Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals have a 43 percent pass rate when playing from ahead
That ranks 28th in the NFL. It wasn’t a huge problem for the pass-catchers early in the year as Arizona got out to a 2-4 start. They only had a lead on 26 percent of their offensive plays through six games. The Cardinals have since gotten hot, riding a four-game win streak to a lead on 51 percent of their plays. That should turn around this week as one-point dogs to the Seahawks, putting the passing weapons in a great spot for the first time in over a month.
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Baltimore Ravens
Mark Andrews’ 58 percent route rate was his second-lowest since Week 5
The Ravens got to rest their starters at the end of a blowout two weeks ago. Otherwise, Andrews’ Week 11 volume stats would all go down as low-water marks since Week 5. Isaiah Likely was back in the lineup last week and stole the show with 19 percent of the team’s targets. That trailed only Zay Flowers and clearly took some looks of Andrews’ plate.
Carolina Panthers
Bryce Young is averaging -.03 EPA per play since returning to the lineup
While that may not sound great—it’s not—it is a remarkable improvement compared to his pre-benching number. He was averaging -.48 EPA per play over the first seven games.
Chicago Bears
DJ Moore earned 61 percent of his yards on screens
Moore caught four balls for 44 yards on screens in Week 11 and posted a 7/72 line in total. Despite new OC Thomas Brown designing a handful of easy looks for Moore, the former Panther finished third on the Bears in target share at 23 percent. Because the majority of his looks were near the line of scrimmage, he registered a three percent air yards share.
Cleveland Browns
Jameis Winston and Geno Smith are the only quarterbacks with three games attempting over 450 air yards
Geno Smith has played in every game this year and has the third-most pass attempts. Jameis Winston, on the other hand, has three starts and ranks 36th in pass attempts. All three of the Browns’ starting receivers—Jerry Jeudy, Cedric Tillman, and Elijah Moore—are averaging over 118 air yards per game in Winston’s starts.
Dallas Cowboys
Luke Schoonmaker was one air yard shy of Jake Ferguson’s season-high
Ferguson went down with a concussion early in the Cowboys’ Week 11 loss to the Texans. The game was on Monday, so it will be hard for Ferguson to clear the league’s concussion protocol on a short week. Schoonmaker stepped up in his absence with six grabs for 56 yards. He saw 82 air yards, good for a 23 percent share to go along with his 18 percent target share.
Denver Broncos
Bo Nix is the QB4 since Week 5
Nix is averaging 21.3 fantasy points per game over his past seven games. He ranks 16th in EPA per play, 12th in CPOE, and ninth in PFF passing grade since Week 5. Nix gets a phenomenal stretch of matchups over the next three weeks, facing the Raiders, Browns, and Colts. Those teams rank eighth, ninth, and 16th in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks.
Detroit Lions
Jameson Williams is 17th in yards (419) and fourth in touchdowns (four) on targets 10+ yards downfield
Williams ranks 45th in targets 10+ yards downfield and 91st in total targets. Needless to say, he has been hyper-efficient on intermediate and downfield looks. That may regress over the final two months of the season. But that’s also his thing. He’s a splash-play specialist who is doing just that in his third season.
Green Bay Packers
Jayden Reed hasn’t had a target share over 20 percent since Week 6
Reed has one game with a target share over 25 percent this year and that came all the way back in Week 3. The second-year wideout had a season-low route rate of 60 percent in Week 11 and tied his low-water mark in target share at 13 percent. Reed has been reduced to an ancillary role in the Greeb Bay offense over the past month.
Houston Texans
Joe Mixon leads the NFL in red zone carries
Mixon has 41 such attempts, two more than the No. 2 back in red zone carries. He has 10 more than the player with the 10th-most red zone carries. This is all while missing two games earlier in the year. Pro Football Focus has Mixon as the RB2 in expected points per game.
Indianapolis Colts
Anthony Richardson ranked ninth in EPA per play and 10th in CPOE
Pro Football Focus charted 57.7 percent of his throws as accurate and gave him an 80.3 passing grade. Both marks were career highs for the young quarterback. Richardson entered Week 11 in need of a good performance. He wasn’t perfect, but he did show meaningful improvement with his back against the wall.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Chiefs were in 11-personnel for 40 percent of their passing plays
Kansas City’s instability at wide receiver has led them to use fewer receivers on passing plays than the average team, but Week 11 was a new low. Entering Sunday, the Chiefs ranked 29th in 11P pass rate at 54 percent. Their Week 11 rate would be ahead of only the Ravens on the entire year. In turn, DeAndre Hopkins’ route rate fell to 54 percent, his lowest mark over the past three weeks.
Las Vegas Raiders
Ameer Abdullah hasn’t seen double-digit carries in a game since 2017
This is relevant because both Alexander Mattison and Zamir White are hurt. If both players miss Week 12, the Raiders are down to Abdullah and Dylan Laube. They also have preseason DFS all-star Sincere McCormick on the practice squad. Brock Bowers notably had 19 carries for 193 yards in college.
Los Angeles Chargers
Quentin Johnston’s 16.2 percent touchdown rate is the fourth-highest for a wide receiver with at least 30 targets in the last quarter-century
Johnston has six scores on 37 targets and has found the end zone in 5-of-8 games this year. He leads the Chargers with a 33 percent end zone target share, so there’s some merit to the idea that his role will inflate his touchdown rate in a sustainable way. But his current pace is absurd. Pro Football Focus’s expected touchdown model agrees. It has him with an expected touchdown output of 2.6.
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams are passing on 63 percent of their red zone plays since Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp returned
Kupp and Nacua have been active for four consecutive games. The Rams’ called pass rate inside the five is 60 percent in those contests. Over the first seven weeks of the season, LA passed on 49 percent of their red zone reps and 33 percent of their I5 plays. This is a nightmare scenario for Kyren Williams.
Miami Dolphins
Tua Tagovailoa is throwing deep (20+ aDOT) on 7.2 percent of his throws
Last week, I wrote about how the Miami offense has shifted from wide receiver targets to a more spread-out approach. Part of this shift has been a lack of deep shots for Tua. He threw deep on 11.2 percent of throws in 2023, averaging 68 yards and .6 touchdowns per week on these throws. His counting stats on deep throws are down to 53 yards and .3 touchdowns this year.
Minnesota Vikings
Cam Akers has seen a third of the Vikings carries over the past two weeks
Akers has fully taken over the RB2 role in Minnesota and is starting to look like a 1B to Aaron Jones’ 1A. He has run a route on 28 percent of the team’s dropbacks in his past two games and scored a receiving touchdown last week. Akers is on the fringe of fantasy relevance as a standalone option and could be in line for a massive role if anything happens to Jones.
New England Patriots
Rhamondre Stevenson is averaging 19 touches per game over the past month
Stevenson missed Week 6 with a foot injury and was eased back into the lineup in the following game. The Pats have cut him loose ever since. Stevenson is averaging 71 yards and a touchdown per game over his past four appearances.
New York Giants
Since 2018, Tommy DeVito ranks 90th in EPA per play (min. 200 dropbacks)
Over the past six and a half seasons, 94 quarterbacks have at least 200 plays. DeVito is slightly better in CPOE than EPA, coming in at 74th in the former metric. For reference, Daniel Jones ranks 51st and 45th in those two measures. There’s always next year for Malik Nabers.
Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles have a -10% pass rate over expected since Week 4
That was the last time Jalen Hurts attempted more than 28 passes in a game. Hurts is making the most of his dreadfully low passing volume with 9.7 yards per pass attempt during that stretch. Even with otherworldly efficiency, he is only averaging 211 passing yards per game since Week 4.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Pat Freiermuth earned season-lows in route rate (68 percent) and target share (six percent)
The Steelers are getting Darnell Washington more involved and it’s coming at Freiermuth’s expense. Before the team’s Week 9 bye, Washington was running a route on 26 percent of the team’s dropbacks and had a six percent target share. Those numbers are up to 38 and 11 percent since the bye. Freiermuth, in turn, is down to a nine percent target share post-bye.
San Francisco 49ers
Christian McCaffrey is averaging 2.5 yards after contact per attempt
McCaffrey would rank outside the top 50 running backs this year—sitting just below Alexander Mattison and Javonte Williams—if he had enough carries to qualify. He has forced two missed tackles and is also struggling in the NFL Next Gen Stats with -.84 rush yards over expected.
Seattle Seahawks
Jaxon Smith-Njigba led the Seahawks with a 35 percent target share
JSN also earned a healthy 36 percent air yards share, though DK Metcalf paced the team with 109 air yards. The Seahawks deployed Metcalf as their deep option, giving him two targets 20+ yards downfield. JSN had no such looks.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Bucky Irving saw half of the Bucs’ carries for the first time since Week 3
Though Irving hasn’t had much of a carries ceiling, his floor isn’t bad for a committee back. He has seen at least 40 percent of the team’s carries in five of his past six games. Sean Tucker was also phased out of the backfield two weeks ago, failing to earn a counting stat in the Bucs’ final game before their Week 11 bye.
Tennessee Titans
Tony Pollard averaged 24 touches for 112 yards from scrimmage in three games without Tyjae Spears
Those numbers were down to 18 touches for 73 yards in seven games with Spears active. The second-year back is currently in concussion protocol, putting him at risk of missing Week 12.
Washington Commanders
Jayden Daniels hasn’t scored 25 fantasy points in a game since Week 3
Daniels opened the year with two 28-point performances in his first three games and QB1 finishes in all but one of his first six contests. He has two QB1 performances and three finishes outside the top 20 in his past five games. The most obvious reason for his sudden downturn in fantasy production is a lack of rushing output.
Daniels suffered a rib injury in Week 7 and the Commanders have made it abundantly clear that they don’t want him taking that type of hit again.
