the Bales and CSURAM88 Models. The reason is probably 1) price — he’s only $6,800 and owns a 94 percent Bargain Rating — and 2) matchup, as he’ll face a Bucs defense that ranks 18th in pass DVOA. He’ll likely play against Alterraun Verner and also Vernon Hargreaves, who is PFF’s 112th-ranked CB on the year (out of 119 eligible CBs) with an awful coverage grade of 44.2. PFF has this matchup as the most advantageous WR/CB matchup in Week 12. The myth of second-half Doug could continue.
J-Matt
I’ll keep this one short, since it’s pretty simple. Matthews has seen target totals of 10, 10, 10, and 15 in his last four games after not hitting double-digits since Week 1. And after those four games of heavy volume, his price has actually somehow decreased fairly significantly on both sites. The Packers are pretty terrible on defense: They rank 20th overall and 23rd in pass DVOA, and they just got hammered by the Redskins for 42 points. J-Matt will get safety/slot CB Micah Hyde, who ranks 82nd per PFF and has a poor 57.6 coverage grade. PFF has this as the eighth-best matchup of the week.
Again, pretty simple.
No. 1 WR?
In this week’s Market Share Report, I actually added in a Sporcle quiz because of Parker. When I was compiling the data, I was surprised to learn that Parker — not Jarvis Landry — has actually owned the most Dolphins targets over the past month at 23.42 percent.
I knew that Parker had been coming on recently — he’s posted 21.9 and 18.3-point DK outings in his last two games thanks to 13 catches on 18 targets for 182 yards and a touchdown — but I was surprised that he has been Ryan Tannehill‘s go-to guy.
And that is a very valuable role this week, as the Dolphins will face the 49ers, who currently rank 27th in DVOA and on offense play at the fastest pace in the league, averaging 24.45 seconds per play this year, thereby creating more opportunities for opposing offenses. The Dolphins are currently 7.5-point favorites and implied to score 26 points — the fourth-highest mark in the slate.
Parker’s salary difference on DK and FD is pretty drastic: He’s only $4,700 on DK, whereas he’s been priced up to $6,300 on FD. He’s definitely in play on both sites given his volume and matchup, but he does have a much higher Projected Plus/Minus on DK (+3.3) than FD. He’s currently the highest-rated WR in three of the four DK Pro Models — he’s ‘only’ fourth in the Levitan Model — although he does come with projected ownership levels of 17-20 and nine to 12 percent on DK and FD.
Target Bargain Rating
We’ll get to the quick hits in just a second, but first I want to get a little creative.
Earlier in 2016, I created what I call “Vegas Bargain Rating” (VBR) for daily fantasy golf. I’m not going to get heavy into golf here, but this is the general premise: Because DK player salaries and Vegas odds are highly correlated, we can combine the two into one metric to spot inefficiencies. To create VBR, I plot those two variables, find a line-of-best-fit formula, and use that to predict player salaries theoretically based solely on Vegas odds. From there, I subtract the predicted ‘Vegas salary’ from DK salary and find guys whom Vegas likes more than DK likes.
I’m using that same concept this week with target share. Let’s see if we can find some interesting pricing dynamics by looking at what players should be priced if they were salaried solely according to their target shares. Here’s an example and then I’ll post the table: Over the last four games, Julio leads the NFL with 35.07 percent of his team’s targets. Using our formula, if the sites priced players using only target share data, Julio should be priced at $9,514 DK and $10,055 FD. He’s really $8,500 DK and $8,700 FD, which gives us an excess of $814 DK and $1,355 FD. I did this calculation for all WRs in our Player Models for Week 12 and set their differences on a scale from 1-to-100 in order to create a Target Bargain Rating. Here’s what we have:
Fly Patterns
Nine route, go.
Julian Edelman is second in the NFL over the past four games in target market share with 34.11 percent of the Patriots’ targets. Sure, that number is a little inflated by his 17 targets last week — a 44.74 percent target share — which came without Rob Gronkowski. However, Gronk is dealing with a punctured lung and is very questionable to play in Week 12. The Patriots are implied to score 26.75 points against the Jets, who have an epic funnel defense, ranking second against the run but a miserable 30th against the pass. Edelman should split time against the Jets’ corners: Our NFL Matchups page has him against PFF’s 47th-ranked CB in Marcus Williams, but he should also see some action against Darrelle Revis, who is ranked 80th this year among CBs with a poor 59.5 coverage grade. If Gronk is out — and maybe even if he’s in — Edelman is a very intriguing play this week.
Odell Beckham gets the Browns this week: The Giants are currently seven-point favorites implied for 25.5 points. Odell had a poor game last week, scoring only 7.1 FD points on seven targets against the Bears, but we know his ceiling: He dropped an 8-222-2 line against the Ravens in Week 6. He has the highest-projected ceiling (25.7) this week among all FD WRs. His matchup is interesting: He should draw Joe Haden, who has a nice reputation but is PFF’s 79th-ranked CB this year, owning a poor coverage grade of 60.0. This matchup is PFF’s 10th-best for WRs this week. Odell is obviously a stud, but he does come with very high price tags of $8,800 DK and $9,000 FD and is projected to be owned in 17-20 and 21-25 percent of lineups.
