Week 11 Sunday Morning Update

November 21, 2021 11:38am EST

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Week 11 Sunday Morning Update

FPTS Staff
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November 21, 2021 11:38am EST

Hello and welcome to the Week 11 Sunday Morning Update. What is this article? Mostly it’s a follow-up to yesterday’s big DFS piece – Scott Barrett’s Week 11 DFS Breakdown. But this article should also offer some utility of its own for redraft and dynasty players.

Each week Graham Barfield and I will be breaking down the key injuries, news, and notes from Saturday / Sunday and will be updating this article up until kickoff (1PM EST). And we’ll also be providing a sort of TL;DR to yesterday’s big DFS article. Who are my core cash game plays? Who are Graham’s preferred low-owned plays for tournaments? You can find that at the end of this article.

Key News, Injury Updates, & Notes

Sunday Morning Update

(11:30AM)

– Lamar Jackson is OUT. We’ll see Tyler Huntley under center. This is obviously a massive blow to Bateman and Andrews and I wouldn’t play either of them. Bears D/ST is the play.

– Huge news here: The Chiefs aren’t sure how much Clyde Edwards-Helaire is going to play today. It sounds like he’ll be very limited if he’s active. This makes Darrel Williams an amazing tournament play at fractions of the ownership he would have otherwise drawn if we knew CEH were out.

RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire is back for the #chiefs. But I’ve been told they’ll watch pregame warmups pretty closely. They don’t really know how much he’s going to play as or right now.
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) November 21, 2021

– James Robinson is ACTIVE.

– Like I expected, Kenny Gainwell is INACTIVE. Eagles are going with 3 RBs – Sanders / Scott / Howard.

– Salvon Ahmed is INACTIVE. He’s a healthy scratch. The Dolphins are going with Duke Johnson and Patrick Laird as their backups to Myles Gaskin.

– Allen Robinson is OUT.

– Curtis Samuel and Ricky Seals-Jones are both OUT.

– Packers WRs Allen Lazard and Malik Taylor are both OUT.

– Taysom Hill is ACTIVE. So is Tony Jones. It’s a small ding to Mark Ingram, but don’t over-adjust.

(9:30AM)

Right now, the only thing we’re waiting on is whether or not Lamar Jackson plays. Here’s what you may have missed after a messy few days for news…

– Aaron Rodgers is going to play, but he barely practiced on Friday with this toe injury. He essentially hasn’t had a full practice in over three weeks after missing Week 9 and all of the practices in the lead up to last week because of COVID protocols. Rodgers being less than 100% and having such little practice time is a small ding to Davante Adams / A.J. Dillon, just to a lesser extent with Dillon. The Packers could come out flat here if Rodgers is laboring.

#Packers QB Aaron Rodgers will start today against the #Vikings despite a painful toe injury that limited him to only about 15 reps in practice Friday, per sources. The hope is it’ll improve with rest at the bye, but between the toe and COVID, limited practice time is a concern.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) November 21, 2021

– Meanwhile, it doesn’t sound good on the Kyler front… With their bye looming next week and the Rams coming off of two back-to-back losses, the Cardinals are still in a perfect spot in the NFC West. They’re playing the long game here. McCoy starting is an obvious ding to James Conner and takes some of the steam out of his ceiling because Colt increases the likelihood of a negative game-script and decreases Conner’s TD chances overall.

#AZCardinals QB Kyler Murray, still dealing with that high-ankle injury, likely will end up resting until the bye, source said. He wants to play and there is a chance, but similar to the last few weeks, there is a much better chance that Colt McCoy (pectoral) plays than Murray.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) November 21, 2021

– Cowboys LT Tyron Smith is OUT. Terence Steele will get his third-straight start.

– James Robinson is EXPECTED TO PLAY.

– Jamaal Williams is EXPECTED TO PLAY. He should fill right back into his usual role, especially with Tim Boyle under center. Expect a very run-heavy plan from the Lions. Williams averaged 10.1 carries and 2.6 targets per game before his injury.

– Latavius Murray is EXPECTED TO PLAY. After missing three games with an ankle injury, Murray is back and will force a timeshare with Devonta Freeman. My guess is that we see a 55/35/10 split with Freeman leading the way, Murray as the No. 2, and TySon Williams getting 10%.

– The Eagles brought up Miles Sanders off of IR. He’ll play today. The big question then becomes how the Eagles distribute their RB touches and we’ll have a better read on that after inactives. It’s unlikely the team keeps all 4 RBs (Sanders, Scott, Howard, Gainwell) active. My guess is that Gainwell might be made a healthy scratch since he doesn’t play special teams and Scott does. Sanders isn’t in play for DFS today coming off a long layoff, but he could end up being a monster down the stretch run if HC Nick Sirriani actually rolls him as the starter.

Saturday Update

- Per Adam Schefter, Tim Boyle will start for the Lions. This significantly bolsters Nick Chubb and Cleveland’s DST. I won’t be playing anyone on the Lions.

- Per Adam Schefter, QB Lamar Jackson is legitimately 50/50 to play.

- Ravens WR Marquise Brown has been ruled OUT.

- Chiefs RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire has been ACTIVATED.

- Saints RB Tony Jones Jr. has been ACTIVATED.

- Saints RB Alvin Kamara is OUT.

- Titans RB Jeremy McNichols is OUT.

- 49ers RB JaMycal Hasty is OUT.

- Cowboys WR Amari Cooper is OUT.

- Cardinals WR DeAndre Hopkins is OUT.

- Saints WR Ty Mongtomery is OUT.

- Titans TE Geoff Swaim is OUT.

- Washington TE Ricky Seals-Jones is OUT.

- Saints LT Terron Armstead and RT Ryan Ramczyk are OUT.

- 49ers RB Elijah Mitchell is DOUBTFUL.

- Bears WR Allen Robinson is DOUBTFUL.

- Packers WR Allen Lazard is DOUBTFUL.

- Browns WR Donovan Peoples-Jones is DOUBTFUL.

- Saints QB Taysom Hill is QUESTIONABLE.

- Washington WR Curtis Samuel is QUESTIONABLE.

- Browns QB Baker Mayfield is EXPECTED TO PLAY.

- Seahawks RB Alex Collins is EXPECTED TO PLAY.

- Ravens WR Rashod Bateman is EXPECTED TO PLAY.

- Eagles TE Dallas Goedert is EXPECTED TO PLAY.

- Vikings CB Patrick Peterson is EXPECTED TO PLAY.

Things I Think

I think it’s super annoying that the one week I held off on publishing the TLDR on time, the NFL seemingly held off on reporting all of their important news until that dropped. Within 15 minutes of the TLDR’s publication, the floodgates were opened.

Marquise Brown is out. Lamar Jackson is questionable. Tony Jones Jr. will be active. Clyde Edwards-Helaire will be active.

What now?

I’m now fully off of Darrel Williams. Which is a shame, because I had him as a fringe-top-3 play. But, keep a lookout for news on Sunday morning. There’s still a chance we’ll get a report from someone credible saying CEH is active but severely limited, or something like that.

Mark Ingram is probably still a top-10 RB value, but only a low-end top-10 RB play. But he’s going to be far more highly owned than that. He could, of course, resume his Week 10 bell cow role, but I’m betting against it. Everything out of HC Sean Payton’s mouth has made it seem he loves Jones almost as much as he loves Taysom Hill — so, borderline-creepy levels of love. And, thus, a RB1A / RB1B situation wouldn’t surprise me. And then, to make matters worse, the Saints will be without both their LT and RT this week, but Taysom Hill seems likely to suit up.

If Lamar Jackson plays, Rashod Bateman would be an easy top-5 value play at WR, not far off of Michael Gallup. But I’d fully pivot if Jackson sits out.

If Jackson is out, Chicago’s DST would leapfrog Carolina as the best DST-play of the slate. And David Montgomery would obviously become a much better play. You can make a case for Tyler Huntley if you really love the rest of your lineup, but I wouldn’t play him. He’s a significantly worse play than Mason Rudolph was last week.

We’re still waiting on some other news as well, but hopefully we’ll hear something Sunday morning and Graham will provide an update for you at the top. Will we get confirmation over whether Cam Newton will play the full game? Or, will P.J. Walker get some snaps and drives like I suspect he will? Until we get confirmation, I don’t think we can play Newton in cash.

I think one of the million dollar questions of the week is, “Will Casey Hayward shadow Ja’Marr Chase?” And I’ve been torn on that for days. For what it’s worth, Greg Cosell doesn’t think he will, and, well, that’s good enough for me. That makes me like Tee Higgins significantly less, and Chase significantly more. Chase will still run about 50% of his routes against Hayward (versus 33% for Higgins), so he’s not an amazing play, but now he’s not far off of that Tyreek Hill, CeeDee Lamb, Deebo Samuel, Stefon Diggs, Davante Adams-tier. But they’ll both be super chalky after Patrick Mahomes threw for 406/5/0 on the Raiders in primetime last week.

Otherwise, yeah, I think this is a tricky slate. The TLDR took me an unusually long time to write. There’s a lot of late news to digest, and I suspect more to come. The defining question of the slate is “How do you attack DAL@KC?” And there might not be an obvious answer. Otherwise, I suspect in both cash and GPPs I’ll be over-exposed to all of the cheap value RBs, and underexposed to everyone else (except probably/maybe Christian McCaffrey).

Graham Barfield’s Contrarian Angles

Overlooked Stacks / Games

Dolphins / Jets

I know no one is necessarily excited to watch Dolphins-Jets, but there is certainly some scoring upside here. This game is tied with Chargers-Steelers for the quickest on the Week 11 slate in adjusted combined pace and both offenses are throwing a ton to boot. Over the last eight weeks, the Dolphins are the No. 2 team in pass rate above expectation (+9.3%) by necessity – they simply can’t run the ball effectively. Especially with Tua Tagovailoa back under center, the Dolphins have more fantasy appeal in this spot than at any other point this season. The Jets have given up 40.4 total points per game including over 20 FP to every quarterback they’ve faced over the last five weeks.

My only concern about the scoring potential in this game – and it’s a big one – is the Jets offense led by Joe Flacco. After the Mike White dream died last week, the Jets are giving Zach Wilson some more time to get right. Flacco made four starts for the Jets last year, one of which was against the Dolphins and he completely bombed (21-of-44, 186 yards, 4.2 YPA, 0 TD, 1 INT, 3 sacks) as New York scored zero points. Miami blitzed Flacco into oblivion in that game, sending five or more pass rushers on 41% of his dropbacks and you’d think they’d take a similar plan here.

I like Tua / Waddle / Gesicki stacks in tournaments straight up and it only helps that it is a natural leverage play off of chalk Myles Gaskin. Tua and his pass catchers are projecting for 7-8% ownership which will be 2-3x lower than Gaskin’s on FanDuel. You don’t have to bring it back with a Jet for a game stack, either.

Contrarian Plays With Slate-Breaking Upside

(Projected ownership in parenthesis).

RB

Jonathan Taylor (5% DK | 7% FD) – You know what his ceiling is. Taylor is the best running back in the game right now and the Colts don’t abandon the run even if they’re behind – Indy is running 36.9% of the time when trailing (seventh-most). At the very least, I’m not expecting the Colts to get away from Taylor even as large road underdogs.

Darrel Williams (see the blurb in injury news)

WR

DJ Moore (10% DK | 10% FD) – Big boost from Cam and Washington getting smacked for the second-most YPG by WRs (192). This is, by far, the best spot Moore has had since Week 4-5 and he’s not going to draw big ownership.