The Week 11 NFL Dashboard
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Cardinals at Vikings
The Cardinals travel to Minnesota as 2.5-point road dogs. This game is tied for the lowest total on the slate at 40 points. The Cardinals are currently implied for 18.75 points; the Vikings, 21.25.
Arizona Cardinals
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Carson Palmer
Palmer has seen a drastic uptick in pass attempts in the past three games, throwing 49, 46, and 49 passes after being in the low to mid-30s for most of the season. As a result, he’s posted solid fantasy performances, scoring at least 17.5 DK points in each of the last three games. However, he’s faced easier secondaries in the 49ers and Panthers and will have a much tougher test this week. The Vikings have been stout defensively all year, currently ranking seventh in Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). They are fifth in pass DVOA. Palmer has a slate-low -0.3 Projected Plus/Minus on FD, and he’s the lowest-rated QB in the Bales Model.
RB – David Johnson
Johnson is really expensive as usual at $7,900 DK and $8,300 FD, and he has a brutal matchup against this great Minnesota defense. That said, the Vikings are a little worse against the run — they rank ‘only’ 10th in rush DVOA — and DJ has shown that he can post monster performances against good run defenses. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Cardinals rode him against the third-ranked Jets run defense to a line of 22-111-3. He additionally received six targets in that game and has seen at least six targets per game in his last five contests. In the past four games, he owns 80 percent of the Cardinals’ carries and 19.77 percent of their targets (per the Market Share Report). Because of this, he has the second-highest projected floor on both DK and FD despite the tough matchup. He’s always going to be popular, but his 13-16 percent projected ownership is much lower than Le’Veon Bell‘s 26-30 percent mark. He’s a nice GPP play for that reason.
RB – Andre Ellington
As mentioned above, DJ is getting a massive workload this season. Most backup RBs still get some consistent action, but Ellington has received only six total touches in his last three games.
WR – Larry Fitzgerald
It seems that we keep on wanting to elevate some other Cardinals WR above Fitz; it was Michael Floyd initially, it’s been John Brown recently when he’s healthy, and just last week it was J.J. Nelson. Despite all of this noise, Fitz has been incredibly consistent this year: He has seen at least seven targets in every game and has gotten double-digit touches in six out of nine games. Last week, he got a whopping 18 targets, which he turned into 12 catches for 133 yards. He hasn’t gotten into the end zone in five games, but that’s bound to regress if he’s seeing this amount of volume. He leads the Cardinals with 29.38 percent of the targets in the past four games. This Minnesota secondary is tough, but (per our Matchups tool) Fitz is slated to run most of his routes against slot cornerback Trae Waynes, who is beatable: He ranks as Pro Football Focus’ 69th CB with a coverage grade of 66.7.
WR – John Brown
It looked like Brown was on the verge of breaking out after seeing a combined 27 targets in Weeks 3-4, but he’s seen target totals of four, seven, four, and four since then and hasn’t been above 14.9 DK points in any game. In the past month, he owns 8.47 percent of the Cardinals’ targets and only 9.34 percent of the Air Yards. Part of that is because he missed a game with a hamstring issue, but last week it was reported that Brown was the “healthiest he has been” this season, and he finished with 6.0 DK points on two catches for 30 yards. Brown is only $4,100 DK and projected for zero to one percent ownership. He could be a decent GPP option. However, there’s a ton of risk here.
WR – J.J. Nelson
After seeing 19 targets in Weeks 7-8, Nelson was proclaimed as the No. 2 WR. Then he turned six targets into 3.9 DK points at high ownership in Week 10. This week presents a brutal matchup, although note that Nelson still leads the Cardinals in Air Yards over the last four games at 30.1 percent.
WR – Michael Floyd
Floyd had the game everyone was hoping to get from Nelson last week, when he turned his six targets into five catches for 101 yards. That was easily Floyd’s best game of the year. This week he faces Terence Newman, PFF’s fourth-best CB this season. Floyd is a pretty easy fade this week.