We mentioned Julio above, but we’ll discuss him once more. He’s volatile:
Over his last eight games, he’s scored either 18-plus FD points or fewer than five. No in-between. That said, there are fairly obvious splits in that graphic above: He’s an absolutely monster as he approaches or reaches double-digit targets. This week, he has a very tough matchup against a Cardinals team that ranks fifth, third, and ninth overall, versus the pass, and versus the run. He’ll likely be shadowed by elite CB Patrick Peterson, who is PFF’s eighth-best CB on the year. That limits Julio’s viability in cash games, but it does make him very intriguing in tournaments, as he’s projected to be owned in five to eight percent of lineups on DK and FD as a result of the matchup. He has seven Pro Trends and a 96 percent Bargain Rating on FD.
Jermaine Kearse is actually popping in a couple of the Pro Models this week: He’s currently the third-highest rated DK WR in the CSURAM88 and Sports Geek Models. I know, the dude hasn’t scored double-digit FD points in any game this year. What gives? He actually owns a pretty high percentage of the Seahawks’ targets — 19.67 percent over the last four games, to be exact — and is the bare minimum $3,000 on DK. The Seahawks have a great matchup against a poor Bucs secondary: Tampa Bay has been the fourth-worst team against supplementary WRs this year. Kearse is volatile, but he’s not the worst GPP play in the world.
Tyler Boyd is another cheap projected to do well: With A.J. Green out for the Bengals, Boyd has high Projected Plus/Minus marks of +5.3 on DK and +3.6 on FD. He saw eight targets after Green went down in Week 11 and turned those into a 6-54-1 line. The Ravens have an extreme funnel defense because of how dominant they are against the run (first in the league by a mile), and the Bengals may have to turn to their passing game for production. With Green out, along with RB Gio Bernard, Boyd should be in line for nice volume.
Last week, Cameron Meredith was supposed to be the guy to step up in Chicago’s passing game without Alshon Jeffery. Meredith wasn’t bad — he caught all four of his targets for 49 yards — but his volume was a far cry from where he was earlier in the year when he posted 27 targets in a two-week span as a focal point of the offense. Meredith and Eddie Royal should be heavily-targeted this week — the Bears have pretty much no one left on their roster — but 1) last week was discouraging and 2) either an injured Jay Cutler or a third-string Matt Barkley is going to be throwing the ball this weekend. Still, Cam is worth some shots, especially since he’s supposed to draw Perrish Cox in coverage.
We reshaped our ceiling and floor projections recently, and they currently show Larry Fitzgerald with the highest projected ceiling among all DK WRs. In the slot, he should be able to avoid stud CB Desmond Trufant for most of the game, but Fitz has been so darn consistent this year no matter the matchup: He’s scored double-digit DK points in every game this season. Fitz is due for a little touchdown regression at some point, as he hasn’t found the end zone in his last five games despite seeing 59 targets in that time frame. He’s priced down to $7,000 on DK and $7,200 on FD, where he owns a Projected Plus/Minus of +4.0 and a 96 percent Bargain Rating.
Jordy Nelson was largely shut down by Josh Norman last week, but he did manage to save his fantasy day by getting into the end zone, which is basically what Jordy does at this point: He scores TDs incessantly and somehow still underwhelms. He posted a 3-28-1 line on five targets — his worst performance in five weeks. Things won’t get much easier this week, as he’ll face an Eagles defense that ranks first overall and second against the pass. Nelson, Davante Adams, and Randall Cobb all have tough matchups this week. Cobb has the lowest ‘Target Bargain Rating’ among all WRs in our Player Models.
The Coda
The last player I’ll mention is Michael Thomas, who will look to rebound after missing salary-based expectations for two straight weeks. He is still a little pricey at $6,600 DK and $6,400 FD, but he gets one of the best matchups on the board this week against Rams CB E.J. Gaines, who is PFF’s 116th-ranked CB (out of 119) on the year with a poor 37.9 coverage grade. Thomas has seen a dip in targets lately — he has five and six in his last two games — but the Rams are good against the run (seventh in DVOA), so the Saints might funnel more production than usual toward the passing game.
The Saints are currently implied for 26.5 points — the third-highest mark in the slate. Thomas is projected for 13-16 and 17-20 percent ownership. He could have a huge game in this matchup, especially since he’s playing at the Coors Field of daily fantasy football.
Positional Breakdowns & Tools
Be sure to read the other Week 12 positional breakdowns:
• Quarterbacks: By Matthew Freedman
• Running Backs: By Ian Hartitz
• Tight Ends: By Kelly McCann
Also, visit our suite of Tools to research all of the slate’s WRs for yourself, and peruse all of the slate’s tournaments in our Contest Guide.
Good luck this week!
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:
