Lions vs Giants: Fantasy Deep Dive & Predictions, Week 11

The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 11 Detroit Lions at New York Giants Sunday afternoon game.

Detroit	Rank	@	NY Giants	Rank
3		Spread	-3
21.75		Implied Total	24.75
24.3	9	Points/Gm	20.8	22
29.3	32	Points All./Gm	19.2	9
62.4	18	Plays/Gm	64.2	14
64.4	22	Opp. Plays/Gm	60.1	6
5.9	5	Off. Yards/Play	5.1	25
6.5	32	Def. Yards/Play	5.8	27
43.59%	12	Rush%	53.63%	4
56.41%	21	Pass%	46.37%	29
46.72%	28	Opp. Rush %	40.67%	10
53.28%	5	Opp. Pass %	59.33%	23

45.2% of the drives against the Lions have reached the red zone or scored prior, the highest rate in the league.
The Lions have allowed a touchdown on a league-high 32.2% of opponent drives.
The Giants have allowed a touchdown on a 15.8% of opponent drives, third in the league.
Detroit has scored a touchdown on 14.0% of their drives on the road this season (27th) as opposed to 37.7% at home (first).
The Giants have scored on 49.0% of their drives in the second half this season, the highest rate in the league.
The Giants are allowing a league-high 63.4% of completed passes against them to result in a first down or touchdown.
57.9% of the completed passes against Detroit have resulted in a first down or touchdown, 30th in the league.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Daniel Jones (TRUST): Jones is coming off a season-high 15.9 passing points last week despite completing just 13 passes. He has thrown for 217 yards or fewer in every game this season, but Jones has scored 18.0 or more fantasy points in two of the past three weeks.

Jones is volatile as he has only three weeks in the top half of weekly scoring, but this is a matchup to play on the upside front. This week also has some teams in need of quarterback options.

We can’t count on passing volume from Jones as he is 30th in dropbacks per game (33.2), but Detroit can help provide us with efficient dropbacks. The Lions are allowing a league-high 8.2 yards per pass attempt paired with a 5.1% touchdown rate (28th).

The Lions have also allowed a league-high 41.3 rushing yards per game to quarterbacks. We can even take away last week’s game from Justin Fields as Detroit has allowed all of Jalen Hurts (90 yards), Carson Wentz (23), Geno Smith (49), and Aaron Rodgers (40) all to have multiple rushing points against them.

I do believe Marcus Mariota has a better floor than Jones does if faced with that decision as a streamer this week, but Jones has an objectively good layout for points.

Jared Goff: Goff has thrown for over 8.0 yards per pass attempt in three of his past four games, but we haven’t been able to collect many fantasy points. Goff has been the QB19 or lower in four of his past five games and has logged just three QB1 scoring weeks on the season.

After throwing 11 touchdown passes over the opening four games of the season, Goff has thrown four touchdowns since.

Goff is stuck as a 2QB option, but if you are playing him in those formats and looking for anything to latch onto, Goff has been solid against the blitz this year. The Giants blitz on a league-high 45.9% of passing plays. Goff has been blitzed on 34.4% of his dropbacks (seventh highest). He has the most passing yards this season against the blitz (827 yards) while averaging 8.2 yards per pass attempt (sixth).

Running Back

Saquon Barkley (TRUST): Barkley set a career-high with 35 carries on Sunday, besting the 31 carries he had earlier this season in Week 4.

That has been the story with Barkley this season as he leads the NFL with 227 touches. He had 228 touches over the previous two seasons.

Barkley made those touches count with 160 total yards and his sixth touchdown of the season against the Texans.

We are catching Barkley as a home favorite in an equally appealing matchup as the one a week ago.

Detroit is 29th in success rate against running back carries (54.4%), allowing 5.0 YPC (27th) on those carries. The Lions are allowing a first down or touchdown on a league-high 27.0% of backfield carries.

Jamaal Williams: Williams turned 16 touches (once again all carries) into 59 yards against the Bears while finding the end zone for the ninth time this season. Williams led the backfield with 55.2% of the backfield touches as the staff continues to be cautious with D’Andre Swift.

You know what you are doing with Williams as a touchdown-dependent play on the RB2/FLEX line. Williams has just nine catches all season while averaging 7.5 PPR points per game in his weeks without a touchdown.

The Giants can be run on. They are allowing a league-high 2.36 yards prior to contact on running carries while allowing 5.41 YPC (30th) to backs.

D’Andre Swift: After playing 10 snaps in Week 9, Swift increased his snaps up to 19 this past week. He managed just six carries and one reception on those snaps. Either Swift is still really not 100% or the Lions are being overly cautious here, but it is a frustrating situation for a player averaging 7.1 yards per touch this season.

Swift did have a rushing touchdown (and was tackled on the 1-yard line on another carry) to salvage what he could on the limited workload, but Swift now has 10 or fewer touches in every game since Week 1. That type of usage leaves him as an all-or-nothing FLEX play in a really good matchup we would love to attack on paper.

Wide Receiver

Amon-Ra St. Brown: St. Brown continued to just soak up targets, catching 10-of-11 targets for 119 yards against the Bears. St. Brown did appear to potentially aggravate his ankle again to close the game but did not exit. Something to keep an eye on early in the week to see if there is anything here.

If everything checks out fine with his ankle, St. Brown can be trusted to fly right back into WR1 territory.

St. Brown is second among all wide receivers in target rate per route against the blitz (40.3%) and has an insane 44.3% team target share when he has been on the field against the blitz. The three highest-scoring games that the Giants have allowed this season have come from pseudo slot types (St. Brown plays 60% of snaps in the slot) in CeeDee Lamb (8-87-1), Randall Cobb (7-99-0), and Christian Kirk (7-96-0).

Darius Slayton: Slayton is back in our fantasy lives. He has been a WR3 or better in three straight weeks and in four of his past five games.

Since Week 5, Slayton is sixth among all wide receivers with 100 or more routes in yards per route run (2.63) and ninth in air yard share (37.1%). He is 23rd in target rate per route run (21.7%) over that span.

Slayton still needs to operate on efficiency firsthand due to the low-volume passing game for the Giants. He has had more than six targets just once with a season-high seven targets. Slayton also has not run a route on more than 82.1% of the team dropbacks in a game yet, so there is plenty of fragility here if using Slayton as a matchup-based WR3/FLEX.

Detroit and a WR-heavy bye week leaves the door open to throw him into lineups, though. The Lions are allowing 9.6 yards per target (30th) and 13.9 yards per catch (28th) to opposing wideouts.

Wan’Dale Robinson: Robinson played a season-high 75% of the snaps and ran a route on a team-high 82.6% of dropbacks but managed just two catches for 20 yards.

Robinson is just a real tricky archetype of receiver to get right and the wrong archetype of wideout to generate consistent fantasy points in a passing game that lacks tangible target volume. Robinson has a depth of target 4.7 yards downfield and is averaging 9.1 yards per catch. He needs a steady pipeline to targets to get there on that type of usage, something the Giants do not provide week-to-week.

If hoping that Robinson can collect targets as he did back in Week 7, Detroit is allowing a league-high 11.6 yards per target to opposing slot receivers. Robinson plays 68% of his snaps in the slot.

Kalif Raymond: Raymond has exactly three catches in each of the past three weeks. He is still without a touchdown on the year and has logged target shares of just 12.5% and 12.0% the past two weeks with Josh Reynolds sidelined.

If looking for a player that will be out there, though, Raymond has run a route on 156-of-166 dropbacks over the past five games.

D.J. Chark: Chark has been activated off injured reserve and appears on track to play Sunday. Chark had run a route on 89.1% of the team dropbacks when available. After a 4-52-1 game on eight targets in Week 1, Chark has secured 3-of-10 targets for 46 yards in his other two games. The Lions are a base 11 personnel offense and we have seen Tom Kennedy play in full with Kalif Raymond available the past two games, so Chark should draw plenty of playing time on his return for those extremely thin at the position.

Tight End

Giants TEs: Lawrence Cager led the way with 45 snaps among the New York tight ends this past week. He also caught a 9-yard touchdown. But don’t go too wild here as Cager only had two targets and ran just eight pass routes. Tanner Hudson played just 11 snaps, but nine of them were pass routes. Hudson had three targets, catching all three for 24 yards.

The passing snaps favor Hudson, but this is a lackluster split to buy into with any confidence. If you have to chase a touchdown here, the Lions are allowing a league-high 10.6% touchdown rate to opposing tight ends.

Lions TEs: From one tough tight end situation to another. Since the trade of T.J. Hockenson, each of Brock Wright, Shane Zylstra, and James Mitchell have a touchdown catch. But they also have combined to catch five passes for 15 yards in the past two weeks.

Wright led the group with 46 snaps, but just 10 of them were pass routes. Zylstra also ran 10 routes to Mitchell’s six.

Good luck to anyone chasing the next 1-yard touchdown here.