After a relatively low-scoring Week 10, Fantasy Football Week 11 saw an explosion of fantasy scoring, especially in the first window of games. The Lions embarrassed the Jaguars, Taysom Hill put fantasy teams on his back, new Bears OC Thomas Brown helped Caleb Williams cook, and 10 separate quarterbacks scored at least 23 fantasy points. Let’s break down the most important usage trends and fantasy football takeaways from Week 11’s action.
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Top 10 Fantasy Football Takeaways Week 11
1. It’s Taysom Hill’s World, We’re Just Living in It
Obviously, the top story of the week has to be Taysom Hill. Through the air, he racked up eight catches on 10 targets for 50 yards, which is already a decent game for a tight end. Then he added an absurd 138 yards and three touchdowns on the ground, plus one completion for 18 yards. He finished with 37.52 fantasy points, and that is even with one lost fumble and one interception.
The best part about this game for Taysom is that it doesn’t seem too unsustainable. He has always had multiple-TD upside thanks to his red zone rushing role, but his floor has traditionally been low because he is hardly used otherwise. That changed this week, as he easily led a very injured New Orleans offense with a 35-percent target share and a 32-percent first-read target share. Since Darren Rizzi took over as the Saints’ interim head coach, Hill has averaged a 22-percent target share (six targets per game) and a 24-percent first-read target share. That alone makes him profile as a fringe TE1 — add in his other usage, and he’s a must-start at this point in the season.
2. Jameis Winston is a Fantasy Points Machine
Geno Smith currently leads the NFL with 37.4 pass attempts per game. In his three starts, Jameis Winston is averaging 44.3 pass attempts … and his 10.3-yard ADOT is the second-highest among qualified quarterbacks. His 71-percent catchable throw rate is near the bottom of the league, but that simply doesn’t matter with the number of deep targets he is throwing out there.
Since Winston took over as the Browns’ starting quarterback, all three of Cleveland’s starting receivers (Cedric Tillman, Elijah Moore, and Jerry Jeudy) rank among the top seven players in air yards per game. David Njoku lags behind the receivers in air yards thanks to a low ADOT, but he still ranks No. 3 among tight ends (and No. 25 overall) with 7.7 targets per game. As long as Winston keeps chucking it like this (and there’s no reason to think he’ll stop, although that pass attempts number should regress slightly), they are all weekly options. Winston himself is also forcing his way into the QB1 discussion on volume alone.
3. Ameer Abdullah is a Waiver Wire Add in 2024
The Raiders came into Sunday with an ugly committee in their backfield between Zamir White and Alexander Mattison. Veteran Ameer Abdullah was their third active back, playing some passing downs and special teams snaps. By the end of the game, both White (quad) and Mattison (ankle) were sidelined. That left Abdullah as the Raiders’ only healthy back.
Abdullah recorded just one carry as the Raiders were down big by the time he was the last man left standing, but he did catch all three of his targets for 16 yards and a touchdown. Moving forward, it’s not yet clear whether either White or Mattison will miss extended time or if they will even miss any time at all. There’s also a very real chance that, if that happens, the Raiders will bring in another back who will dominate early-down work, leaving Abdullah in his receiving specialist role — perhaps this is Dylan Laube‘s time to shine. Regardless, this is a situation to monitor, as every lead NFL RB should be on fantasy football rosters.
4. Sean Payton is Playing With Us
In Week 10, arguably the biggest news of the week was that Audric Estime had asserted himself as the lead rusher in the Broncos’ backfield, while Javonte Williams was relegated to a passing-down-only role. That trend immediately reversed itself this week, as Williams out-carried the rookie nine to six en route to a 16.7-point fantasy outing (that I’m sure almost no one started him for).
Going forward, it’s essentially impossible to trust anyone in this backfield. Jaleel McLaughlin is still involved (four carries in this one), and the split between Estime and Williams can clearly change from week to week. If you have to start one of these backs, it should be Williams, who at least maintains a passing-game floor even when he loses rushing work.
However, if we’re looking for a bright side for Estime, he did see three targets this week … the first three targets of his NFL career. If he can actually manage any sort of receiving role, that’s a huge boost to his potential ceiling if he ever securely claims the RB1 job. For now, though, this situation is flat-out ugly.
5. Amari Cooper & DeAndre Hopkins Aren’t Involved
I’m grouping these two recently traded veteran receivers together because they are both in very similar situations. Despite having been on their new teams for a few weeks now, they both are still playing just part-time roles.
Starting with Cooper, he posted just a 49-percent route participation rate this week. That’s especially concerning given that Keon Coleman, his main competition for the Bills’ X receiver spot, was sidelined with a wrist injury. If we want to give Cooper the benefit of the doubt, he is dealing with a wrist injury of his own that may have contributed to his limited usage. He also did lead Buffalo with 2.50 yards per route run, so expanding his role would likely be a good call for the Bills’ coaches. But until we see him get more involved in this offense, Cooper is a must-bench.
Unfortunately, the same applies to Hopkins, who barely bested Cooper with a 51-percent route participation rate. That was actually his lowest mark of the last three weeks, perhaps as a result of the return of JuJu Smith-Schuster. Hopkins has also been the Chiefs’ best receiver on a per-route basis since arriving in Kansas City, with 2.17 yards per route run. But if they chose not to expand his role for this important AFC matchup, it doesn’t seem likely that they have any intentions of ever using him more heavily (in the regular season, anyway).
6. New OC Thomas Brown Changed the Bears’ Offense
The Bears fired their offensive coordinator, Shane Waldron, after Week 10. In Week 11, New OC Thomas Brown stayed true to his word and simplified the offense for Caleb Williams. Coming into this week, Williams ranked No. 3-lowest in the league with just 61-percent of his targets having been first-read or designed targets. On Sunday, 87-percent of his targets fit that description — that number would easily rank first in the league for the season. This resulted in Williams posting the second-highest completion percentage of his career and his highest yards per attempt outside of two games against the woeful Panthers and Jaguars. If this switch continues to be effective, Williams and his weapons may be more viable fantasy plays down the stretch.
Things weren’t all good for the Bears’ fantasy players, however, as D’Andre Swift saw his worst usage in weeks on Sunday. He played just 54-percent of the team’s offensive snaps, his first time below 63-percent since Week 3. He also handled just 14 rush attempts compared to Roschon Johnson‘s 10 for a 58-percent RB rush share — he was at 79-percent over the previous six games. Johnson also ran just three fewer routes than Swift and played four of the Bears’ five snaps inside the 10, including handling two goal-line rush attempts. Swift gets a huge downgrade going forward if this usage continues.
Ending back on a positive note, Cole Kmet played a season-high 97-percent of the Bears’ offensive snaps. Unfortunately, Kmet also set a new season-high in pass-blocking snaps, resulting in just a 72-percent route participation rate that isn’t a big change from his previous usage. Still, this is an overall win for Kmet’s value. Being on the field is always the first step to scoring fantasy points.
7. Jauan Jennings Is The 49ers’ WR1
Last week, I half-jokingly highlighted Jauan Jennings‘ return to the field over Christian McCaffrey‘s. This week, I’m not so sure I should have been joking. Jennings once again easily led the 49ers with 10 targets (a 36-percent share), catching all 10 for 91 yards and a touchdown. In two games without Brandon Aiyuk, he has now averaged a 33-percent target share and a whopping 41-percent first-read target share.
We now have a non-negligible sample of Jennings performing like a legitimate top-10 receiver in the league. He now ranks fifth for the season in PFF Receiving Grade, fifth in yards per route run, and seventh in Fantasy Points Data’s route win rate. Trading for Jennings now is definitely buying high, but I would recommend it if you can find a manager who still values him as anything close to a waiver receiver. He’s probably going to have a bad game or two due to the number of options in San Francisco’s offense, but he is clearly their top target at this point and should be valued as such.
8. Anthony Richardson Reminds Us of the Upside
The Anthony Richardson experience so far this season has been downright terrible. I was one of many people who was in on the sophomore QB for fantasy this season, as his upside was massive if he could simply be competent as a passer. However, he has failed to clear that low bar so far this season, absolutely tanking the Colts’ offense and his own fantasy production with terrible accuracy issues.
This week, we saw our first real glimmer of that preseason promise since Week 1. Richardson passed for 272 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 32 yards and two more scores, finishing with nearly 30 fantasy points. Of course, it’s easy to have a good fantasy game when you score two rushing TDs. But Richardson also posted a 77-percent catchable throw rate on Sunday, a huge step up from his 61-percent mark coming into the week. He even finished with the third-highest completion percentage above expected (16.5-percent) of any quarterback in Week 11 (pending Monday Night Football).
It’s possible this was just a one-week aberration against a floundering Jets team. But it’s also possible that Richardson has turned a bit of a corner. Richardson likely hasn’t solved his accuracy issues for good, but this week was a reminder of how close he is to being a truly elite QB1. He is currently available in nearly half of leagues, so make sure he isn’t on your waiver wire.
9. Viking Veterans Trend Downwards
The Vikings took advantage of the Titans this week for a bounce-back performance after barely beating the Jaguars in Week 10. However, we saw some uninspiring usage for two of their top fantasy options.
Aaron Jones, despite coming into the game without an injury designation, played just 55-percent of the Vikings’ offensive snaps. He saw only five more carries than Cam Akers (15 to 10), ran just three more routes (13 to 10), and actually saw one fewer target (two to one). All of this usage is way down from what he had been seeing in healthy games so far this season. It’s unclear if the Vikings are trying to protect Jones after he got banged up last week, if they trust Akers more than Ty Chandler, or if this was just a one-week blip. But fantasy managers need to downgrade Jones in fantasy rankings until we see him post a true bell-cow workload again.
Meanwhile, T.J. Hockenson also had a bad week in terms of usage. After he racked up nine targets on a 67-percent route participation rate in his second game back from injury last week, the assumption was that he would continue to expand his role in Week 11. Instead, he posted his lowest route participation rate of the season at 51-percent. He saw just three targets, catching two for 13 yards. At this point, Hockenson is not someone fantasy managers can start until we see his usage ramp up.
10. Having Puka Nacua & Cooper Kupp is Good, Actually
In games with both Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp healthy, Matthew Stafford has averaged 19.8 fantasy points per game. In other games, he averaged less than half of that number at 9.1 points per game. If we further refine to games where they both posted at least a 60-percent route participation rate (to remove games where Puka was either injured or ejected early), he gets even higher at 21.4 points per game.
It isn’t just that Stafford plays better with his top two receivers, either. The Rams’ offensive philosophy as a whole changes. In games with one or both inactive, they posted a pass rate 5.4-percent below expected. With both active, they jump up to 6.1-percent above expected. Meanwhile, Stafford’s adjusted net yards per attempt jumps from 5.35 to 7.15. With increased volume and efficiency, Stafford is a QB1 with his top two receivers healthy.
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Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for PlayerProfiler. Find him on Twitter @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.
