Steelers vs Jaguars Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 11

The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 11 Pittsburgh Steelers at Jacksonville Jaguars Sunday afternoon game.

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Pittsburgh	Rank	@	Jacksonville	Rank
-10		Spread	10
28.75		Implied Total	17.75
30.1	5	Points/Gm	22.1	26
19	3	Points All./Gm	30.1	31
65.1	10	Plays/Gm	63.1	23
62.8	10	Opp. Plays/Gm	64.8	18
40.61%	16	Rush%	35.21%	31
59.4%	17	Pass%	64.8%	2
39.1%	9	Opp. Rush %	46.7%	28
60.9%	24	Opp. Pass %	53.3%	5

The Steelers have forced 5.9 sacks plus turnovers per game, the most in the league.
The Jaguars have forced 2.0 sacks plus turnovers per game, the fewest in the league.
The Jaguars are the only team in the league that has not had the lead for at least 10% of their offensive snaps (4.6%).
Jacksonville is averaging 1.4 fewer yards per first-down play than their opponent, the worst differential in the league.
Pittsburgh wide receivers lead the NFL with 882 yards created after the catch. Their 51.2% YAC percentage trails only the San Francisco wide receivers (53.6%).
Ben Roethlisberger has been under pressure for just 20.1% of his dropbacks per Pro Football Focus, the lowest rate in the league.
After rushing for 129.7 yards per game over their first six games, the Steelers have rushed for 48, 46, and 44 yards the past three weeks.
Just 2.7% of Jake Luton’s pass attempts have come from inside of the red zone, which would be the lowest rate in the league over the full season.

Trust = spike production for that player
Bust = down-week production for that player’s standards

Quarterback

Ben Roethlisberger (TRUST): Roethlisberger has turned in back-to-back top-10 fantasy games the past two weeks, throwing for at least 300 yards and three scores in each. The Steelers have struggled to run the ball of late and have begun to lean into the short passing game to funnel their offense through. The past two games, Pittsburgh has called passing over rushing plays on 22-12 and 27-9 of their plays in the first half. The Jaguars rank 32nd in expected points added via pass defense and are dead last in sacks (nine). The past three quarterbacks to face the Jaguars have been top-10 scorers, something they have allowed in six of nine games this season.

Jake Luton: Luton has been the QB15 and QB22 in his two starts. Those two starts have come versus Houston and Green Bay, who are each in the bottom six in pressure rate defensively. The Steelers are first (32.8%) and blitz at the fifth-highest rate (36.9%). On 12 pass attempts against the blitz through two weeks, Luton is averaging just 3.9 yards per pass attempt. Luton is only an option in 2QB formats as a lower-end QB2.

Running Back

James Conner: After a strong start to the season, Conner has rushed the ball 37 times for 105 yards (2.8 YPC) the past three games. While we will run into peaks and valleys for nearly every fantasy player, what is concerning here is that the past weeks of 22 yards and 36 yards rushing have come against the Cowboys and Bengals, two defenses we have consistently hammered for production on the ground. The Steelers led throughout on Sunday as well. The run game has been so unreliable that the Steelers have outright scrapped trying to run.

The positive news is that Conner was not conceding opportunities last week. He played 87.7% of the snaps and handled 15 of the 18 backfield touches. This is another positive matchup as Jacksonville is allowing 14.9 rushing points per game (21st) to backs and 10 touchdowns to the position (23rd). Conner has squandered two stellar outlooks on paper the past two games to give us pause in expecting a ceiling performance, but remains a RB2 option based on matchup and share of team backfield opportunities.

James Robinson (BUST): Robinson has been one of the most reliable fantasy backs this season, leaning on two primary things: no backfield competition and a great schedule. Robinson has handled a league-high 86.4% of the Jacksonville backfield touches. Of his nine games played, just one so far has come against a team that has been in the top-15 in rushing points allowed to opposing backs while six have come against teams in the bottom-10. In terms of yards per carry allowed to backs, Robinson’s schedule to date has been versus teams that rank second, 20th, 21st, 31st, 32nd, 28th, 29th, 32nd, and 22nd.

Things get tighter here as the Steelers have allowed the fewest overall fantasy points per game to backfields and are allowing 4.1 YPC to backs (11th). Only Miles Sanders has posted an RB1 scoring week against Pittsburgh and only J.K. Dobbins has posted 100 yards from scrimmage against them. Robinson is still a volume-based starting Rb option, but he is going to need to find the end zone this week to turn in an RB1-level line.

Wide Receiver

Steelers WRs: The thing about the Steelers passing game is at least it is very concentrated. The trio of Diontae Johnson, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Chase Claypool have combined for 55.8% of the team receptions, 63.4% of the receiving yardage, and 58.1% of the team total touchdowns. Only five players have caught touchdowns for the Steelers all season with James Washington and Eric Ebron added in with this trio, so we know what we are getting.

Johnson has played six full games and has accrued double-digit targets in five of them with five games posting six or more receptions.

Smith-Shuster has bounced back from a slow start to the season with four consecutive top-30 scoring weeks and has developed into the foxhole target for the offense. Smith-Schuster is now tied for the league-lead with 22 receptions on third down and leads the team with six end zone targets.

Claypool has nine touchdowns in nine games and has seen his role solidify. Over the past three games, Claypool has nine, 13, and 10 targets. Over that span, he leads the team with 32 targets and 39% of the air yards.

This trio has weekly top-30 viability and can sustain output if the run game continues to struggle and they have to lean on the pass. Johnson is the volume-based option, Claypool the ceiling and touchdown chasing option while Smith-Schuster is the floor play. In terms of this specific matchup, Claypool and Johnson have the best matchups against a Jaguars depth chart that is thin on boundary corners and just placed C.J. Henderson on injured reserve.

D.J. Chark: Even with Jaire Alexander sidelined last week, Chark managed just 14.3% of the team targets, catching 4-of-5 looks for 56 yards. The wind did the deep passing game no favors, but this is largely the area of performance we have lived with through Chark this season. Through eight games played, Chark has been a top-30 option just twice, but he has been outside of the top-40 just twice as well. In his games played, he leads the team with 20% of the targets and 34% of the air yards.

This is Luton’s toughest matchup so far by a wide margin, so we will get a look at the true floor potential for this offense with him under center, but the Steelers have given up some splash plays in the passing game to give us some life. 17.9% of the completions allowed by Pittsburgh have been for 20 or more yards, 30th in the league. Chark is a volume-based WR3.

Keelan Cole: We will see if Laviska Shenault returns from a hamstring injury that sidelined him a week ago. with Shenault out, Cole received seven targets after getting four targets over his previous two games. Cole has hit 60 yards just once on the season, making him a touchdown-dependent WR5.

Tight End

Eric Ebron: Ebron has not topped 52 yards yet in a game this season. He ranks 14th at the position target share (14.5%) and 15th in targets per game (5.4). The Jaguars have faced just 6.2 targets per game to tight ends (eighth fewest), but are 28th in yardage allowed per game (57.9) and have allowed a league-high 12.5% touchdown rate to the position. Ebron is a matchup-based TE1 option.

This article is normally behind a members-only paywall, but is 100% free this week as part of Sharp Football’s 2020 Free Week.

Don’t miss out: Join Free Week, where anyone can get total access to Warren Sharp’s NFL betting recommendations and our premium fantasy football for all of Week 11.

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