Vikings
Writer: Ian Hartitz
QB – Sam Bradford
When we look at Bradford’s stats this season we can come to two conclusions. The first is that he’s by all accounts a very accurate quarterback. Per Player Profiler:
Red zone, deep balls, you name it: Bradford has been on the money with his passes this season.
But don’t be too quick to give him that much credit, as his 7.0-yard average depth of target (aDOT) is the lowest mark among all quarterbacks this season, per PFF. The other factor that has helped Bradford’s accuracy is the fact that he hasn’t been asked to throw the football all that often:
Bradford ranks outside of the top 20 in every passing opportunity metric imaginable. His tendency not to stretch the field isn’t all on him, as we see that the Vikings’ offensive line ranks as the fourth-worst pass-blocking unit in the league this season (not to mention that left tackle Jake Long has been lost for the season with a knee injury).
While Bradford has thrown for 270 yards in consecutive games, he’ll now face the Cardinals defense, which is fourth in DVOA. On top of that, CB Patrick Peterson will be shadowing his No. 1 receiver Stefon Diggs. Bradford is priced at $6,600 on FD and is the second-lowest rated quarterback in the CSURAM88 Model.
RB – Jerick McKinnon, Matt Asiata, and Ronnie Hillman
The Vikings have been historically bad at running the football this season and even attempted to claim Christine Michael off of waivers this week. The Packers had the higher waiver priority, but the move shows how little trust the team has in its current trio of RBs. This backfield is a full-blown committee that hasn’t made anything happen on the ground as of late. No back has surpassed 30 rushing yards or 10 carries over the past two weeks, and none of them is a suggested fantasy option against an Eagles defense holding runners to a league-low four rushing touchdowns.
WR – Stefon Diggs
Cardinals coach Bruce Arians was asked Wednesday about his plan to slow down Diggs. His response was simple: Put Peterson on him. Peterson has played in the slot on only 36 snaps this season (per PFF), but he’s as good as they come in coverage and has earned PFF’s 15th-highest grade among all CBs this season. Overall, the Cardinals defense is sixth in DVOA against No. 1 WRs this season. Diggs has received 13-plus targets in three consecutive games, posted a strong +12.77 Plus/Minus over that span, but this has come at the expense of his getting downfield. He had a 10.7-yard aDOT during the first seven weeks of the season, but it has dropped to 8.1 yards over the past three weeks. Exposure to Diggs should be focused on FD, where his $6,800 price tag comes with a 99 percent Bargain Rating. He’s projected for nine to 12 percent ownership.
WR – Cordarrelle Patterson
Patterson has been targeted fewer than five times in two of the past three weeks, as the Vikings’ pass offense has turned into the Stefon show. It’s hard to blame the play calling, as Patterson has surpassed 50 receiving yards just once this season. There isn’t much reason to suspect that he’ll break out any time soon, as his 1.4-yard aDOT ranks 131st among all wide receivers this season. Patterson is priced at $5,300 on FD and is among the 10-lowest rated receivers in our Tournament Model.
WR – Adam Thielen
Thielen scored his second touchdown of the season last week but has been targeted fewer than five times in all but two games this season. It’s hard to put much faith in the No. 3 receiver on an offense that hasn’t scored over 20 points since Week 5. Thielen is not a recommended fantasy option this week against a Cardinals defense that has allowed just 0.2 DK points above salary-based expectations to WRs over the past 12 months.
TE – Kyle Rudolph
Rudolph bounced back in a big way last week, converting his eight targets into a 5-69-1 line. He’s the offense’s featured receiver in the red zone but doesn’t offer a ton of upside, as evidenced by his subpar efficiency numbers. Rudolph has averaged 1.63 fantasy points and 6.0 yards per target this season — marks that rank outside of the top-30 among all TEs. He’s priced at $4,900 on FD with a 93 percent Bargain Rating and has a +3.99 Projected Plus/Minus.
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:
