The Week 11 NFL Dashboard
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Week 11: Wide Receivers
I’m really going to miss seeing Julio Jones‘ moustache this week.
WR Pricing
As I pointed out in the WR Breakdown last week — and have pointed out for several weeks now — our Bargain Rating metric indicates that WRs are unbelievably expensive on DraftKings and historically cheap on FanDuel.
For instance, if you look in the Player Models, you’ll see that the 12 highest DK WR salaries belong to players who have Bargain Ratings of under 10 percent. On FD, the Bargain Rating column is greener than the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day.
If you look at the pricing for all DK players, you’ll notice that half of the top-12 salaries belong to WRs. DK is really valuing its point-per-reception scoring. On FD, only two of the top-12 salaries belong to WRs. There’s a disparity in WR pricing between DK and FD, and it’s significant. You’ll want to arbitrage where/when you can.
If you’re paying up for a DK WR, just be aware that you’re really paying up, at least from a historical perspective.
A Few Words
Before you do anything else, check out this week’s WR Model Preview by Team FantasyLabs member Kevin McClelland (The Sports Geek). It delivers some great information in only 5:14.
Moving on . . .
The Big Seven
This week, we have a clear top tier of seven WRs at the top of the salary scale on both sites. Per our Trends tool:
Those Plus/Minus values might not look all that impressive, but at a position as volatile as WR those numbers are pretty good, especially when you take into account the raw points per game (PPG) and also the Consistency.
Here they are:
• Antonio Brown: $9,500 DK (WR1), $8,900 FD (WR2)
• Odell Beckham: $8,500 DK (WR2), $9,000 FD (WR1)
• A.J. Green: $8,300 DK (WR3), $8,200 FD (WR3)
• Mike Evans: $8,100 DK (WR4), $8,000 FD (WR4)
• Jordy Nelson: $7,800 DK (WR5), $7,800 FD (WR6)
• T.Y. Hilton: $7,700 DK (WR6), $7,900 FD (WR5)
• Amari Cooper: $7,500 DK (WR7), $7,700 FD (WR7)
Let’s shred this secondary.
Antonio Is As Roethlisberger Does
It’s no secret that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has by far the worst home/road splits of any elite QB. Unfortunately, they’re bad enough to drag down the production of the best WR in the NFL:
Those DK and FD numbers are still OK, but they’re not ‘Antonio’: They won’t win guaranteed prize pools.
And this matters because the Steelers are on the road for Week 11.
Of course, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t play Brown in GPPs. He has a great matchup. The Steelers are 7.5-point road point favorites with an implied Vegas total of 27 points. By the way, when I wrote that same sentence earlier in the QB Breakdown, the Steelers were implied to score 28.25 points. That downward movement isn’t a great sign, especially since the majority of bets against the spread have been made on the Steelers: The smart money is fading Pittsburgh.
Still, there are reasons to like Antonio. The Browns are 31st against the pass in Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). Per John Proctor’s WR/CB Matchups, “the Browns are allowing the highest yards per attempt and the third-highest yards per completion in the NFL.” Per our Matchups tool, Antonio is likely to run most of his routes against shadow cornerback Joe Haden. In theory, that’s not an excellent matchup for Antonio, as Haden is the 42nd-ranked CB at Pro Football Focus with an average 74.9 coverage grade. However, the Browns are 30th in pass DVOA against No. 1 WRs.
On top of that, Antonio’s the highest-rated FD WR in the CSURAM88, Levitan, and Sports Geek Models.
This is a really good situation for Brown — except for the fact that he significantly underperforms his averages when on the road.
Brown has slate-high FantasyLabs ownership projections of 21-25 and 26-30 percent on DK and FD.
You absolutely cannot entirely fade Brown, especially since he historically has done well on the road with Roethlisberger against the Browns . . .
. . . but some healthy caution might be warranted, especially since the weather in Cleveland is apparently apocalyptic with high winds and sideways-blowing snow. Monitor the FantasyLabs News feed for updates. It’s possible that the Pittsburgh passing game could be highly limited in Week 11.
Six Weeks Going on Seven
The first month of the season, people were flipping out about OBJ. For the six weeks since then, OBJ has easily been the most productive WR in the NFL:
The Giants are 7.5-point home favorites implied to score 26.25 points against the Bears, who allow league-high totals of 42.0 DK and 33.5 FD PPG to WRs. And, for what it’s worth, OBJ tends to do pretty well at home as a favorite. Per RotoViz:
OBJ is slated to draw ‘coverage’ from ‘shadow’ ‘CB’ Tracy Porter, who has a below-average PFF coverage grade of 58.8, ranking 79th at the position.
He’s a Lean Green Receiving Machine
Even though he’s saddled with a league-average QB, Green is the f*cking man. Per Bryan Mears’ Market Share Report, Green has a league-high 37.01 percent of Cincy’s targets over the last four games . . .
. . . and a whopping 49.74 percent of the team’s Air Yards:
Air Yards is a metric developed by RotoViz’s Josh Hermsmeyer that helps us see how a receiver produces his receiving yards and how leveraged his targets are. Because of his high Air Yards, A.J. doesn’t need a lot of targets to do his damage — but he’s still third in the NFL with 11 targets per game anyway.
The Bengals are 2.5-point home favorites implied to score 24.75 points against the Bills, who are 23rd in pass DVOA in general and dead last against No. 1 WRs.
AJG is projected for 17-20 percent ownership and is the highest-rated FD WR in the Bales Model.
231 Pounds of 6’5″ Bad-Assery
I normally try to stay away from the straight tout — and I’m not saying that you must roster Evans — but I want Evans.
He leads the NFL with 12 targets and 0.88 TDs per game. He’s fifth in the league with a respectable 90.1 yards per game (YPG). He’s reached his salary-based expectations with a solid 66.7 percent Consistency this year.
But what I really like about him is his upside.
We’ve recently tweaked the way in which we determine floor and ceiling projections. (Check out FantasyLabs Co-Founder Jonathan Bales’ explanatory video on our floor and ceiling projections for more details.) I bring this up because it has direct bearing on Evans. On both DK and FD, he doesn’t have the highest median projection. He has a top-three projection, but it’s nothing that distinguishes him from any of the other Big Seven.
But he easily has the highest ceiling projection on both sites, currently 33.3 DK and 26.3 FD points. And he has the highest floor projection on both sites. And he has only nine to 12 and five to eight percent projected ownership on DK and FD — and our ownership projections have been amazingly accurate this year.
Why is his ceiling so high? It helps that he’s a freak athlete, and it also doesn’t hurt that the Bucs are facing the Chiefs. Although the Bucs are 7.5-point road underdogs implied to score a low 18.5 points, the Chiefs present Evans with the chance to score a lot of points, as they have top-four marks in the league with 42.0 DK and 32.9 FD PPG allowed to WRs.
The Indy 500
In a game with a slate-high 52.0-point over/under, Hilton has the potential to show off his wheels at the fast track in Indy.
On this week’s NFL Daily Fantasy Flex pod, Adam Levitan took Hilton over Green straight up in a ‘skill game proposition’ with FantasyLabs Co-founder Peter Jennings (CSURAM88). Why did Levitan do that? I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but I think that it had something to do with “the nuts spot.”
The Colts are three-point home favorites implied to score 27.5 points against the Titans — the same team that Hilton lit up on the road with a 7-133-1 stat line for 29.3 DK and 22.8 FD points in Week 7.
And Hilton has a chance to do even better because he’s now playing in Indy.
Hilton has always had a noticeable home/road split . . .
. . . which makes sense, given that he has the constant opportunity to utilize his speed on the FieldTurf at Lucas Oil Stadium.
And this year (minus his injury-impacted game against the Chiefs) Hilton has been on fire at home, where the Colts have been favored each game:
He could be seeing some of this on Sunday.
Hilton has FantasyLabs ownership projections of 17-20 percent.
Jar of Flies, No. 3
It’s hard to find fault with a guy who leads the NFL with eight TDs receiving and his team with 32.79 percent of the Air Yards, but this might be a game to be underweight on Jordy.
If you want to slap me in the mouth for suggesting caution on a guy who’s done this over his last three games . . .
. . . that’s totally understandable. I’m not saying that you should fade Jordy entirely — but he should be treated with skepticism.
There have been games this season in which Jordy has been targeted little by Rodgers (11 targets combined in Weeks 6-7), and this could be one of those weeks: Per our Matchups tool, Jordy is likely to run most of his routes against Redskins shutdown shadow cornerback, Josh Norman, Pro Football Focus’ No. 12 CB with a coverage grade of 83.3.
Additionally, the Packers are three-point road underdogs implied to score 23.75 points against a Washington defense that is 14th in pass DVOA and 30th in run DVOA.
Two items:
- When I wrote about QB Aaron Rodgers, the Packers were 2.5-point underdogs implied to score 24 points. That line movement is a negative, especially since a majority of the bets are being placed on the Packers. (The smart money is on the Redskins.)
- It’s possible that the Redskins’ funnel defense could push production toward the running game like . . .
. . . especially since RB James Starks is back.
Jordy’s FantasyLabs ownership projections of nine to 12 and 13-16 percent on DK and FD aren’t ridiculous, but he’s not in an advantageous spot.
A James Taylor Song
With 843 yards and only two scores, Cooper is destined for some eventual beneficial TD regression — but maybe not this week. Playing in the Monday night game in Mexico City, the Raiders are six-point favorites implied to score 26 points against the Texans — so you’d think that Amari might be in a good position to have a big game — but it doesn’t look that way.
The Texans have a RB-friendly funnel defense that is 11th in pass DVOA, and they actually are allowing the third-fewest fantasy points to WRs this season: 30.1 DK and 23.4 FD PPG.
This year (and also for his career), Cooper has been pretty ineffective when he hasn’t gotten double-digit targets . . .
. . . and it’s doubtful that he’ll get a lot of targets in a game in which the Raiders likely won’t need to throw.
In fact, to this point in his career, Cooper has been his most productive when the Raiders have needed to throw the ball a lot:
Given the Texans’ stinginess with WRs and Cooper’s negative Vegas splits, he’s probably best not used as the theoretical Monday hammer for the full Thursday slate.
Fly Patterns
Nine route, go.
Cam Meredith ($4,100 DK, $5,600 FD): When Meredith has been the most-targeted player on the Bears, good things have happened:
The only question is whether QB Jay Cutler will refuse to take his medicine. Meredith’s projected to be owned at 13-16 and nine to 12 percent on DK and FD.
Larry Fitzgerald ($7,100 DK, $7,000 FD): In the first five games of the season, Fitzy scored five TDs. In the four games since then, he has zero scores, so it looks as if he’s fallen off — but he’s actually on something of a hot streak.
He leads the Cardinals with 29.38 percent of the targets over the last four games . . .
. . . which comes out to a world-beating 13 targets per game, which he turned into 81.5 YPG.
Each of the other Cardinals WRs is intriguing in his own way — John Brown ($4,100 DK, $5,900 FD), J.J. Nelson ($4,700 DK, $5,800 FD), and Michael Floyd ($4,000 DK, $4,900 FD) — but Fitz is the only one who has been consistent.
The Cardinals are currently 2.5-point road underdogs implied to score only 18.75 points against the Vikings.
By the way, Fitz grew up in Minnesota and was a ball boy for the Vikings. #NarrativeStreet — if you’re into that kind of thing.
The Vikings are fifth in pass DVOA and allow the second-fewest fantasy points to WRs: 28.5 DK and 22.5 FD PPG.
It doesn’t seem like a great matchup, but in the slot Fitz is slated to face CB Trae Waynes, who has a below-average PFF coverage grade of 65.1 and is the lowest-ranked of the Vikings starting CBs.
Fitz could have some contrarian utility.
Julian Edelman ($6,300 DK, $6,100 FD), Danny Amendola ($3,500 DK, $4,500 FD), and Chris Hogan ($4,700 DK, $5,000 FD): Tight end Rob Gronkowski (lung) has missed practice this week and is uncertain to play this weekend. Definitely monitor his status with the FantasyLabs News feed — but plan on stacking these receivers in some fashion with QB Tom Brady. The Patriots are slate-high 13-point road favorites implied to score 32 points against a 49ers team allowing a league-high 31.4 PPG.
Davante Adams ($6,700 DK, $7,600 FD), Randall Cobb ($5,900 DK, $6,500 FD), and Ty Montgomery ($5,100 DK WR, $5,200 FD RB): With Jordy blanketed by Norman, some of the other WRs are likely to see an increase in targets. Over the last month, Adams actually leads the team with 24.61 percent of the targets . . .
. . . and he’s slated to face the ignominious CB Bashaud Breeland, who has an awful PFF coverage grade of 42.2.
Cobb also has an advantageous matchup in the slot against CB Kendall Fuller (PFF coverage grade of 62.2), and the Redskins are horrible against the run (in case Montgomery gets some carries).
Tyreek Hill ($4,500 DK, $5,400 FD): The Chiefs are 7.5-point home favorites implied to score 26 points against the Bucs, who are allowing 40.9 DK and 33.3 FD PPG to WRs. Last week, filling in for Jeremy Maclin (groin) as the No. 1 WR, the speedy rookie with a team-high four TDs from scrimmage turned 13 targets into 10 receptions for 89 yards.
Maclin is officially out for Week 11. When I say, “Double,” you say, “Dipsh*t.”
Jamison Crowder ($5,400 DK, $6,300 FD): He leads the Redskins with 44 receptions, 535 yards, and five TDs — but few people really think of him as the team’s No. 1 WR. DeSean Jackson (shoulder) was inactive last week and is questionable to play this week. The Redskins are three-point home favorites implied to score 26.75 points against a Packers funnel defense.
In the slot, Crowder is slated to run most of his routes against Micah Hyde, who has a poor 58.8 PFF coverage grade.
DeAndre Hopkins ($6,500 DK, $7,100 FD) and Will Fuller ($5,300 DK, $6,100 FD): The Texans are six-point underdogs against the Raiders in the Monday night Mexico City game. They’ll likely need to throw the ball, and the Raiders are allowing 42.0 DK and 32.6 FD PPG to WRs.
Allen Robinson ($7,400 DK, $7,300 FD), Allen Hurns ($4,100 DK, $5,400 FD), and Marqise Lee ($4,000 DK, $4,800 FD): The Jaguars are 6.5-point road underdogs against the Lions, who are 32nd in pass DVOA. Plus . . .
. . . there’s no time like garbage time.
Doug Baldwin ($5,700 DK, $6,700 FD) and Tyler Lockett ($3,600 DK, $5,000 FD): Here’s what I said last week about Baldwin . . .
You can like Baldwin this week if you want, because he’s cheap and because he’s facing the Patriots, who are 26th in pass DVOA — but don’t like him because of who he was in the second half of last year.
Three TDs later . . .
The Super Models
Here are the non-Antonio/AJG WRs at the top of our four Pro Models:
• Eddie Royal: $3,400 DK, $5,200 FD
• Golden Tate: $5,300 DK, $6,600 FD
• Willie Snead: $5,000 DK, $6,700 FD
Bang a gong.
Tweedle Dum, or Tweedle Dumber
The big question is whether Cutler is going to use Royal or Meredith as his No. 1 WR. Royal has been able to score TDs in bunches before, but in the slot he’s slated to run most of his routes against CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, who has a strong PFF coverage grade of 83.5. Royal’s so cheap that he deserves consideration, but I’d expect Meredith to have a better chance of exploiting his matchup against CB Eli Apple, who has a below-average PFF coverage grade of 62.5.
The Giants are near the top of the league in allowing 25.1 targets and 182.6 yards per game to WRs.
Royal is the highest-rated DK WR in the Bales Model.
Fool’s Golden?
Somehow — somehow! — Tate has the highest DK rating in the Levitan Model despite having a Bargain Rating of 30 percent.
What’s special about Tate? We’re projecting him for two to four percent ownership, the Lions are 6.5-point home favorites implied to score 27 points against the Jaguars, and Tate is expected to run most of his routes against CB Jalen Ramsey, who is good for a rookie but who also has the lowest PFF coverage grade out of the three Jags starting CBs.
It also doesn’t hurt that Tate leads the slate with a +5.35 Projected Plus/Minus on DK. That will do the trick.
I Feel the Need . . .
Here’s something I tweeted on Sunday, right before Snead scored his second TD:
Snead, 2015-16: Years 2-3 after leaving college.
Antonio, 2011-12: Years 2-3 after leaving college. pic.twitter.com/xWj1RmU0nh— Matthew Freedman (@MattFtheOracle) November 13, 2016
People seem to act surprised anytime Snead does anything well — as if the idea of a small receiver having success is unthinkable when he’s a guy who enters the NFL with no hype from a mid-major conference.
Antonio anyone?
Snead is very much right now the guy who Antonio was in 2011 and 2012. That’s not to say that he will become another version of the Antonio from 2013 to 2016 — he almost certainly won’t — but we shouldn’t be overconfident that he can’t produce like the guy who became the Antonio we know today.
The Saints are 3.5-point road underdogs implied to score 24.5 points against the Panthers, whose funnel defense is 19th in pass DVOA and who are allowing 39.9 DK and 32.3 FD PPG to WRs.
Snead will probably do little this game — because he just scored two TDs last game, and production tends to get spread around the Saints offense — but he does have a great matchup in the slot against CB Leonard Johnson — a matchup that PFF ranks as the second-most advantageous of the slate — as Johnson has a horrendous PFF coverage grade of 42.6.
If you felt the need to put some chips on Snead, I wouldn’t blame you. He’s the highest-rated DK WR in the CSURAM88 and Sports Geek Models.
Also, Brandin Cooks ($7,000 DK, $7,400 FD) and Michael Thomas ($6,600 DK, $6,500 FD) — the odds are pretty good that at least one of them won’t suck against the Panthers.
The Coda
Kelvin Benjamin ($7,300 DK, $7,100 FD): He’s slated to be shadowed by Saints CB Delvin Breaux, who has a weeping PFF coverage grade of 48.3 and offers Benjamin PFF’s fourth-most advantageous WR matchup of the week. There could be some big sweaty TD’s in K-Benjy’s future.
Positional Breakdowns & Tools
Be sure to read the other Week 11 positional breakdowns:
• Quarterbacks
• Running Backs
• Tight Ends
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:
