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Lamar Jackson's first start in the NFL was a success based on the results and execution of the game plan. In the decisive victory of AFC North in Baltimore, John Harbaugh's team opened with 13 consecutive games and imposed his will, amassing Cincinnati for 265 yards rushing on a 54-to-19 ratio between Jackson and the 27 focal point. Robert Griffin III played a snap. Jackson's only mistake was made in a third-quarter race, where he was late in the road after hitting Carlos Dunlap and was caught. Not only will Oakland be going across the country for this 13:00 Eastern Time game, but DC Paul Guenther is coordinating the NFL's slowest defense, scoring 6.6 yards per game and the third highest points per game in the NFL (29.3). Jackson's rushed use and dynamic gaming ability positions him as a high-floor, high-ceiling game in this best-case match. Everything in the air is a cherry on the cake. … With Alex Collins downgraded for inefficiency and persistent foot problems in Week 11, the Ravens turned to UDFA rookie Gus Edwards as Alfred Morris's grinder in Jackson's RG3. In 6'1 / 229, Edwards used his big body and stealthy speed (4.52) to torment the Cincinnati front during a decisive defeat on 17/115/1. He then converted a two-point conversion following his 11-yard touchdown. Javorius Allen played six low shots of the season. Ty Montgomery did not even touch the ball in attack. Despite this draw, Collins would be a game of faith flexion with a touch dependency. Although he is not trustworthy enough given his limited resume, Edwards seems to be the big favorite of the 12th week in Baltimore. The Raiders' Swiss Cheese Race defense was drilled for 30/154/0 (5.13 YPC) by the Cardinals last week, even though the 57-yard quarterback touchdown by David Johnson was canceled by the outfit.
Distribution of the targets of the week 11 of Jackson: Willie Snead 8; Nick Boyle 4; Michael Crabtree 3; John Brown, Mark Andrews and Chris Moore 1. … The race-dominated Baltimore attack, with Jackson under center, lowers the floor and ceiling of all the passing catchers. … Snead led the Ravens into the targets of Week 11, catches (5) and receptions (51), but he has not scored or touched 60 yards since the first week. Snead drew a draw over Week 12 against an Oakland defense Emmanuel Sanders (4/96/0), Doug Baldwin (6/91/0), Keenan Allen (8/90/0, 6 / 57/1) have dropped their statistics beyond expectations), Albert Wilson (2/74/1), Richie James / Kendrick Bourne (4/66/1), Cooper Kupp (5/59/1), Jarvis Landry (4/34/1) and Larry Fitzgerald (2/23/2). Snead was noticed in the second half of last week's victory against OC Marty Mornhinweg. … Crabtree has less than 70 yards in 16 of his last 17 games. … As the Ravens do not yet trust Jackson to organize a vertical pass attack, only two of the rookie's 31 shots have run more than 20 meters this year. In addition to reducing Baltimore's passing volume, less aggression is bad news for Brown because of the depth of his team's average target of 17.3 yards. Brown will be a low floor WR4, depending on the game, until the return of Joe Flacco (hip). … The rotation of the three Ravens men remains a situation to avoid. Boyle led the unit in the goals of Week 11 but did only 11 routes, one more than Andrews. Hayden Hurst is # 3.
This is a major landmark for Oakland after Arizona's last week's unfortunate win against a Ravens team with still-existing aspirations for playoffs in a 13h ET East Coast match. Baltimore is the best D / ST game on the board of the week 12; Derek Carr has taken more than three sacks in seven of his last eight starts, including fifteen in the last three weeks. While Carr's efficiency declines sharply with the surrounding bodies, it is remarkable that Baltimore ranks 9th in the percentage of shots for losses (24.8%) and the top 10 in bag count (7%). , 5%), showing a persistent ability to penetrate the fields. … After Jon Gruden had initially informed the CBS television crew, Doug Martin had been put on the spectator bench because he "wanted to see the youngest," revealed Gruden in his squeeze. post-match: "Martin's ankle was to be shot" at half-time of last week's win. Arizona. Martin is allowed to play this week, turning the Raiders' backfield into a three-way RBBC with Jalen Richard and DeAndre Washington alternating. It is an almost catastrophic match. Attacking the enemy with 3.47 yards per run and only six touchdowns in ten games, Baltimore also allows 28.3 yards per game in the NFL to make a run back. Compared to Gruden's Charlie Garner, Richard is the only viable Raiders player in the PPR leagues.
Target distribution of Carr since week 7 of Oakland: bye: Richard and Jared Cook 22; Brandon LaFell and Seth Roberts 16; Martin and Jordy Nelson 8; Marcell Ateman, Martavis Bryant and Derek Carrier 5. … Cook beat CB Cardinals Jamar Taylor for a total of 23 yards on the first training session last week and then amassed eight yards the rest of the game on his lowest clip of the season. season (57%). As the Raiders make personnel decisions to reduce their chances of winning, Cook's catches have dropped in five consecutive weeks. The good news is that injuries off the distance left Cook with minimal target competition, and he scored a positive match in week 12. Attack Baltimore tight end was very profitable. During weeks 4 to 10, the narrow ends of the enemy captured 39 targets out of 52 (75%) for 502 yards (9.7 YPA) against the Ravens. … With LaFell (Achilles'), Bryant (PCL) and Dwayne Harris (chest) put away, and Nelson (knee, quad) hit, the set of three Oakland receivers will be composed from a combination of Jordy, Man Slot Roberts, Ateman, the UDFA rookie, and pre-season star, Keon Hatcher. The Ravens award the second-lowest number of yards per game in the NFL to failed units (137.4).
Upgraded from doubtful last week to questionable this week, AJ Green's possible return would give Andy Dalton a scoring chance in the 12th week after Dalton triumphed after 153 and 211 yards in the absence of Green two-game, struggling to dislodge players. The Browns' defense leaked before the end of its 11th week, giving up the top 12 to three quarters of its previous four quarters against a myriad of seven back injuries. Dalton does not have the QB1 potential and the DFS caliber, but he will be a starter in two league games if Green plays. Otherwise, Cleveland's D / ST will be one of the most underrated fantasy plays on the 12th week chart. … Victim of the 10-week loss to New Orleans and the brutal Baltimore duel last week, Joe Mixon's prospects for the 12th week are brighter as a favorite runner against a Browns defense that has garnered 4.62 yards per race and 13 touchdowns in 13 games the runners. Only six teams give more yards per game (53.8) to the Mixon position. The increase in use of Giovani Bernard is a cause for concern, as last week she touched Mixon's fifteen players six times and played 47% of Cincinnati's offensive shots. The 62% of clips played by Mixon were the smallest in its history all year, except for Week 2, which it left early due to a knee injury. Mixon is a powerful game of RB2, but Gio could prevent it from rising to the height of RB1.
Coach Marvin Lewis said Friday that A.J. Green will try to train on Saturday and play Sunday's game. His return is not necessarily a bad thing for Tyler Boyd, who has become the center of defensive attention with Green on the set, with great success in terms of efficiency and average grip. less targets per match. Green will also draw the impressive cover of rookie CB Denzel Ward. Boyd is a confident game in WR3 with a WR2 advantage against the Browns. … If Green plays, he'll be a WR2 boom with less than perfect health against Ward. … John Ross unveiled the talent that made him one of the top 10 picks in last year's 22-yard touchdown last week in Ravens CB Marlon Humphrey. Unfortunately, Ross has been a touchdown or chest dart thrower all year with 52 yards or less in every game. … Tight ends scored 36 of 47 targets (77%) for 346 yards (7.4 YPA) with three touchdowns against the Browns in their last four games. What is more disturbing than the match against C.J. Uzomah is its use with a single game over five targets all season. In the end, Uzomah is a landing streamer.
The Browns offense found its pace under interim OC Freddie Kitchens before the draw last week. Baker Mayfield had 46 passes in two passes (74%) for 625 yards (10.1 YPA), five touchdowns and a choice with just two sacks made in an impossible foul. spend protecting under the former OC Todd Haley. Nine out of ten players in Cincinnati had the top 12 best performances, largely because of the Bengals' inability to rush past the smuggler, finishing in the bottom three for the pressure rating (23.2%). ) and the last eight for the bags (23). The icing on the cake, Cincinnati has allowed 30 yards passing, a league high, and a fifth (20.3), even excluding the 117-yard Lamar Jackson. … Nick Chubb's offense rises to 20 – 23 – 23 in his last three games on Sunday with a Bengals defense with swinging doors that has allowed 5.13 yards per run and 15 touchdowns in 10 games. Last week, Ravens earned a total of 25/140/2 (5.60 YPC) against Cincinnati in the match of UDFA rookie Gus Edwards. In Cleveland's win in Week 10 against Atlanta, Chubb beat the longest game in the history of the Browns on a 92-yard sprint late in the first period. He looked a lot like old RB Ravens, Jamal Lewis, on the run. … Duke Johnson has 10 to 7 contacts with receiving lines of 9/78/2 to 4/31/1, pushing Johnson into the weekly fight with PPR-flex. Cincinnati allows the 11th highest number of NFL catches (5.8) and the eighth largest number of receptions (52.3) to receive halves. Only the Chiefs (6) yielded more touchdowns (5) to Johnson's position.
Mayfield's target distribution with Kitchens as OC: Johnson 13; Jarvis Landry 12; Breshad Perriman 8; Antonio Callaway 7; David Njoku 6; Rashard Higgins 5. … Landry has been 50 yards or less in four of the past five games, which has skeptical about the Browns' decision to pay him as a No. 1 catcher. 6 – 6 for 6/50/0 – 2/22/0 results in both Kitchens games, Landry should be considered more WR3 than WR2 until he picks up. Perriman has more shipyards (146) than Landry (134) under the supervision of Kitchens. … In Cleveland's two pre-game games, the passing routes were split as follows between the Browns: Landry 66 coaches; Callaway 47; Higgins 36; Perriman 27; Damion Ratley 16. Against Cincinnati, I would rank the Cleveland receivers in the same order, from the point of view of fantastic playability. … Njoku combined for 43 routes in the 9-10 weeks, managing the statistics lines 4/53/0 and 1/18/0. The good news is that the Bengals allow the NFL's tightest points (5.9) and the sixth-plus yards (65.8) per game. The bad news is that the declining use of Njoku places it on the edge of the TE1. Njoku has always scored 50 yards and / or has a touchdown in five of Mayfield's seven starts and is significantly lower than DFS.
Josh McCown will receive quarter of Week 12 with Sam Darnold (foot) still apart. McCown was awful in the defeat against the Bills before Gang Green Week 10. He made two choices and led a touchdown while New York was beaten 41-10. Nevertheless, this confrontation ensures McCown's viability to two-QB-league with Robby Anderson and Quincy Enunwa on track to play from the opening date. Five of the last six quarters to face New England have scored a top 12 of their fantasies, and this game offers a sneaky shootout potential with very little Jets defense resistance. … The pre-game distribution of the Jets was distorted by the explosive nature of the game, but it looks like Gang Green is heading for an RBBC composed of Isaiah Crowell, Elijah McGuire and Trenton Cannon. The confrontation this week is certainly favorable; New England is giving 4.27 yards per run and fifth in receiving yards per game at halftime (57.2). Unfortunately, shared use makes Crowell an option to flex to the touch or recession, to McGuire a specific flex to PPR and Cannon to a mere reserve of Dynasty.
McCown's Target Distribution at Week 10: Quincy Enunwa 8; McGuire 6; Jermaine Kearse 5; Cannon and Chris Herndon 4; Crowell 2; Rishard Matthews 1. … The expected return of Robby Anderson after a sprained ankle places him in the WR3 conflict, although it is also the most likely aircraft to be followed by Stephon Gilmore. Anderson's health is not assured and he has accumulated 50 yards in one game all year. … Despite leading the Jets in McCown's first start targets, Enunwa had 18 scoreless yards to score. Enunwa has gone from one post office to another as an outside receiver, with Kearse taking over from within, and his skill set is a questionable fit on the perimeter, while Anderson will try a little volume. … Kearse is aimless on the season. … Herndon is a low-end streamer, the tight leader of the Jets but still sharing the same time with Jordan Leggett and blocker Eric Tomlinson. New England is a favorable draw, allowing the NFL player to win the eleventh highest number of yards per game (61.0) and seven AFC touchdowns with a high of the AFC. tight-tipped.
Tom Brady should theoretically be able to give up the 12th week on a low Jets defense that was chosen by Matt Barkley before his own week off. But Brady is not without worries. Gang Green's trailers rank sixth among the highest frequencies in the league (31%), while Brady is the NFL's lowest runner over the blitz (59.6). The Patriots played their worst football on the road with double-digit losses to Tennessee, Detroit and Jacksonville, and left Buffalo hanging out for more than three quarters at New Era Field. I do not think Brady is a bad fantasy game, but personally, I run Lamar Jackson on him this week. … The Jets' run defense collapsed, dropping a line of 146/666/5 (4.56 YPC) on the back of the enemy in weeks 5-11. exploiting New York's blitz-heavy trends on onscreen games, making it a really bouncy game for Sony Michel, which has not been a fantastic factor since it's was injured again at the knee in the sixth week. White is one each week, RB2 with RB1 on the rise in the PPR leagues. Michel is a growing RB2 / Flex.
On the sidelines of the 8th week, Rob Gronkowski (back) is tentatively ready for the return of the 12th week against a Jets defense that has faced a minimum of tight end talent this year. Unsuccessful since the first week, Gronkowski still figures in the top five tight games every time he dresses. … Gang Green is still an advantage for the wide receivers, allowing the NFL groups to take second place (15.0) and the third highest number of yards per game (185.9). With an average of 8.6 targets in his last five games, Josh Gordon is a blocked WR2 game with a WR1 on the rise. … The Jets were particularly vulnerable to slot machine receivers, where Dede Westbrook (9/130/0), Adam Thielen (9/110/1), Jarvis Landry (8/103/0), Zay Jones (8 / 93/1), Golden Tate (7/79/1), Emmanuel Sanders (9/72/0), Chester Rogers (4/55/1) and Anthony Miller (3/37/1) all exceeded expectations at Gang Green. This game goes wonderfully for Julian Edelman, who manages 70% of his routes inside. … Chris Hogan has not had a pass since the eighth week.
NY Giants @ Philadelphia
Total Team: Eagles 26.5, Giants 20.5"data-reactid =" 27 ">
NY Giants @ Philadelphia
Total Team: Eagles 26.5, Giants 20.5
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Passed the legitimate concerns of coaches, the Eagles can silence some noises with a victory over their long-time rivals NFC East. Although it seems that not so long ago, Philadelphia tore up the G-Men in 34-13 at MetLife Stadium during the 6th week. Logically, Sunday's revenge should be relatively light. Still, Philly has lost three of his last four games and looked like a genuinely bad team, especially during the Superdome 48-7 spanking of the 11th week. The seven points were the least numerous of the Doug Pederson era. Carson Wentz must put this team on his back. It is a storytelling-based DFS tournament game based on narration. The same Giants' defense earned a total of 58 points in weeks 10-11 from Nick Mullens and a team from Bucs who put his quarterback on the bench during the match. … It's no exaggeration to say that Josh Adams was the only offensive source of the 11th week of the season in Philadelphia. He broke a 28-yard sprint for the first quarter and finished with career highs on 16 routes, 16%) while Corey Clement and Wendell Smallwood remained black holes. After being caught by the Eagles, Adams is expected to make more than 15 attempts as a home favorite over a Giants defense that has allowed more than 100 yards rushing in 8 out of 10 weeks and 14 losses in its last nine. games. I've had the impression of saying it for weeks, but there is good reason to believe that Week 12 can be a flipping game for Philly. The Eagles' Weeks 12-17 program is one of the most tender in football, and one of the division's leaders, Washington, has just lost his starting quarterback to I.R.
Target distribution of Wentz's Weeks 10-11: Zach Ertz 19; Alshon Jeffery, age 13; Golden Tate 12; Nelson Agholor 9; Adams and Jordan Matthews 6; Clement 4; Smallwood 2; Dallas Goedert 1. … Hidden by the combination of New Orleans' lean coverage and offensive incapacity in Week 11, Ertz is in a rebounding position against the G-Men, against which 48 out of 63 targets have been tightened (76.2%) for 581 yards (9.2 APJ) in the last eight games. The three targets of Ertz were obvious. his 10.3 targets per game are still at the top of all Bears. … The Saints used Marshon Lattimore in a full-time ghost cover for the first time since negotiating for Eli Apple in the Eagles win last week, and Lattimore left Alshon Jeffery calm (4/33/0) . Jeffery gets a much weaker draw in the 12th week of Janoris Jenkins, which PFF booked the third-highest scoring for the NFL (626) and seven allowed passes in the league. Jenkins could not stay with Mike Evans (6/120/1) last week. … Tate became the receiver of the Eagles' Week 11 slot machines with Agholor moved out and scoreless ending on two targets against the Saints. An unsuitable at the border, it is hard to trust Agholor as there is nothing more than a WR4. Tate is a playable WR3 that comes out of the team's tops in targets (8) and in receiving (5/48/0). Tate went from just 29% of the Eagles' offensive shots from his 10th week start to 71% last week. … Goedert, unfortunately, was one of the few players late in the Philly pass game since trading the Tate with a target over the past two weeks.
Eli Manning signs his third consecutive draw in front of the Eagles on Sunday with his side team who lost the battle of attrition a few weeks ago and continued to suffer corner-corner injuries in the defeat against the Saints last week. Four consecutive quarterbacks to face Philadelphia have scored 12 of the best fantastic results – Blake Bortles and Dak Prescott included – while Eli shows that he just has enough means to sporadically toss the ball to his multitude of Playmakers with the 14 best fantastic scores on three of Manning's last four starts. Manning is a low floor and low ceiling game, but offers a desperate attraction to streamers and should be locked into two-quarter league alignments. … The Eagles have created leaks all over the world, including in the defense against the race with DC Jim Schwartz forced to compensate for back injuries by shooting the defenders out of the box. Although against Dallas and New Orleans' elite ground games, Philly had a combined bleeding of a combined 61/330/3 (5.41 YPC) line during weeks 10 -11. The blocking of the Giants' race is of course inferior, and the return of NT Timmy Jernigan (at the back) will help the ruggedness of the Eagles. Saquon Barkley remains an RB1 elite player, regardless of his opponents, with 22 or more hits in five consecutive games. The Eagles could not face Barkley at the meeting of these teams in the sixth week. He scored 229 yards in the scrum with a score of 50 yards. Last week, Barkley would have scored four touchdowns if Manning had not been left behind him during a pass in the second quarter with Barkley wide open and no defender between him and the end zone.
Distribution of Eli Weeks 7-11 Targets: Odell Beckham, 37; Barkley 28; Sterling Shepard 21; Evan Engram, 20 years old; Bennie Fowler 10; Rhett Ellison 5. … Beckham should have no problem eating against a Eagles secondary player dusted by Julio Jones (10/169/0), Corey Davis (9/161/1), Tre'Quan Smith (10/157/1), DeSean Jackson (4/129/1), Adam Thielen (7/116/1), Michael Thomas (4/92/1), Stefon Diggs (10/91/0), Mike Evans (10/83/1), Taywan Taylor (7/77/0), Devin Funchess (6/62/1), Chris Godwin (5/56/1) and Ryan Grant (3/35/1). Shepard was a big failure in the 11th week, although losing a 23-yard rush to play in the second quarter did not help. Nevertheless, this is a comeback spot against the Eagles, who suffer injuries sustained by first and second team players Sidney Jones (hamstring) and Avonte Maddox (knee), while allowing the NFL to win the second highest number of passing yards. receivers (205.9). … Engram's blocking deficit costs him playing time. Fantasy owners who launched Engram last week were lucky enough to have caught a 54-yard seventh quarterback ball because Engram had made eight pass routes in the low season pass on only 32% of shots. Engram has had five or fewer targets in 3 games out of 4 since returning from his sprain. Philadelphia yields the third-lowest number of yards per game in the NFL at tight ends (34.5).
Scoring forecast: Eagles 28, Giants 21
San Francisco @ Tampa Bay
Total Team: Buccaneers 28.5, 49ers 25.5
Back in the saddle of the Tampa Bay quarterback after four touchdown passes on the ground, relieving Ryan Fitzpatrick in the 38-35 Giants' near-return, Jameis Winston is a monstrous match against the 49ers, which allowed many touchdown passes. in 8 out of 10 games. 7 of the 10 quarterbacks to face San Francisco have recorded the top 14 fantastic scores, including Eli Manning, Josh Rosen and Matthew Stafford. The 271.5 cumulative points of fantasy accumulated by Winston and Fitzpatrick rank just ahead of the total score of 270 Mahomet in Quarter 1 (Patrick Mahomes) in their respective first ten starts. … Peyton Barber found the substitute position in Tampa with 20 passes for 110 yards and 68 percent offensive attacks, while Jacquizz Rodgers received the ball three times. Now privileged at home in a non-imposing duel, Barber is a game based on volume RB2 against the Niners. San Francisco has shown its greatest vulnerability in the backs of the passing game, conceding 6.1 shots per game but now Barber's position at 3.94 yards per race. In the end, Barber is almost always a fancy disappointment when he does not touch the ground.
Jameis Target Breakdown for 2018: Mike Evans 30; Adam Humphries 27; DeSean Jackson 22; Chris Godwin, 21; O.J. Howard 16; Cameron Brate 10; Barber 7. … The regression at the landing hit Evans hard during the 11th week, scoring for the first time a fortuitous recovery of the goal zone, followed by a 41-yard bomb by Winston, where Evans easily beat CB giant Janoris Jenkins. Richard Sherman played at a high level, but he never leaves the left corner half. Evans operates 64% of its routes elsewhere in the field. Humphries had his best moments with Winston under center and scored eight yards last week on a road in Jameis' semifinal. Other notable players to face in San Francisco include Golden Tate (7/109/0), Marquez Valdes-Scantling (3/103/0), Larry Fitzgerald (8/102/1), Adam Thielen (6/102 / 0) Robert Woods (5/78/0), Keenan Allen (7/63/0) and Sterling Shepard (2/9/1). … Jackson remained unstable regardless of the quarterbacks. Winston hit Jackson for a 60-yard touchdown bomb in his start of the 8th week, and then failed the following week. D-Jax is still a WR3 with great variance. … Godwin has reached 60 yards in 2 games out of 10, continuing to claim a WR3 option for touchdown or start with a slightly lower floor but a significantly lower ceiling than Jackson. … The absence of Howard (at the ankle) makes Brate the main focus of Tampa, but that does not necessarily mean fantastic results. Brate's 2017 scores in Howard's three missed games were 2/24/0 – 3/13/0 – 3/37/0 on a 3 – 4 – 5 goals.
Week 9 On Thursday night, prodigy Nick Mullens took a step back in his second NFL start, throwing a pair of picks and showing happier feet with less determination in the pocket of Week 10 of Monday Night Football against the Giants. Released from Southern Miss in 2017, it will be the first start of Mullens without prime time. It is also an extremely favorable solution; Tampa Bay has allowed the top 12 fantastic scores to 8 out of 10 callers reporting the only exceptions from Nick Foles and Alex Smith. Mullens' happy feet should be relieved in part by a Bucs defense ranked 30th in terms of pressure rate (23.6%). Mullens is a league two starter with a desperate call streamer. Matt Breida turned on the Giants for 132 yards and two 20-touch goals in San Francisco's 10th week win, and then used weekend 11 to defeat the lingering effects of his sprained ankle. Short or full strength, Breida will be a handful for the Bucs, who were burned for 83/428/4 (5.16 YPC), rushing through the back of the enemy during weeks 9 to 11 and allowing the tenths of receivers from the NFL to receive per game (51.1) at Breida's position. Rear # 2 Alfred Morris has not reached the 10% mark since the fifth week. Breida is a confident RB2 with a RB1 on the rise.
Répartition des cibles de Mullens pour 2018: George Kittle 14; Marquise Goodwin 9; Kendrick Bourne 8; Dante Pettis 6; Breida et Pierre Garcon 5; Kyle Juszczyk 4; Richie James 3; Trent Taylor 1.… Mullens est 13 -14 (93%) pour 191 yards (13,6 YPA) et un touché pour cibler Kittle, alors que Tampa Bay permet à un maximum de NFC 77,9 yards par match à bouts serrés. … Goodwin n’a pas dépassé cinq cibles dans un match de l’année, mais il n’a pas mieux rivalisé avec Tampa Bay, permettant ainsi à la NFL de se classer au sixième rang des prises avec un large éventail de receveurs (14,2). Collègues WR de périmètre Julio Jones (10/144/0), Taylor Gabriel (7/104/2), A.J. Green (5/76/1), Odell Beckham (4/74/1), Ted Ginn (5/68/1), Antonio Brown (6/50/1) et Josh Doctson (4/46/1) ont tous ont atteint ou dépassé les attentes contre Tampa Bay. … Avec Garcon (genou) écarté pour un autre match, les 49ers retrouveront Bourne, Pettis, Taylor et James comme receveurs larges complémentaires.
Prévision De Score: Boucaniers 27, 49ers 24
Seattle @ Carolina
Total équipes: Panthers 25, Seahawks 22
En dépit de ce que l'on croyait être une entorse à la cheville gauche et à MCL lors de la défaite contre Detroit la semaine dernière, Cam Newton a bien résisté à la fantastique fin de semaine QB4 de la 11e journée avec une fiche de 357 verges à la passe avec une marque de 12 verges. Curtis Samuel quelques minutes à peine après la blessure. L’inquiétude est que la double menace de Cam pourrait être compromise, alors il est réconfortant de savoir qu’il a effectué plusieurs passes de touché au cours de neuf matches consécutifs. Alors que Seattle aura probablement un succès offensif contre la défensive décevante de Carolina, le potentiel élevé de ce jeu améliore les perspectives de Newton en tant que QB1 positif qui a démontré un plancher sûr avec le top 16 en 9 départs sur 10. … La défensive contre la course de Seattle s’est montrée très peu résistante ces derniers temps, cédant une ligne combinée 47/299/3 (6,36 YPC) au dos de l’ennemi pendant les semaines 9 à 11. Si la mobilité de Newton est effectivement limitée, OC Norv Turner pourrait opter pour des passes plus rapides et affronter Christian McCaffrey, qui a totalisé plus de 100 verges et / ou réalisé des gains en quatre parties consécutives.
Distribution cible de Newton’s Weeks 6-11: Devin Funchess 32; McCaffrey 31; D.J. Moore 26; Greg Olsen, 24 ans; Curtis Samuel 19; Jarius Wright 12; Torrey Smith 6.… Bien que Smith (genou) soit sur le point de revenir, Funchess (dos) a été qualifié de douteux, plaçant Moore dans le rang du blanchisseur n ° 1 des Panthers contre Seattle. La rapidité de Moore, sa vitesse en ligne droite et sa capacité à courir après chaque prise en font un déséquilibre pour les Seahawks de taille plus grande, CB, Tre Flowers et Shaq Griffin. Moore est un jeu d'argent de DFS. … Samuel a battu le record de la saison dernière avec sept objectifs lors de la défaite contre Detroit la semaine dernière. Samuel est un joueur du tournoi DFS pour bon nombre des mêmes raisons pour lesquelles les perspectives de Moore sont fortes. … Olsen a marqué un touché dans quatre des cinq derniers matchs des Panthers. Au cours des deux dernières semaines, les extrémités serrées des Rams et des Packers ont permis d’attraper 9 des 9 cibles pour 119 verges et un touché contre Seattle.
En repos supplémentaire après la victoire de jeudi dernier contre Green Bay, les Seahawks se rendent en Caroline après avoir marqué plus de 27 points en cinq de leurs six derniers matches. Les lacunes des Panthers dans la course aux pilotes se sont manifestées de manière évidente lors de la défaite contre les Lions de la semaine dernière, qui ont entamé la 11e semaine avec d’importantes fuites au niveau de la protection des passes. Carolina a pourtant battu Matthew Stafford une seule fois sur 38 repliements, tombant au 24ème rang dans la NFL en taux de sac (6,0%) et au 25ème en taux de réussite QB (13,2%). Panthers DC Eric Washington a eu recours au blitz lors de la cinquième meilleure performance de la NFL (33%), jouant parfaitement dans les mains de la 12e semaine de Russell Wilson en tant que premier passeur de la ligue lors de la campagne (129,4). Wilson est un tournoi DFS en séries avec Doug Baldwin et / ou David Moore. … Les auteurs Beat croient que les Seahawks ont opté pour une hiérarchie hiérarchique. À juste titre, Chris Carson est le coureur de tête sortant d’une ligne solide comme un solide 17/83/1 (4,9 YPC) lors de la victoire contre Green Bay la semaine dernière. Rashaad Penny est la solution la plus changeante en ce qui concerne les grands joueurs avec plus de 30 verges dans des matchs dos à dos. Mike Davis est le spécialiste du jeu de passe avec 28 cibles pour l’année, 16 de plus que Penny et 17 de plus que Carson. La RBBC, composée de trois hommes à Seattle, est probablement là pour rester, mais au moins, il existe des rôles mal définis. Carson est un RB2 à plancher bas avec une participation passagère presque nulle. Penny projette de 6 à 10 touches par match sous forme de flex de lancer de fléchettes. Davis est une option de flexion à la hausse spécifique aux ligues PPR.
Distribution cible de Wilson’s Weeks 4-11: Doug Baldwin, 37 ans; Tyler Lockett 32; David Moore 31; Davis 26; Nick Vannett 21; Penny et Ed Dickson 5; Carson 3.… Après avoir été blessé aux genoux en début de saison, Baldwin s'est déclaré à 100% engagé dans la victoire contre Green Bay la semaine dernière. Il a recherché des sommets pour la saison dans les cibles (10) et des prises (7), atteignant la terre battue pour la première fois de l'année. Malheureusement, Baldwin ne s’est pas entraîné toute la semaine avec une blessure à l’aine. S'il ne peut pas jouer, Lockett prendra le relais avec Moore et Jaron Brown à l'extérieur. Tyler Boyd (6/132/1), JuJu Smith-Schuster (3/90/1), Adam Humphries (8/82/2), Sterling Shepard (4/75/0), Cole Beasley (7/73/0), and Bruce Ellington (6/52/0) are among the slot receivers to have met or exceeded expectations versus Carolina. … Lockett is easily playing at the highest level of his career, but he is a low-volume commodity with big-play dependency on target counts of 6 – 5 – 4 – 2 – 4 – 6 – 5 since Baldwin came back. … Very quietly, Moore leads Seattle in raw targets (19) and Air Yards (279) over the last three weeks, giving him DFS-tournament appeal in stacks with Wilson. Moore’s 134 Air Yards in Week 11 easily led the team, yet he dropped his first pass all season and simply didn’t connect with Wilson. Moore did peel off 57 yards, more than Baldwin. Seattle’s biggest-bodied wideout is a prime positive-regression candidate. … Vannett and Dickson are rotating snaps, rendering each other low-floor, touchdown-or-bust tight ends.
Score Prediction: Seahawks 28, Panthers 27"data-reactid =" 28 ">
Past the point of reeling amid legitimate coaching concerns, the Eagles can silence some noise with a win over their longtime NFC East rivals. Even if it seems like forever ago, Philadelphia tore the G-Men to pieces 34-13 at MetLife Stadium in Week 6. Logically speaking, Sunday’s rematch should be a relative breeze. Yet Philly lost three of its last four games and looked like a sincerely bad team in the process, particularly in Week 11’s 48-7 Superdome spanking. The seven points were fewest of the Doug Pederson era. Carson Wentz must put this team on his back. He is a narrative-driven, fade-recency-bias DFS-tournament play. This same Giants defense yielded 58 combined points in Weeks 10-11 to Nick Mullens and a Bucs team that benched its quarterback during the game. … It isn’t hyperbole to say Philadelphia’s lone Week 11 source of offense was Josh Adams, who broke a first-quarter 28-yard TD sprint and finished with career highs in routes (16), targets (6), and snaps (55%) while Corey Clement and Wendell Smallwood remained black holes. Secure as the Eagles’ lead back, Adams should push for 15-plus touches as a home favorite versus a Giants defense that has allowed 100-plus rushing yards in 8-of-10 weeks and 14 running back TDs in its last nine games. I feel like I’ve been saying this for weeks, but there are reasons to believe Week 12 can be a turnaround game for Philly. The Eagles’ Weeks 12-17 schedule is among the softest in football, and division-leading Washington just lost its starting quarterback to I.R.
Wentz’s Weeks 10-11 target distribution: Zach Ertz 19; Alshon Jeffery 13; Golden Tate 12; Nelson Agholor 9; Adams and Jordan Matthews 6; Clement 4; Smallwood 2; Dallas Goedert 1. … Shut down by a combination of New Orleans’ stingy tight end coverage and sheer Week 11 offensive ineptitude, Ertz enters prime bounce-back position versus the G-Men, against whom tight ends have caught 48-of-63 targets (76.2%) for 581 yards (9.2 YPA) over their last eight games. Ertz’s three targets were an obvious outlier; his 10.3 targets per game still lead all Bears tight ends. … The Saints used Marshon Lattimore in full-time shadow coverage for the first time since trading for Eli Apple in last week’s win over the Eagles, and Lattimore kept Alshon Jeffery quiet (4/33/0). Jeffery gets a much softer Week 12 draw in Janoris Jenkins, whom PFF has charged with the NFL’s third-most yards (626) and a league-high seven TD passes allowed. Jenkins couldn’t hang with Mike Evans (6/120/1) last week. … Tate took over as the Eagles’ Week 11 slot receiver with Agholor moving outside and finishing catch-less on two targets against the Saints. A misfit on the boundary, Agholor is difficult to trust as anything more than a WR4. Tate is a playable WR3 coming off team highs in targets (8) and receiving (5/48/0). Tate went from playing just 29% of the Eagles’ offensive snaps in his Week 10 debut to 71% last week. … Goedert, sadly, has been the odd man out of Philly’s passing game since the Tate trade with one target in the last two weeks.
Eli Manning catches his third straight plum draw in Sunday’s date with the Eagles, whose secondary lost the battle of attrition weeks ago and continued to suffer cornerback injuries throughout last week’s loss to the Saints. Four straight quarterbacks to face Philadelphia have logged top-12 fantasy results – Blake Bortles and Dak Prescott included – while Eli’s shown he has just enough left in the tank to sporadically deliver the ball to his wealth of playmakers with top-14 fantasy scores in three of Manning’s last four starts. Manning is a low-floor, low-ceiling play but offers some desperate streamer appeal and should be locked into two-quarterback-league lineups. … The Eagles have sprung leaks everywhere, including in run defense with DC Jim Schwartz forced to compensate for backend injuries by pulling defenders out of the box. Albeit against Dallas and New Orleans’ elite ground games, Philly hemorrhaged a combined 61/330/3 (5.41 YPC) rushing line in Weeks 10-11. The Giants’ run blocking is far inferior, of course, and NT Timmy Jernigan’s (back) return will help the Eagles’ up-front stoutness. Saquon Barkley remains an elite RB1 play regardless of opponents with 22-plus touches in five straight games. The Eagles could not tackle Barkley when these teams met in Week 6. He tallied 229 yards from scrimmage with a 50-yard score. Last week, Barkley would have scored four touchdowns had Manning not thrown behind him on a late-second-quarter pass with Barkley wide open and no defenders between him and the end zone.
Eli’s Weeks 7-11 target distribution: Odell Beckham 37; Barkley 28; Sterling Shepard 21; Evan Engram 20; Bennie Fowler 10; Rhett Ellison 5. … Beckham should have no trouble eating against an Eagles secondary that’s been dusted by Julio Jones (10/169/0), Corey Davis (9/161/1), Tre'Quan Smith (10/157/1), DeSean Jackson (4/129/1), Adam Thielen (7/116/1), Michael Thomas (4/92/1), Stefon Diggs (10/91/0), Mike Evans (10/83/1), Taywan Taylor (7/77/0), Devin Funchess (6/62/1), Chris Godwin (5/56/1), and Ryan Grant (3/35/1). … Shepard was a major Week 11 dud, although losing a 23-yard gain to replay in the second quarter didn’t help. Nevertheless, this is a bounce-back spot against the Eagles, who are dealing with injuries to first- and second-team slot CBs Sidney Jones (hamstring) and Avonte Maddox (knee) while permitting the NFL’s second-most yards per game to wide receivers (205.9). … Engram’s blocking deficiency is costing him playing time. Fantasy owners who started Engram last week were lucky he caught a 54-yard seam ball in the fourth quarter, because Engram ran a season-low eight pass routes on just 32% of the snaps. Engram has five targets or fewer in 3-of-4 games since returning from his MCL sprain. Philadelphia yields the NFL’s third-fewest receiving yards per game to tight ends (34.5).
Score Prediction: Eagles 28, Giants 21
San Francisco @ Tampa Bay
Team Totals: Buccaneers 28.5, 49ers 25.5
Back in Tampa Bay’s quarterback saddle after leading four straight touchdown drives in relief of Ryan Fitzpatrick in last week’s 38-35 near-comeback versus the Giants, Jameis Winston is a monster-upside Week 12 play against the 49ers, who have allowed multiple touchdown passes in 8-of-10 games. 7-of-10 quarterbacks to face San Francisco have posted top-14 fantasy scores, including otherwise-ineffective Eli Manning, Josh Rosen, and Matthew Stafford. Winston and Fitzpatrick’s 271.5 cumulative fantasy points rank just ahead of overall QB1 Patrick Mahomes’ scoring (270.8) through their respective first ten starts. … Peyton Barber reclaimed Tampa’s lead-back job with 20 touches for 110 yards and a touchdown on 68% of the Bucs’ Week 11 offensive snaps, while Week 10 100-yard receiving tease Jacquizz Rodgers touched the ball three times. Now favored at home in a non-imposing matchup, Barber is a volume-based RB2 play against the Niners. San Francisco has shown its most running back vulnerability in the passing game, however, conceding 6.1 catches per game but holding Barber’s position to 3.94 yards per carry. Ultimately, Barber is almost always a fantasy disappointment when he doesn’t reach pay dirt.
Jameis’ 2018 target distribution: Mike Evans 30; Adam Humphries 27; DeSean Jackson 22; Chris Godwin 21; O.J. Howard 16; Cameron Brate 10; Barber 7. … Positive-touchdown regression hit Evans hard in Week 11, first scoring on a fortuitous end-zone fumble recovery followed by a 41-yard TD bomb from Winston where Evans handily beat Giants “top” CB Janoris Jenkins. Richard Sherman has played at a high level, but he never moves off left cornerback. Evans runs 64% of his routes elsewhere on the field. … Humphries has had his best moments with Winston under center and caught last week’s eight-yard score on a second-half slant route from Jameis. Notable fellow slot WRs to face San Francisco include Golden Tate (7/109/0), Marquez Valdes-Scantling (3/103/0), Larry Fitzgerald (8/102/1), Adam Thielen (6/102/0), Robert Woods (5/78/0), Keenan Allen (7/63/0), and Sterling Shepard (2/9/1). … Jackson has remained volatile regardless of quarterbacks. Winston hit Jackson for a 60-yard touchdown bomb in his Week 8 start, then got benched the next week. D-Jax is always a high-variance WR3. … Godwin has topped 60 yards in 2-of-10 games, continuing to solidify himself as a touchdown-or-bust WR3 option with a slightly lower floor but definitively lower ceiling than Jackson. … Howard’s (ankle) absence locks in Brate as Tampa’s main tight end, but that hasn’t necessarily translated to fantasy results. Brate’s 2017 box scores in Howard’s three missed games were 2/24/0 – 3/13/0 – 3/37/0 on target counts of 3 – 4 – 5.
Week 9 Thursday night prodigy Nick Mullens took a step back in his second NFL start, throwing a pair of picks and showing happier feet with less decisiveness in the pocket on Week 10 Monday Night Football against the Giants. Undrafted out of Southern Miss in 2017, this will be Mullens’ first non-primetime start. It’s also an overwhelmingly favorable one; Tampa Bay has permitted top-12 fantasy scores to 8-of-10 signal callers faced with the sole exceptions of Nick Foles and Alex Smith. Mullens’ happy feet should be partly alleviated by a Bucs defense that ranks 30th in pressure rate (23.6%). Mullens is a two-QB-league starter with desperate streamer appeal. … Matt Breida torched the Giants for 132 yards and two scores on 20 touches in San Francisco’s Week 10 win, then used the Week 11 bye to overcome any lingering effects from his early-season high ankle sprain. At or near full strength, Breida is going to be a handful for the Bucs, who got lit on fire for 83/428/4 (5.16 YPC) rushing by enemy backs in Weeks 9-11 and allow the NFL’s tenth-most receiving yards per game (51.1) to Breida’s position. No. 2 back Alfred Morris hasn’t reached double-digit touches since Week 5. Breida is a confident RB2 with RB1 upside.
Mullens’ 2018 target distribution: George Kittle 14; Marquise Goodwin 9; Kendrick Bourne 8; Dante Pettis 6; Breida and Pierre Garcon 5; Kyle Juszczyk 4; Richie James 3; Trent Taylor 1. … Mullens is 13-of-14 (93%) for 191 yards (13.6 YPA) and a touchdown when targeting Kittle, while Tampa Bay is allowing an NFC-high 77.9 yards per game to tight ends. … Goodwin hasn’t topped five targets in a game all year, but he also hasn’t had a better matchup with Tampa Bay allowing the NFL’s sixth-most catches per game to wide receiver groups (14.2). Fellow perimeter WRs Julio Jones (10/144/0), Taylor Gabriel (7/104/2), A.J. Green (5/76/1), Odell Beckham (4/74/1), Ted Ginn (5/68/1), Antonio Brown (6/50/1), and Josh Doctson (4/46/1) have all met or exceeded expectations against Tampa Bay. … With Garcon (knee) sidelined for another game, the 49ers will trot out some combination of Bourne, Pettis, Taylor, and James as complementary wide receivers.
Score Prediction: Buccaneers 27, 49ers 24
Seattle @ Carolina
Team Totals: Panthers 25, Seahawks 22
Despite suffering what was believed to be a high left ankle sprain and sprained MCL in last week’s loss to Detroit, Cam Newton hung tough for Week 11’s fantasy QB4 finish on a season-high 357 passing yards with three scores, including Newton’s 12-yard TD to Curtis Samuel mere minutes after the injury. The concern is Cam’s dual threat could be compromised, so it’s comforting to know he’s thrown multiple touchdown passes in nine straight games. As Seattle is likely to have offensive success against Carolina’s disappointing defense, this game’s high-scoring potential enhances Newton’s outlook as an upside QB1 who’s demonstrated a safe floor with top-16 scores in 9-of-10 starts. … Seattle’s run defense has put up minimal resistance lately, surrendering a 47/299/3 (6.36 YPC) combined rushing line to enemy backs in Weeks 9-11. If Newton’s mobility is indeed limited, OC Norv Turner could opt for more quick passes and run plays to Christian McCaffrey, who has totaled 100-plus yards and/or reached pay dirt in four straight games.
Newton’s Weeks 6-11 target distribution: Devin Funchess 32; McCaffrey 31; D.J. Moore 26; Greg Olsen 24; Curtis Samuel 19; Jarius Wright 12; Torrey Smith 6. … Although Smith (knee) is on track to return, Funchess (back) was listed as doubtful, locking in Moore as the Panthers’ No. 1 wideout against Seattle. Moore’s short-area quickness, straight-line speed, and run-after-catch ability make him a mismatch for Seahawks plus-sized outside CBs Tre Flowers and Shaq Griffin. Moore is a DFS cash-game play. … Samuel set a season high with seven targets in last week’s loss to Detroit, operating more like a true wideout than gadget guy. Samuel is a DFS-tournament play for many of the same reasons Moore’s outlook is strong. … Olsen has scored a touchdown in four of the Panthers’ last five games. Over the last two weeks, Rams and Packers tight ends combined to catch 9-of-9 targets for 119 yards and a touchdown against Seattle.
On extra rest following last Thursday night’s win over Green Bay, the Seahawks visit Carolina having scored 27-plus points in five of their last six games. The Panthers’ pass-rush deficiencies showed up prominently in last week’s loss to the Lions, who entered Week 11 with massive pass-protection leaks. Yet Carolina hit Matthew Stafford just once on 38 dropbacks, falling to 24th in the NFL in sack rate (6.0%) and 25th in QB hit rate (13.2%). Panthers DC Eric Washington has resorted to blitzing at the NFL’s fifth-highest clip (33%), playing perfectly into Russell Wilson’s Week 12 hands as the league’s highest-rated passer when blitzed (129.4). Wilson is a DFS-tournament play in stacks with Doug Baldwin and/or David Moore. … Beat writers believe the Seahawks have settled on a backfield pecking order. Deservedly, Chris Carson is the lead runner coming off a rock-solid 17/83/1 (4.9 YPC) rushing line in last week’s win over Green Bay. Rashaad Penny is the changeup, flashing big-play chops with 30-plus-yard runs in back-to-back games. Mike Davis is the passing-game specialist with 28 targets on the year, 16 more than Penny and 17 more than Carson. Seattle’s three-man RBBC is probably here to stay, but at least there are loosely defined roles. Carson is a low-floor RB2 with almost no passing involvement. Penny projects for 6-10 touches per game as a dart-throw flex. Davis is a low-upside flex option specific to PPR leagues.
Wilson’s Weeks 4-11 target distribution: Doug Baldwin 37; Tyler Lockett 32; David Moore 31; Davis 26; Nick Vannett 21; Penny and Ed Dickson 5; Carson 3. … After battling early-season injuries to both knees, Baldwin declared himself 100% entering last week’s win over Green Bay. He looked the part for season highs in targets (10) and catches (7), hitting pay dirt for the first time all year. Unfortunately, Baldwin didn’t practice all week with a groin injury. If he can’t play, Lockett will take over at slot receiver with Moore and Jaron Brown outside. Tyler Boyd (6/132/1), JuJu Smith-Schuster (3/90/1), Adam Humphries (8/82/2), Sterling Shepard (4/75/0), Cole Beasley (7/73/0), and Bruce Ellington (6/52/0) are among the slot receivers to have met or exceeded expectations versus Carolina. … Lockett is easily playing at the highest level of his career, but he is a low-volume commodity with big-play dependency on target counts of 6 – 5 – 4 – 2 – 4 – 6 – 5 since Baldwin came back. … Very quietly, Moore leads Seattle in raw targets (19) and Air Yards (279) over the last three weeks, giving him DFS-tournament appeal in stacks with Wilson. Moore’s 134 Air Yards in Week 11 easily led the team, yet he dropped his first pass all season and simply didn’t connect with Wilson. Moore did peel off 57 yards, more than Baldwin. Seattle’s biggest-bodied wideout is a prime positive-regression candidate. … Vannett and Dickson are rotating snaps, rendering each other low-floor, touchdown-or-bust tight ends.
Score Prediction: Seahawks 28, Panthers 27
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Jacksonville @ Buffalo
Team Totals: Jaguars 20, Bills 17
Jags-Bills sets up as a gruesome fantasy affair with by-far Week 12’s lowest total (37) pitting against each other run-first, defense-focused teams outdoors in chilly Buffalo. Although the Jaguars play stout run defense, one positive Week 12 data point for LeSean McCoy is Jacksonville’s tendency to get obliterated in road games, where they are 1-4 with a -53 point differential. Regardless of venue, the Jaguars have to be on the verge of checking out amid six straight losses. Not a single member of the 53 wants to go play a game just shy of Canada with nothing on the line. I think the Bills win this game and McCoy gets fed as a volatile if sneaky-upside RB2. McCoy turned in his season-best game before Buffalo’s Week 11 bye, trouncing the sad-sack Jets for 118 yards and two scores. McCoy plus Buffalo's D/ST is among my favorite low-owned DFS correlation plays in Week 12. … Due back from his arm injury, Josh Allen is an underrated two-QB-league play against a Jaguars team that has yielded top-seven fantasy scores to four of its last five signal callers faced. Allen provides virtually no passing-game value – and all of his pass catchers are obvious fades – but Allen’s dual threat gives him upside against a Jaguars team allowing the NFL’s fourth-most QB rushing yards per game (20.6). Allen averages 25.6 rushing yards per appearance, and he has scored three rushing touchdowns despite having played only four games from start to finish.
A top-12 fantasy quarterback in 5-of-10 starts with finishes of QB20 or worse in all remaining five, it is at least satisfying to know Blake Bortles’ erratic on-field play translates seamlessly to the box score. Visiting Buffalo in late November, this is a bad matchup for Florida-born, UCF-product Bortles. Ranked top ten in QB hit rate (16.2%) and an above-par 14th in sack rate (7.0%), the Bills have ample pass-rush guns to exploit a Jags offensive line that lost its top-two left tackles and starting center to injured reserve before RG A.J. Cann’s hamstring setback. Seven of the last eight quarterbacks to face Buffalo have finished Q19 or worse. … Leonard Fournette’s touch counts in two games since returning from his own hamstring woes are 29 – 30, quickly reasserting himself as one of the NFL’s highest-volume bellcows. The Bills have permitted a crisp 4.20 yards per carry and 13 TDs in 10 games to enemy backs. Sean McDermott’s club has coughed up at least one rushing score in four straight games. Fournette remains a confident RB1 play. … Dede Westbrook’s stat lines since Fournette came back are 5/30/0 and 2/19/0, while Buffalo has surrendered an NFL-low 128.4 yards per game to wide receivers. … Donte Moncrief’s Weeks 10-11 stat lines were 3/98/1 and 1/11/0. 80 of his yards and the touchdown came on one play against the Colts. Moncrief is the Jags’ likeliest wideout to draw Bills top CB Tre’Davious White’s coverage. … D.J. Chark, Keelan Cole, and James O’Shaughnessy lack fantasy appeal as complementary members of a dysfunctional passing game on a run-first team. Chark was ruled out on Friday with a strained quad.
Score Prediction: Bills 17, Jaguars 16
4:05 PM ET Game
Arizona @ LA Chargers
Team Totals: Chargers 28.5, Cardinals 15.5
In a matchup between teams that severely undershot Week 11 expectations, this is a get-right spot for the Chargers and specifically Melvin Gordon, who has 20-plus touches in five of his last six games and faces an Arizona defense permitting 170.6 all-purpose yards per game to running backs, including 190 to the lowly Raiders backs last week. Favored at home by nearly two touchdowns, Gordon is a layup Week 12 correlation play with the Chargers’ D/ST. From a DFS standpoint, Gordon has 100-plus total yards and/or a touchdown in 15 straight games, yet finished scoreless in Week 11 because he was tackled inside the five-yard line following a 32-yard catch and run. Keenan Allen sealed the deal plays later on a four-yard score. … Gordon was downgraded to questionable with a hamstring injury, and coach Anthony Lynn was noncommittal on his Week 12 availability when quizzed by reporters on Friday. Austin Ekeler has single-digit touches in six of Gordon’s last seven appearances, but he dominated the backfield when Gordon missed Week 7, playing 42-of-44 offensive snaps (95%). Were Gordon to miss Week 12, Ekeler would immediately ascend to high-end RB2 usability with RB1 upside. … Of all teams, Denver strangely coerced Philip Rivers into his second-most attempts (49) and yards (401) on the season in Week 11. The fallout was Rivers logging just his second top-ten fantasy result all year. Arizona seems unlikely to repeat the feat; opponents average 32.0 pass attempts per game against the Cardinals, third fewest in the league. This sets up as another Gordon-friendly affair with Rivers hovering in fringe QB1 discussion.
Rivers’ post-bye target distribution: Keenan Allen 31; Gordon 16; Tyrell Williams 15; Antonio Gates and Virgil Green 10; Mike Williams 6; Ekeler and Travis Benjamin 4. … Allen’s target counts are 9 – 10 – 12 over his last three games. Allen’s above-50% slot usage will keep him away from Patrick Peterson, who has played 99% of his snaps outside this year. … Tyrell has run 44 more routes than Mike in the Bolts’ last five games and out-targeted Mike 23 to 16 in that span. Tyrell has also played considerably more slot receiver than Mike this year, giving the former a better chance to avoid Peterson’s coverage. … Gates was resuscitated in Week 11 for a 5/80/1 receiving line on seven targets, although Gates ran just 19 routes on 33% of the snaps. Even still, Gates’ sudden spike in passing-game usage suggests the Chargers view him as a plus contributor down the stretch and they’ve “saved” him accordingly.
Fading Josh Rosen has been a consistently profitable approach. Even as he threw a career-high three touchdowns in Week 11’s loss to Oakland, Rosen finished as fantasy’s QB19 with 136 yards and zero surplus rushing value. Rosen hasn’t logged top-12 quarterback results once this year. … David Johnson is the centerpiece to Arizona’s odds of staying competitive against the Bolts, who lost interior difference-makers MLB Denzel Perryman (hamstring, LCL) and DT Corey Liuget (torn quad) to I.R. in consecutive weeks. The Chargers also allow the NFL’s third-most receiving yards per game to running backs (65.9). Although Johnson totaled 154 yards in last week’s defeat, his game could have been far bigger if not for Ricky Seals-Jones’ fourth-quarter holding penalty that negated Johnson’s 57-yard touchdown run on a third-and-23 play. Nevertheless, Johnson has 100-plus total yards and 20-plus touches in all three games since Byron Leftwich replaced Mike McCoy as Arizona’s playcaller. Johnson is an every-week RB1 again.
Rosen’s 2018 target distribution: Larry Fitzgerald 52; Christian Kirk 42; Ricky Seals-Jones 36; Johnson 31; Chad Williams 23. … Fitzgerald visits the Bolts with four touchdowns over his last four appearances and a team-high 26 targets in three games since Byron Leftwich replaced Mike McCoy as Arizona’s playcaller. Fitz hit pay dirt twice last week, first blowing by overmatched Raiders rookie slot CB Nick Nelson for an 18-yard TD, then scoring from five yards out in the second half. … Fortunate to score on a 59-yard screen in last week’s loss to Oakland, Kirk is a WR4 option this week as Arizona’s likeliest wideout to draw shadow coverage from Casey Hayward, who kept Emmanuel Sanders (4/56/0), David Moore (2/16/0), Corey Davis (3/10/0), Amari Cooper (1/10/0), and Antonio Callaway (2/9/0) quiet over the last month and a half. … Perhaps with Monday’s guilty plea to assaulting a bathroom worker on his mind, Seals-Jones was a complete Week 11 dud on season lows in routes run (14) and playing time (39%).
Score Prediction: Chargers 27, Cardinals 16
4:25 PM ET Games
Pittsburgh @ Denver
Team Totals: Steelers 25, Broncos 22
Turnovers and the running game were Denver’s keys to Week 11’s stunning upset of the Chargers. It’s a formula Vance Joseph’s team will struggle to replicate versus the far-superior Steelers, whose defensive strength is against the run with just 3.79 yards per carry and the NFL’s third-fewest receiving yards per game (30.2) allowed to running backs. On a brighter note, the Broncos smartly stuck with offensive MVP Phillip Lindsay as their lead runner despite Royce Freeman’s (ankle) return, pushing 15 touches Lindsay’s way for 106 yards and two Week 11 scores. Lindsay has averaged 4.50 YPC or better in 9-of-10 career games. Freeman scored a second-half touchdown from three yards out but has finished with single-digit touches in four of his last five games. Freeman has double-digit receiving yards in 1-of-8 appearances.
Keenum’s Weeks 9-11 target distribution: Jeff Heuerman and Emmanuel Sanders 15; Courtland Sutton 11; Lindsay 8; Devontae Booker and Tim Patrick 5; DaeSean Hamilton 2. … This is a revenge game for ex-Steeler Sanders, whose two career receiving lines against Pittsburgh since leaving the team are 5/85/0 (playoffs) and 10/181/1 (2015), albeit both with near-prime Peyton Manning. Nevertheless, Sanders is easily the Broncos’ best means of moving the chains via their passing game with Sutton likely to be chased by Joe Haden. Sanders has five-plus catches in 7-of-10 games. … Sutton’s arrow is pointing up, but he is a low-volume, big-play-dependent WR4 until further notice. … Although he managed a 4/20/0 receiving line on five Week 11 targets, Heuerman’s post-bye participation was as strong as ever. He ran 25 routes on 86% of Denver’s offensive snaps against the Chargers and now encounters a Pittsburgh defense surrendering the NFL’s ninth-most yards per game to tight ends (62.7). At by-far fantasy football’s weakest position, sheer usage is going to keep Heuerman on the streamer map every week. … Hamilton reinjured his knee in last week’s win, locking Patrick back in as the Broncos’ No. 3 receiver.
Winners of six straight following Week 11’s comeback thriller in Jacksonville, the Steelers trek to Denver to face a Broncos defense that’s been burnt for top-12 fantasy results in three straight games, while Ben Roethlisberger has tallied top-six QB1 scores in three straight starts. Roethlisberger showed his uncanny resiliency in Week 11, rebounding from a 0.0 QB rating at halftime to finish with top-six fantasy score. 4pm ET and later starts historically keep Ben immune from his away-game splits, and Pittsburgh’s elite pass protection can shield Denver’s imposing pass rush. Only the Saints (8.3%) have allowed a lower QB hit rate than the Steelers (9.0%), and only New Orleans (9) and Indianapolis (10) have surrendered fewer sacks (14). … The Broncos pose an undaunting matchup for James Conner after serving up a 175/933/4 (5.33 YPC) rushing line to running backs over their last seven games. Even if Conner’s weekly rushing totals are game-script dependent, he has stayed heavily involved as a multi-phase threat with four or more receptions in 8-of-10 starts. Conner’s high-volume usage secures his every-week RB1 value.
Big Ben’s post-bye target distribution: Antonio Brown 38; JuJu Smith-Schuster 30; Conner 25; Vance McDonald 19; Ryan Switzer 10; James Washington 8; Jesse James 7; Jaylen Samuels 4. … As Brown runs 81% of his routes outside, it is notable that Broncos top CB Chris Harris stays stationed at slot corner whenever offenses run three-receiver sets. Harris also got cooked by Keenan Allen (9/89/1) last week, and gave up Mike Williams’ 27-yard gain. Brown is an enticing DFS-tournament play as the NFL’s first player since 2013 to catch a touchdown in eight straight games yet still likely to be low owned in a plus draw. … JuJu is Pittsburgh’s 75% slot receiver ticketed to face Harris the most. Whereas Smith-Schuster is a contrarian play in DFS, he should stay locked into season-long lineups as a WR2 with 75-plus yards and/or a touchdown in 12 of his last 14 games. … Annually fileted by tight ends, the Broncos allow the NFL’s seventh-most yards per game to the position (64.0). Last week, Vance Joseph’s defense exhumed Antonio Gates for 5/80/1 receiving. McDonald continues to be one of fantasy’s most-underrated tight ends, hitting pay dirt last week on a jump ball over ultra-athletic Jaguars WLB Telvin Smith.
Score Prediction: Broncos 23, Steelers 21"data-reactid =" 29 ">
Jacksonville @ Buffalo
Team Totals: Jaguars 20, Bills 17
Jags-Bills sets up as a gruesome fantasy affair with by-far Week 12’s lowest total (37) pitting against each other run-first, defense-focused teams outdoors in chilly Buffalo. Although the Jaguars play stout run defense, one positive Week 12 data point for LeSean McCoy is Jacksonville’s tendency to get obliterated in road games, where they are 1-4 with a -53 point differential. Regardless of venue, the Jaguars have to be on the verge of checking out amid six straight losses. Not a single member of the 53 wants to go play a game just shy of Canada with nothing on the line. I think the Bills win this game and McCoy gets fed as a volatile if sneaky-upside RB2. McCoy turned in his season-best game before Buffalo’s Week 11 bye, trouncing the sad-sack Jets for 118 yards and two scores. McCoy plus Buffalo's D/ST is among my favorite low-owned DFS correlation plays in Week 12. … Due back from his arm injury, Josh Allen is an underrated two-QB-league play against a Jaguars team that has yielded top-seven fantasy scores to four of its last five signal callers faced. Allen provides virtually no passing-game value – and all of his pass catchers are obvious fades – but Allen’s dual threat gives him upside against a Jaguars team allowing the NFL’s fourth-most QB rushing yards per game (20.6). Allen averages 25.6 rushing yards per appearance, and he has scored three rushing touchdowns despite having played only four games from start to finish.
A top-12 fantasy quarterback in 5-of-10 starts with finishes of QB20 or worse in all remaining five, it is at least satisfying to know Blake Bortles’ erratic on-field play translates seamlessly to the box score. Visiting Buffalo in late November, this is a bad matchup for Florida-born, UCF-product Bortles. Ranked top ten in QB hit rate (16.2%) and an above-par 14th in sack rate (7.0%), the Bills have ample pass-rush guns to exploit a Jags offensive line that lost its top-two left tackles and starting center to injured reserve before RG A.J. Cann’s hamstring setback. Seven of the last eight quarterbacks to face Buffalo have finished Q19 or worse. … Leonard Fournette’s touch counts in two games since returning from his own hamstring woes are 29 – 30, quickly reasserting himself as one of the NFL’s highest-volume bellcows. The Bills have permitted a crisp 4.20 yards per carry and 13 TDs in 10 games to enemy backs. Sean McDermott’s club has coughed up at least one rushing score in four straight games. Fournette remains a confident RB1 play. … Dede Westbrook’s stat lines since Fournette came back are 5/30/0 and 2/19/0, while Buffalo has surrendered an NFL-low 128.4 yards per game to wide receivers. … Donte Moncrief’s Weeks 10-11 stat lines were 3/98/1 and 1/11/0. 80 of his yards and the touchdown came on one play against the Colts. Moncrief is the Jags’ likeliest wideout to draw Bills top CB Tre’Davious White’s coverage. … D.J. Chark, Keelan Cole, and James O’Shaughnessy lack fantasy appeal as complementary members of a dysfunctional passing game on a run-first team. Chark was ruled out on Friday with a strained quad.
Score Prediction: Bills 17, Jaguars 16
4:05 PM ET Game
Arizona @ LA Chargers
Team Totals: Chargers 28.5, Cardinals 15.5
In a matchup between teams that severely undershot Week 11 expectations, this is a get-right spot for the Chargers and specifically Melvin Gordon, who has 20-plus touches in five of his last six games and faces an Arizona defense permitting 170.6 all-purpose yards per game to running backs, including 190 to the lowly Raiders backs last week. Favored at home by nearly two touchdowns, Gordon is a layup Week 12 correlation play with the Chargers’ D/ST. From a DFS standpoint, Gordon has 100-plus total yards and/or a touchdown in 15 straight games, yet finished scoreless in Week 11 because he was tackled inside the five-yard line following a 32-yard catch and run. Keenan Allen sealed the deal plays later on a four-yard score. … Gordon was downgraded to questionable with a hamstring injury, and coach Anthony Lynn was noncommittal on his Week 12 availability when quizzed by reporters on Friday. Austin Ekeler has single-digit touches in six of Gordon’s last seven appearances, but he dominated the backfield when Gordon missed Week 7, playing 42-of-44 offensive snaps (95%). Were Gordon to miss Week 12, Ekeler would immediately ascend to high-end RB2 usability with RB1 upside. … Of all teams, Denver strangely coerced Philip Rivers into his second-most attempts (49) and yards (401) on the season in Week 11. The fallout was Rivers logging just his second top-ten fantasy result all year. Arizona seems unlikely to repeat the feat; opponents average 32.0 pass attempts per game against the Cardinals, third fewest in the league. This sets up as another Gordon-friendly affair with Rivers hovering in fringe QB1 discussion.
Rivers’ post-bye target distribution: Keenan Allen 31; Gordon 16; Tyrell Williams 15; Antonio Gates and Virgil Green 10; Mike Williams 6; Ekeler and Travis Benjamin 4. … Allen’s target counts are 9 – 10 – 12 over his last three games. Allen’s above-50% slot usage will keep him away from Patrick Peterson, who has played 99% of his snaps outside this year. … Tyrell has run 44 more routes than Mike in the Bolts’ last five games and out-targeted Mike 23 to 16 in that span. Tyrell has also played considerably more slot receiver than Mike this year, giving the former a better chance to avoid Peterson’s coverage. … Gates was resuscitated in Week 11 for a 5/80/1 receiving line on seven targets, although Gates ran just 19 routes on 33% of the snaps. Even still, Gates’ sudden spike in passing-game usage suggests the Chargers view him as a plus contributor down the stretch and they’ve “saved” him accordingly.
Fading Josh Rosen has been a consistently profitable approach. Even as he threw a career-high three touchdowns in Week 11’s loss to Oakland, Rosen finished as fantasy’s QB19 with 136 yards and zero surplus rushing value. Rosen hasn’t logged top-12 quarterback results once this year. … David Johnson is the centerpiece to Arizona’s odds of staying competitive against the Bolts, who lost interior difference-makers MLB Denzel Perryman (hamstring, LCL) and DT Corey Liuget (torn quad) to I.R. in consecutive weeks. The Chargers also allow the NFL’s third-most receiving yards per game to running backs (65.9). Although Johnson totaled 154 yards in last week’s defeat, his game could have been far bigger if not for Ricky Seals-Jones’ fourth-quarter holding penalty that negated Johnson’s 57-yard touchdown run on a third-and-23 play. Nevertheless, Johnson has 100-plus total yards and 20-plus touches in all three games since Byron Leftwich replaced Mike McCoy as Arizona’s playcaller. Johnson is an every-week RB1 again.
Rosen’s 2018 target distribution: Larry Fitzgerald 52; Christian Kirk 42; Ricky Seals-Jones 36; Johnson 31; Chad Williams 23. … Fitzgerald visits the Bolts with four touchdowns over his last four appearances and a team-high 26 targets in three games since Byron Leftwich replaced Mike McCoy as Arizona’s playcaller. Fitz hit pay dirt twice last week, first blowing by overmatched Raiders rookie slot CB Nick Nelson for an 18-yard TD, then scoring from five yards out in the second half. … Fortunate to score on a 59-yard screen in last week’s loss to Oakland, Kirk is a WR4 option this week as Arizona’s likeliest wideout to draw shadow coverage from Casey Hayward, who kept Emmanuel Sanders (4/56/0), David Moore (2/16/0), Corey Davis (3/10/0), Amari Cooper (1/10/0), and Antonio Callaway (2/9/0) quiet over the last month and a half. … Perhaps with Monday’s guilty plea to assaulting a bathroom worker on his mind, Seals-Jones was a complete Week 11 dud on season lows in routes run (14) and playing time (39%).
Score Prediction: Chargers 27, Cardinals 16
4:25 PM ET Games
Pittsburgh @ Denver
Team Totals: Steelers 25, Broncos 22
Turnovers and the running game were Denver’s keys to Week 11’s stunning upset of the Chargers. It’s a formula Vance Joseph’s team will struggle to replicate versus the far-superior Steelers, whose defensive strength is against the run with just 3.79 yards per carry and the NFL’s third-fewest receiving yards per game (30.2) allowed to running backs. On a brighter note, the Broncos smartly stuck with offensive MVP Phillip Lindsay as their lead runner despite Royce Freeman’s (ankle) return, pushing 15 touches Lindsay’s way for 106 yards and two Week 11 scores. Lindsay has averaged 4.50 YPC or better in 9-of-10 career games. Freeman scored a second-half touchdown from three yards out but has finished with single-digit touches in four of his last five games. Freeman has double-digit receiving yards in 1-of-8 appearances.
Keenum’s Weeks 9-11 target distribution: Jeff Heuerman and Emmanuel Sanders 15; Courtland Sutton 11; Lindsay 8; Devontae Booker and Tim Patrick 5; DaeSean Hamilton 2. … This is a revenge game for ex-Steeler Sanders, whose two career receiving lines against Pittsburgh since leaving the team are 5/85/0 (playoffs) and 10/181/1 (2015), albeit both with near-prime Peyton Manning. Nevertheless, Sanders is easily the Broncos’ best means of moving the chains via their passing game with Sutton likely to be chased by Joe Haden. Sanders has five-plus catches in 7-of-10 games. … Sutton’s arrow is pointing up, but he is a low-volume, big-play-dependent WR4 until further notice. … Although he managed a 4/20/0 receiving line on five Week 11 targets, Heuerman’s post-bye participation was as strong as ever. He ran 25 routes on 86% of Denver’s offensive snaps against the Chargers and now encounters a Pittsburgh defense surrendering the NFL’s ninth-most yards per game to tight ends (62.7). At by-far fantasy football’s weakest position, sheer usage is going to keep Heuerman on the streamer map every week. … Hamilton reinjured his knee in last week’s win, locking Patrick back in as the Broncos’ No. 3 receiver.
Winners of six straight following Week 11’s comeback thriller in Jacksonville, the Steelers trek to Denver to face a Broncos defense that’s been burnt for top-12 fantasy results in three straight games, while Ben Roethlisberger has tallied top-six QB1 scores in three straight starts. Roethlisberger showed his uncanny resiliency in Week 11, rebounding from a 0.0 QB rating at halftime to finish with top-six fantasy score. 4pm ET and later starts historically keep Ben immune from his away-game splits, and Pittsburgh’s elite pass protection can shield Denver’s imposing pass rush. Only the Saints (8.3%) have allowed a lower QB hit rate than the Steelers (9.0%), and only New Orleans (9) and Indianapolis (10) have surrendered fewer sacks (14). … The Broncos pose an undaunting matchup for James Conner after serving up a 175/933/4 (5.33 YPC) rushing line to running backs over their last seven games. Even if Conner’s weekly rushing totals are game-script dependent, he has stayed heavily involved as a multi-phase threat with four or more receptions in 8-of-10 starts. Conner’s high-volume usage secures his every-week RB1 value.
Big Ben’s post-bye target distribution: Antonio Brown 38; JuJu Smith-Schuster 30; Conner 25; Vance McDonald 19; Ryan Switzer 10; James Washington 8; Jesse James 7; Jaylen Samuels 4. … As Brown runs 81% of his routes outside, it is notable that Broncos top CB Chris Harris stays stationed at slot corner whenever offenses run three-receiver sets. Harris also got cooked by Keenan Allen (9/89/1) last week, and gave up Mike Williams’ 27-yard gain. Brown is an enticing DFS-tournament play as the NFL’s first player since 2013 to catch a touchdown in eight straight games yet still likely to be low owned in a plus draw. … JuJu is Pittsburgh’s 75% slot receiver ticketed to face Harris the most. Whereas Smith-Schuster is a contrarian play in DFS, he should stay locked into season-long lineups as a WR2 with 75-plus yards and/or a touchdown in 12 of his last 14 games. … Annually fileted by tight ends, the Broncos allow the NFL’s seventh-most yards per game to the position (64.0). Last week, Vance Joseph’s defense exhumed Antonio Gates for 5/80/1 receiving. McDonald continues to be one of fantasy’s most-underrated tight ends, hitting pay dirt last week on a jump ball over ultra-athletic Jaguars WLB Telvin Smith.
Score Prediction: Broncos 23, Steelers 21
<p class = "canvas-atom canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "Miami @ Indianapolis
Team Totals: Colts 29.5, Dolphins 21.5
Andrew Luck continued to cement his matchup-proof scoring ability by averaging over ten yards per attempt and throwing three-plus touchdowns for the seventh straight game against a Titans pass defense that entered Week 11 among the stoutest in football. Luck’s number of consecutive dropbacks without taking a sack moved to 218. Miami has conceded 27-plus points in six of its last seven games and struggles where Indianapolis is strongest, ranking bottom five in both sack rate (5.0%) and QB hit rate (11.8%), foreshadowing even more squeaky-clean pockets for the NFL’s most-consistent passer. … Albeit not quite on workhorse usage, Marlon Mack maintained clear-cut lead-back duties against the Titans with 17 touches to Nyheim Hines’ 6 and Jordan Wilkins’ 4. While Hines continued to struggle with drops and ball security, it’s fair to wonder if Wilkins is making a case for at least a small bump in usage with a 19/182/1 (9.6 YPC) rushing line over his last six games, including four runs of 15-plus yards. Behind a much-improved offensive line, Wilkins is stash worthy in season-long leagues down the stretch. Mack is a high-upside RB2 play with strong DFS appeal against Miami, which got pasted for a combined 181/979/7 (5.71 YPC) rushing line by enemy backs in its last seven games. The Dolphins have allowed 160-plus rushing yards in five of their last seven and 100-plus rushing yards in seven of their last eight.
Luck’s Weeks 8-11 target distribution: T.Y. Hilton 21; Dontrelle Inman 17; Jack Doyle 14; Hines 9; Mack 8; Eric Ebron 6; Mo Alie-Cox 5; Ryan Grant and Chester Rogers 4; Zach Pascal 2. … Quiet since returning from his early-season hamstring injury, Hilton erupted on Adoree Jackson for a perfect 9/155/2 receiving line on nine targets that didn’t include a 35-yard defensive pass interference flag Hilton drew on the Titans’ top corner. Staying home on Lucas Oil Stadium’s fast track, T.Y. should beg for shadow coverage from Dolphins CB Xavien Howard, who ran 4.58 at the 2016 Combine. Hilton runs 4.34. … Inman has emerged as Indy’s No. 2 receiver, running the second-most Week 11 routes (18) among Colts wideouts behind Hilton (26) and just ahead of Grant (17). Rogers (9) and Pascal (6) moved to the backburner. Inman’s target counts are 7 – 4 – 6 in Indianapolis’ last three games, putting him in the WR4 hunt on a high-scoring team. Inman scored his first touchdown as a Colt from seven yards out in the second half of last week’s win. … Tight ends have caught 23-of-25 targets (92%) for 250 yards (10.0 YPA) and five TDs against the Dolphins over their last five games. Unfortunately, the Colts are throwing far less than they did early in the year, and their weekly deployment of three tight ends damages each individual’s box-score reliability. Ebron was Week 11’s odd man out, running his usual 13 routes but drawing no targets. He’s seen five targets or fewer in each of Doyle’s five appearances. Doyle drew four targets on 18 pass routes. Alie-Cox was targeted once on five patterns. I’d rank them Doyle > Ebron > Alie-Cox for Week 12.
Ryan Tannehill is due back from his six-week shoulder injury to resume game-manager duties after attempting just 25.8 passes per game in Weeks 1-5, exceeding 230 passing yards once. Despite his return, Tannehill has experienced ongoing pain in his throwing arm. Opponents don’t matter in situations like this. It’s a wait-and-see week for Tannehill, even in two-QB leagues. Destroyed in pass protection on a weekly basis, the Dolphins haven’t so much as scored a touchdown on offense since the third quarter of their Thursday Night Football blowout loss to the Texans on October 25. It came on a 28-yard pass from Danny Amendola to Kenyan Drake. On a one-for-one basis, I think the Colts’ D/ST is a better fantasy play than Tannehill this week. … Speaking of Drake, he practiced this week in a red no-contact jersey after suffering an AC joint sprain in his shoulder prior to Miami’s Week 11 bye. This is also a wait-and-see week for Drake, who managed ten touches or fewer in three of his previous four games while struggling mightily in pass protection. Averaging 15.2 touches across the five games leading into last week’s open date, Frank Gore has emerged as the most-valuable member of Miami’s backfield. This is a “revenge” game for ex-Colt Gore, even as he remains a low-ceiling flex option.
Tannehill’s Weeks 1-5 target distribution: Drake 25; Albert Wilson 23; Kenny Stills and Danny Amendola 20; Jakeem Grant 16; Mike Gesicki 12; AJ Derby and DeVante Parker 3; Gore 2. … Wilson and Grant are on I.R., and Drake’s role has been scaled back considerably since Tannehill was under center early in the year. Miami’s Week 12 three-receiver set is expected to be made up of Stills and Parker on the outside with Amendola in the slot. Amendola has the best matchup against a Colts defense that has given up above-expectation production to fellow slot WRs Keke Coutee (10/109/0), Jermaine Kearse (9/94/0), Julian Edelman (7/57/0), Seth Roberts (2/42/1), and Tajae Sharpe (5/37/1). … Parker will try to gut out a shoulder sprain, and Stills hasn’t gone over 40 yards since Week 3. In a low-volume passing offense with a less-than-full-strength quarterback, neither is an attractive Week 12 fantasy play.
Score Prediction: Colts 38, Dolphins 13
Football du dimanche soir
Green Bay @ Minnesota
Team Totals: Vikings 25.5, Packers 22.5
Packers-Vikings is a must-win game for both teams to avoid falling into unrecoverable NFC North holes. Coming off a predictably uneven Week 11 at Soldier Field, Kirk Cousins returns to Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium dome to face a Packers defense yielding a 29.8-point average across five road games with a “low” of 27 allowed. Cousins torched Green Bay for 425 yards and four TDs when these teams met at Lambeau in Week 2, posting season highs in passer rating (118.8) and yards per attempt (8.9). A top-12 QB1 in 7-of-10 starts, Cousins is a high-floor, high-ceiling play in this potential shootout indoors. Matchups for everyone in the Vikings’ offense improve with difference-making Packers DT Mike Daniels (foot) on the shelf. … This is get-right spot for Dalvin Cook after last week’s ten-total-yard dud; Green Bay has been pummeled for 126/637/5 (5.06 YPC) rushing by enemy backs in its last five games. Despite his poor Week 11 bottom line, Cook dominated touches (12) and snaps (88%) over Latavius Murray (4, 9%) and is quietly locked into RB1-level usage. Cook should be started with confidence on Sunday night.
Cousins’ Week 11 target distribution: Stefon Diggs 18; Adam Thielen 12; Kyle Rudolph 5; Cook and Laquon Treadwell 3; Aldrick Robinson 2. … Diggs has drawn double-digit targets in seven of his last eight games and ransacked the Packers (9/128/2) in these clubs’ Week 2 date. … The last four slot receivers to face Green Bay all met or beat expectations, namely Doug Baldwin (7/52/1), Danny Amendola (7/72/0), Julian Edelman (6/71/0), and Robert Woods (5/70/0). This is a plus draw for Thielen, who is coming off back-to-back uncharacteristically sluggish games. Thielen shredded Green Bay (12/131/1) in Week 2. … Lightly targeted and averaging an anemic 10.1 yards per catch, Rudolph is a touchdown-or-bust tight end who hasn’t been scoring touchdowns. Rudolph has finished below 45 yards in six straight games.
Aaron Rodgers has disappointed more often than not against the Vikings since Mike Zimmer became coach, logging yardage/TD/INT totals of 281/1/0 – 347/4/0 – 213/1/1 – 291/1/1 – 212/2/0 – 209/2/0 in their last six meetings. This year, five straight quarterbacks to face Minnesota have logged QB16 fantasy scores or worse. In a classic bounce-back spot for the Vikings back home following last week’s primetime road loss to Chicago, Rodgers is a high-variance fantasy play with a high ceiling but low floor. … Amid passing-game inconsistencies, Green Bay’s rushing attack has been its most reliable source of offense. That trend will be put to the test at Minnesota, which limits enemy backs to 3.63 yards per carry and has allowed just five all-purpose touchdowns to running backs in ten games. The Vikings do allow the NFL’s ninth-most receiving yards per game to Aaron Jones’ position (51.5), helpful since Jones set career highs in routes (27), catches (5), and receiving yards (63) in last week’s loss to Seattle. With touch counts of 16 – 18 – 16 in Weeks 9-11, Jones is a fade-matchup, bet-on-talent RB2 start on Sunday Night Football.
Rodgers’ Weeks 8-11 target distribution: Davante Adams 35; Marquez Valdes-Scantling 21; Jones 17; Equanimeous St. Brown 13; Jimmy Graham 12; Randall Cobb 11; Lance Kendricks 5; Jamaal Williams 3; Robert Tonyan 1. … Cobb (hamstring) resumed practicing this week and appears to be on track to play, which would move Valdes-Scantling back to outside receiver across from Adams. As Cobb hasn’t topped 40 yards or scored a touchdown since Week 1, he would be very difficult to trust in his first game back from a recurring hamstring injury in a potentially limited role. … Despite Xavier Rhodes’ coverage, Adams eked out 5/54/1 and 8/64/1 receiving lines in his last two meetings with Minnesota and remains a confident WR1 play in a game where Green Bay will likely have to lean on the pass to move the ball. … Graham will try to play through a fractured thumb, apparently donning a splint. The good news is the Vikings have struggled to contain Zach Ertz (10/110/1), Graham himself, (6/95/0), George Kittle (5/90/0), Ricky Seals-Jones (5/69/0), and Chris Herndon (4/42/1). … Valdes-Scantling was barely seen until the final few drives of Week 11 despite playing 48-of-49 snaps. It was Green Bay’s lowest play count all year, and Adams hogged 12 of Rodgers’ 30 attempts. MVS’ role still seems secure, but back-to-back games below 50 yards raise doubts about his reliability in what’s been a frustratingly uneven passing game.
Score Prediction: Vikings 28, Packers 21
Football du lundi soir
Tennessee @ Houston
Team Totals: Texans 24, Titans 18
The Texans have put limitations on Deshaun Watson in an effort to keep him out of harm’s way after a hit- and sack-filled first half of the season. Watson’s rushing usage has been much less inconsistent, and he hasn’t attempted more than 25 passes in a game since Week 5. Houston may need more out of Watson on Monday Night Football, though; Tennessee’s stout run defense has limited running backs to 141/474/4 (3.36 YPC) rushing over its last six games, while the Texans may be without starting OGs Senio Kelemete (ankle) and Zach Fulton (shoulder). Despite recent box-score ups and downs, Watson’s sky-high ceiling makes him difficult to ever leave on a fantasy bench. … Although Lamar Miller’s matchup is difficult and his run blocking suspect, sheer volume keeps him RB2 playable as a home-favorite feature back coming off a 23-touch effort in last week’s win over Washington. Miller’s Week 11 playing-time clip (73%) was his highest since Week 3. Miller now has 17 or more touches in four of his last five games.
Watson’s Week 11 target distribution: Keke Coutee 9; DeAndre Hopkins 6; Miller 5; Jordan Akins 2; Jordan Thomas and Demaryius Thomas 1. … Coutee’s return turned Demaryius into a ghost against the Redskins. Since the Texans scripted three first-quarter targets for Demaryius in Week 9 – prior to their Week 10 bye – he has drawn one target in the last seven quarters and is catch-less during that span. The Texans will surely try to get Thomas re-involved, but he’s in low-floor territory as a complementary piece in a low-volume passing game. … Coutee led the Texans in Week 11 targets and receiving (5/77/0), but reliability should not be expected with the team sure to make a greater emphasis of getting Thomas the ball. Coutee’s nine targets were well above expectation in a game where Josh Norman chased Hopkins, funneling more action than usual inside. Coutee is a fringe WR3 play against Tennessee. … In T.Y. Hilton (9/155/2), Tyrell Williams (4/118/1), Michael Crabtree (6/93/1), Josh Gordon (4/81/0), and Amari Cooper (5/56/1), Tennessee has coughed up at least one fantasy-viable stat line to a perimeter wideout in five straight weeks. Hopkins runs 80% of his routes outside and is easily the best fantasy play on either side in this game. … The Texans’ three-man tight end rotation of Akins, Thomas, and Ryan Griffin is safe to avoid. The Titans are allowing the NFL’s second-fewest yards per game to tight ends (33.8).
The Titans seem confident Marcus Mariota will play despite exiting last week’s game with what the medical staff apparently diagnosed as a neck stinger, unrelated to Mariota’s previous throwing-arm nerve issues which prevented him from gripping the football firmly. It’s great news for the Titans, but starting Mariota in a fantasy league considering his ongoing and recurring health concerns would require quite a leap of faith. The Texans allow the NFL’s fourth-fewest points per game (20.5), including 16.2 PPG over their last six. Six straight quarterbacks to face Houston have finished QB18 or worse in weekly fantasy scoring. … Neither Titans running back has a plus Week 12 draw; Houston holds enemy backs to 3.51 yards per carry and the NFL’s eighth-fewest receiving yards per game (36.0). Although the blowout nature of last week’s loss to the Colts negatively skewed his usage, Dion Lewis entered Week 11 with touch counts of 19 – 23 – 22 over his previous three games and remains RB2 playable regardless of opponent. Derrick Henry is always a touchdown-dependent flex option and nearly got Mariota picked on a dropped screen pass last week. The Texans have allowed the NFL’s seventh-fewest rushing TDs to enemy backs (5).
Mariota’s Weeks 9-11 target distribution: Corey Davis 22; Jonnu Smith 9; Lewis and Cameron Batson 7; Tajae Sharpe 6; Henry and Taywan Taylor 2. … Davis busted in Week 11 along with the rest of the Titans’ offense. Although his quarterback’s health is a significant Week 12 concern, Davis is a prime bounce-back candidate with a stranglehold on No. 1 wideout targets facing a Texans defense whose primary weakness is at outside corner. Davis remains a WR3 play only with fewer than 65 yards in 8-of-10 games. … Slot man Sharpe cleared 35 yards for just the second time all year in last week’s loss to Indianapolis, managing 5/37/1 receiving on seven targets. Stud Texans slot CB Aaron Colvin (ankle) is due back this week, damaging Sharpe’s on-paper matchup, while Taylor’s (foot) return would cut into Sharpe’s volume and send Batson back to the bench. … Coming off a career-high eight targets against the Colts, Smith also happens to catch Week 12’s best pass-catcher matchup on the Titans. Tight ends facing Houston have caught 53-of-67 targets (79%) for 600 yards (8.9 YPA) and five touchdowns, while the Texans coughed up Jeff Heuerman (10/83/1) and Jordan Reed’s (7/71/1) season-best games in back-to-back weeks.
Score Prediction: Texans 23, Titans 21"data-reactid =" 30 ">Miami @ Indianapolis
Team Totals: Colts 29.5, Dolphins 21.5
Andrew Luck continued to cement his matchup-proof scoring ability by averaging over ten yards per attempt and throwing three-plus touchdowns for the seventh straight game against a Titans pass defense that entered Week 11 among the stoutest in football. Luck’s number of consecutive dropbacks without taking a sack moved to 218. Miami has conceded 27-plus points in six of its last seven games and struggles where Indianapolis is strongest, ranking bottom five in both sack rate (5.0%) and QB hit rate (11.8%), foreshadowing even more squeaky-clean pockets for the NFL’s most-consistent passer. … Albeit not quite on workhorse usage, Marlon Mack maintained clear-cut lead-back duties against the Titans with 17 touches to Nyheim Hines’ 6 and Jordan Wilkins’ 4. While Hines continued to struggle with drops and ball security, it’s fair to wonder if Wilkins is making a case for at least a small bump in usage with a 19/182/1 (9.6 YPC) rushing line over his last six games, including four runs of 15-plus yards. Behind a much-improved offensive line, Wilkins is stash worthy in season-long leagues down the stretch. Mack is a high-upside RB2 play with strong DFS appeal against Miami, which got pasted for a combined 181/979/7 (5.71 YPC) rushing line by enemy backs in its last seven games. The Dolphins have allowed 160-plus rushing yards in five of their last seven and 100-plus rushing yards in seven of their last eight.
Luck’s Weeks 8-11 target distribution: T.Y. Hilton 21; Dontrelle Inman 17; Jack Doyle 14; Hines 9; Mack 8; Eric Ebron 6; Mo Alie-Cox 5; Ryan Grant and Chester Rogers 4; Zach Pascal 2. … Quiet since returning from his early-season hamstring injury, Hilton erupted on Adoree Jackson for a perfect 9/155/2 receiving line on nine targets that didn’t include a 35-yard defensive pass interference flag Hilton drew on the Titans’ top corner. Staying home on Lucas Oil Stadium’s fast track, T.Y. should beg for shadow coverage from Dolphins CB Xavien Howard, who ran 4.58 at the 2016 Combine. Hilton runs 4.34. … Inman has emerged as Indy’s No. 2 receiver, running the second-most Week 11 routes (18) among Colts wideouts behind Hilton (26) and just ahead of Grant (17). Rogers (9) and Pascal (6) moved to the backburner. Inman’s target counts are 7 – 4 – 6 in Indianapolis’ last three games, putting him in the WR4 hunt on a high-scoring team. Inman scored his first touchdown as a Colt from seven yards out in the second half of last week’s win. … Tight ends have caught 23-of-25 targets (92%) for 250 yards (10.0 YPA) and five TDs against the Dolphins over their last five games. Unfortunately, the Colts are throwing far less than they did early in the year, and their weekly deployment of three tight ends damages each individual’s box-score reliability. Ebron was Week 11’s odd man out, running his usual 13 routes but drawing no targets. He’s seen five targets or fewer in each of Doyle’s five appearances. Doyle drew four targets on 18 pass routes. Alie-Cox was targeted once on five patterns. I’d rank them Doyle > Ebron > Alie-Cox for Week 12.
Ryan Tannehill is due back from his six-week shoulder injury to resume game-manager duties after attempting just 25.8 passes per game in Weeks 1-5, exceeding 230 passing yards once. Despite his return, Tannehill has experienced ongoing pain in his throwing arm. Opponents don’t matter in situations like this. It’s a wait-and-see week for Tannehill, even in two-QB leagues. Destroyed in pass protection on a weekly basis, the Dolphins haven’t so much as scored a touchdown on offense since the third quarter of their Thursday Night Football blowout loss to the Texans on October 25. It came on a 28-yard pass from Danny Amendola to Kenyan Drake. On a one-for-one basis, I think the Colts’ D/ST is a better fantasy play than Tannehill this week. … Speaking of Drake, he practiced this week in a red no-contact jersey after suffering an AC joint sprain in his shoulder prior to Miami’s Week 11 bye. This is also a wait-and-see week for Drake, who managed ten touches or fewer in three of his previous four games while struggling mightily in pass protection. Averaging 15.2 touches across the five games leading into last week’s open date, Frank Gore has emerged as the most-valuable member of Miami’s backfield. This is a “revenge” game for ex-Colt Gore, even as he remains a low-ceiling flex option.
Tannehill’s Weeks 1-5 target distribution: Drake 25; Albert Wilson 23; Kenny Stills and Danny Amendola 20; Jakeem Grant 16; Mike Gesicki 12; AJ Derby and DeVante Parker 3; Gore 2. … Wilson and Grant are on I.R., and Drake’s role has been scaled back considerably since Tannehill was under center early in the year. Miami’s Week 12 three-receiver set is expected to be made up of Stills and Parker on the outside with Amendola in the slot. Amendola has the best matchup against a Colts defense that has given up above-expectation production to fellow slot WRs Keke Coutee (10/109/0), Jermaine Kearse (9/94/0), Julian Edelman (7/57/0), Seth Roberts (2/42/1), and Tajae Sharpe (5/37/1). … Parker will try to gut out a shoulder sprain, and Stills hasn’t gone over 40 yards since Week 3. In a low-volume passing offense with a less-than-full-strength quarterback, neither is an attractive Week 12 fantasy play.
Score Prediction: Colts 38, Dolphins 13
Football du dimanche soir
Green Bay @ Minnesota
Team Totals: Vikings 25.5, Packers 22.5
Packers-Vikings is a must-win game for both teams to avoid falling into unrecoverable NFC North holes. Coming off a predictably uneven Week 11 at Soldier Field, Kirk Cousins returns to Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium dome to face a Packers defense yielding a 29.8-point average across five road games with a “low” of 27 allowed. Cousins torched Green Bay for 425 yards and four TDs when these teams met at Lambeau in Week 2, posting season highs in passer rating (118.8) and yards per attempt (8.9). A top-12 QB1 in 7-of-10 starts, Cousins is a high-floor, high-ceiling play in this potential shootout indoors. Matchups for everyone in the Vikings’ offense improve with difference-making Packers DT Mike Daniels (foot) on the shelf. … This is get-right spot for Dalvin Cook after last week’s ten-total-yard dud; Green Bay has been pummeled for 126/637/5 (5.06 YPC) rushing by enemy backs in its last five games. Despite his poor Week 11 bottom line, Cook dominated touches (12) and snaps (88%) over Latavius Murray (4, 9%) and is quietly locked into RB1-level usage. Cook should be started with confidence on Sunday night.
Cousins’ Week 11 target distribution: Stefon Diggs 18; Adam Thielen 12; Kyle Rudolph 5; Cook and Laquon Treadwell 3; Aldrick Robinson 2. … Diggs has drawn double-digit targets in seven of his last eight games and ransacked the Packers (9/128/2) in these clubs’ Week 2 date. … The last four slot receivers to face Green Bay all met or beat expectations, namely Doug Baldwin (7/52/1), Danny Amendola (7/72/0), Julian Edelman (6/71/0), and Robert Woods (5/70/0). This is a plus draw for Thielen, who is coming off back-to-back uncharacteristically sluggish games. Thielen shredded Green Bay (12/131/1) in Week 2. … Lightly targeted and averaging an anemic 10.1 yards per catch, Rudolph is a touchdown-or-bust tight end who hasn’t been scoring touchdowns. Rudolph has finished below 45 yards in six straight games.
Aaron Rodgers has disappointed more often than not against the Vikings since Mike Zimmer became coach, logging yardage/TD/INT totals of 281/1/0 – 347/4/0 – 213/1/1 – 291/1/1 – 212/2/0 – 209/2/0 in their last six meetings. This year, five straight quarterbacks to face Minnesota have logged QB16 fantasy scores or worse. In a classic bounce-back spot for the Vikings back home following last week’s primetime road loss to Chicago, Rodgers is a high-variance fantasy play with a high ceiling but low floor. … Amid passing-game inconsistencies, Green Bay’s rushing attack has been its most reliable source of offense. That trend will be put to the test at Minnesota, which limits enemy backs to 3.63 yards per carry and has allowed just five all-purpose touchdowns to running backs in ten games. The Vikings do allow the NFL’s ninth-most receiving yards per game to Aaron Jones’ position (51.5), helpful since Jones set career highs in routes (27), catches (5), and receiving yards (63) in last week’s loss to Seattle. With touch counts of 16 – 18 – 16 in Weeks 9-11, Jones is a fade-matchup, bet-on-talent RB2 start on Sunday Night Football.
Rodgers’ Weeks 8-11 target distribution: Davante Adams 35; Marquez Valdes-Scantling 21; Jones 17; Equanimeous St. Brown 13; Jimmy Graham 12; Randall Cobb 11; Lance Kendricks 5; Jamaal Williams 3; Robert Tonyan 1. … Cobb (hamstring) resumed practicing this week and appears to be on track to play, which would move Valdes-Scantling back to outside receiver across from Adams. As Cobb hasn’t topped 40 yards or scored a touchdown since Week 1, he would be very difficult to trust in his first game back from a recurring hamstring injury in a potentially limited role. … Despite Xavier Rhodes’ coverage, Adams eked out 5/54/1 and 8/64/1 receiving lines in his last two meetings with Minnesota and remains a confident WR1 play in a game where Green Bay will likely have to lean on the pass to move the ball. … Graham will try to play through a fractured thumb, apparently donning a splint. The good news is the Vikings have struggled to contain Zach Ertz (10/110/1), Graham himself, (6/95/0), George Kittle (5/90/0), Ricky Seals-Jones (5/69/0), and Chris Herndon (4/42/1). … Valdes-Scantling was barely seen until the final few drives of Week 11 despite playing 48-of-49 snaps. It was Green Bay’s lowest play count all year, and Adams hogged 12 of Rodgers’ 30 attempts. MVS’ role still seems secure, but back-to-back games below 50 yards raise doubts about his reliability in what’s been a frustratingly uneven passing game.
Score Prediction: Vikings 28, Packers 21
Football du lundi soir
Tennessee @ Houston
Team Totals: Texans 24, Titans 18
The Texans have put limitations on Deshaun Watson in an effort to keep him out of harm’s way after a hit- and sack-filled first half of the season. Watson’s rushing usage has been much less inconsistent, and he hasn’t attempted more than 25 passes in a game since Week 5. Houston may need more out of Watson on Monday Night Football, though; Tennessee’s stout run defense has limited running backs to 141/474/4 (3.36 YPC) rushing over its last six games, while the Texans may be without starting OGs Senio Kelemete (ankle) and Zach Fulton (shoulder). Despite recent box-score ups and downs, Watson’s sky-high ceiling makes him difficult to ever leave on a fantasy bench. … Although Lamar Miller’s matchup is difficult and his run blocking suspect, sheer volume keeps him RB2 playable as a home-favorite feature back coming off a 23-touch effort in last week’s win over Washington. Miller’s Week 11 playing-time clip (73%) was his highest since Week 3. Miller now has 17 or more touches in four of his last five games.
Watson’s Week 11 target distribution: Keke Coutee 9; DeAndre Hopkins 6; Miller 5; Jordan Akins 2; Jordan Thomas and Demaryius Thomas 1. … Coutee’s return turned Demaryius into a ghost against the Redskins. Since the Texans scripted three first-quarter targets for Demaryius in Week 9 – prior to their Week 10 bye – he has drawn one target in the last seven quarters and is catch-less during that span. The Texans will surely try to get Thomas re-involved, but he’s in low-floor territory as a complementary piece in a low-volume passing game. … Coutee led the Texans in Week 11 targets and receiving (5/77/0), but reliability should not be expected with the team sure to make a greater emphasis of getting Thomas the ball. Coutee’s nine targets were well above expectation in a game where Josh Norman chased Hopkins, funneling more action than usual inside. Coutee is a fringe WR3 play against Tennessee. … In T.Y. Hilton (9/155/2), Tyrell Williams (4/118/1), Michael Crabtree (6/93/1), Josh Gordon (4/81/0), and Amari Cooper (5/56/1), Tennessee has coughed up at least one fantasy-viable stat line to a perimeter wideout in five straight weeks. Hopkins runs 80% of his routes outside and is easily the best fantasy play on either side in this game. … The Texans’ three-man tight end rotation of Akins, Thomas, and Ryan Griffin is safe to avoid. The Titans are allowing the NFL’s second-fewest yards per game to tight ends (33.8).
The Titans seem confident Marcus Mariota will play despite exiting last week’s game with what the medical staff apparently diagnosed as a neck stinger, unrelated to Mariota’s previous throwing-arm nerve issues which prevented him from gripping the football firmly. It’s great news for the Titans, but starting Mariota in a fantasy league considering his ongoing and recurring health concerns would require quite a leap of faith. The Texans allow the NFL’s fourth-fewest points per game (20.5), including 16.2 PPG over their last six. Six straight quarterbacks to face Houston have finished QB18 or worse in weekly fantasy scoring. … Neither Titans running back has a plus Week 12 draw; Houston holds enemy backs to 3.51 yards per carry and the NFL’s eighth-fewest receiving yards per game (36.0). Although the blowout nature of last week’s loss to the Colts negatively skewed his usage, Dion Lewis entered Week 11 with touch counts of 19 – 23 – 22 over his previous three games and remains RB2 playable regardless of opponent. Derrick Henry is always a touchdown-dependent flex option and nearly got Mariota picked on a dropped screen pass last week. The Texans have allowed the NFL’s seventh-fewest rushing TDs to enemy backs (5).
Mariota’s Weeks 9-11 target distribution: Corey Davis 22; Jonnu Smith 9; Lewis and Cameron Batson 7; Tajae Sharpe 6; Henry and Taywan Taylor 2. … Davis busted in Week 11 along with the rest of the Titans’ offense. Although his quarterback’s health is a significant Week 12 concern, Davis is a prime bounce-back candidate with a stranglehold on No. 1 wideout targets facing a Texans defense whose primary weakness is at outside corner. Davis remains a WR3 play only with fewer than 65 yards in 8-of-10 games. … Slot man Sharpe cleared 35 yards for just the second time all year in last week’s loss to Indianapolis, managing 5/37/1 receiving on seven targets. Stud Texans slot CB Aaron Colvin (ankle) is due back this week, damaging Sharpe’s on-paper matchup, while Taylor’s (foot) return would cut into Sharpe’s volume and send Batson back to the bench. … Coming off a career-high eight targets against the Colts, Smith also happens to catch Week 12’s best pass-catcher matchup on the Titans. Tight ends facing Houston have caught 53-of-67 targets (79%) for 600 yards (8.9 YPA) and five touchdowns, while the Texans coughed up Jeff Heuerman (10/83/1) and Jordan Reed’s (7/71/1) season-best games in back-to-back weeks.
Score Prediction: Texans 23, Titans 21
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