Week 11 Walkthrough: The Breakfast Club
Welcome to the Week 11 Walkthrough.
In this article, I'll outline critical fantasy football context for the 11th glorious football Sunday.
(The stats below are from PFF, NFLfastR, rbsdm.com, RotoViz, FantasyLabs, Fantasy Points, ESPN, and NFL Next Gen).
Subscribers can view the PROE data in a sheet at the bottom of the post.
Quick Links
- Rams at Patriots, 1 PM
- Ravens at Steelers, 1 PM
- Jaguars at Lions, 1 PM
- Packers at Bears, 1 PM
- Raiders at Dolphins, 1 PM
- Browns at Saints, 1 PM
- Vikings at Titans, 1 PM
- Colts at Jets, 1 PM
- Falcons at Broncos, 4:05 PM
- Seahawks at 49ers, 4:05 PM
- Chiefs at Bills, 4:25 PM
Rams at Patriots, 1 PM
Rams Implied Team Total: 24.25
Matthew Stafford has run very hot and cold this year. He was great against the 49ers and excellent three weeks ago against the Vikings. But he’s also turned in some very poor performances – including last week against the Dolphins.
The good news is that Stafford has been solidly consistent this year. His 49% success rate ranks QB9 – besting QBs like Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Geno Smith, and Sam Darnold.
Success rate is a more stable metric than EPA, setting up Stafford as a positive regression candidate. And positive regression is always easier to achieve against a weak pass defense.
The Patriots’ biggest weakness in pass defense is their inability to consistently generate pressure. They are a willing blitzing team, but perform poorly when sending extra defenders—ranking dead last in pass rush get-off and seventh-worst in pressure rate.
This is great news for Stafford, who is playing behind a weak offensive line and has not been efficient when pressured.
The threat of pressure also looks to be having an effect here. The Rams rank just 30th in PFF’s pass blocking grades but are 11th best in preventing pressure. Stafford deserves some credit here. Against the blitz, he has the fifth-quickest time to throw (TTT) at 2.47 seconds. When pressured, he also has the fifth-quickest TTT at 3.14s. Stafford’s 2.78s TTT on all throws is middle of the pack, so he looks to be modulating his play for the situation in front of him.
There’s additional data that supports this idea. PFF charts Stafford with just a 1% allowed pressure rate. Only Mason Rudolph, Kirk Cousins, and Geno Smith have been better.
If Stafford is adjusting his play to avoid pressure, it would stand to reason that a reduced threat of pressure – along with less pressure actually materializing – would unlock some upside.
In this case, it looks like that upside could come in the form of splash zone throws. Attacking the splash zone (10+ yards downfield and over the middle) has been a consistent feature of Shanahan-tree offenses—because targets there tend to generate YAC.
Stafford has only attempted 25 of these throws this season; 19 (76%) of them have been from a clean pocket. And in 2023, 68% of Stafford’s splash zone throws were from a clean pocket. If the Rams feel confident that they can keep Stafford clean here... the passing offense could start clicking.
This season, we’re seeing pretty similar splash zone target rates for Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp. By the numbers, they’re profiling as co-WR1s—in the splash zone, and overall.
But Kupp has had the advantage of playing without Nacua this year, while Nacua has been sharing the field with Kupp when healthy. And last year, Nacua was the Rams’ go-to WR in the splash zone.
Both WRs are strong bets this week, but if Stafford is able to execute a more YAC-friendly game plan than we’ve seen from the 2024 Rams to date, Nacua’s upside is outrageous. Coming off 84% route participation and 13 targets against the Dolphins, it’s time to treat Nacua like the elite WR we drafted him to be.
Kupp is also a terrific play here. Last year’s splash zone usage was likely at least partly injury-related. Kupp dominated targets there in 2022.
Passing volume is a potential fly in the ointment here. The Patriots have been shaping up into a bit of a run funnel. Even with a 71% pass rate in their disastrous loss last week, the Bears posted a -6% PROE against the Patriots.
I don’t expect the Rams to be aggressively run-heavy here, but it’s hard to see them being truly pass-heavy either. We should expect a balanced game plan against a defense that isn’t great against the run.
This sets up Kyren Williams for a nice day. Williams is living proof that volume is king at RB. He’s been extremely inefficient as both a runner and receiver – yet he leads all RBs in snap share, carry share, and route participation. The end result is 18.3 PPR points per game. Williams is a locked-in RB1.
Patriots Implied Team Total: 19.25
Over the last two weeks, Drake Maye has led the Patriots to a 20-17 overtime loss and a 19-3 win. But his efficiency in those games has actually been pretty poor.
For the season, Maye’s profile looks better than Bo Nix’s or Caleb Williams’ – but it’s still far from impressive if we stop grading on a rookie curve.
Promisingly, Maye now moves from three consecutive tough defensive matchups to a soft Rams pass defense.
The Rams pressure rate is strong but they take a long time to create pressure and don't have a great defensive line. They're also very vulnerable in coverage.
With a slow 2.93s TTT, Drake Maye could use the extra time that the Rams slow time to pressure should afford.
Maye also needs to improve on his downfield passing efficiency. His 4.0 average depth of completion is 3.5 yards lower than his aDOT – which is a concerning differential. The Rams poor coverage should help out there as well.
This looks like a setup for one of Maye’s most efficient games of the season. However, passing volume remains a big question mark. The Rams have been a run funnel.
No team has topped a 61% pass rate against Los Angeles.
The Rams run defense looks more mediocre than bad, but when I see something like this, I tend to view it as a sign that NFL coaches are picking up something we aren’t seeing in the numbers. After all, it’s not like the Rams are rolling over for their opponents. They’re a 4-5 team… that likely has an exploitable run defense.
Over the last four weeks, the Patriots have been a reasonably balanced team. They pivoted to the run on 1st down last week, but they’ve been far less conservative in recent weeks than they were to start the year.
They’ve also been willing to pass when pushed.
Ultimately, the Patriots look dependent on the Rams pushing them, if we’re hoping for passing volume. Left to their own devices, we’ll likely see a game plan at least slightly tilted to the run.
Regardless of the game script, Rhamondre Stevenson looks like a safe bet for touches. He’s coming off a 70% snap share against the Bears, and is running well enough to be a solid, volume-based RB2 here.
Last week, Hunter Henry saw just two targets, going 1/14/0. It was a rough game for a player who was starting to look like the focal point of the Patriots passing game. But Henry also saw double coverage on 28% of his routes – a high rate for a tight end. His 86% route participation was bested by only Kayshon Boutte. All of which is to say: Henry was likely a bigger part of the game plan than it appeared.
But Henry will likely face a similar level of defensive attention here. The Rams aren’t shy about double covering opposing weapons and were fairly aggressive in double-coverage rates against Sam LaPorta (23%), Trey McBride (29%), Cole Kmet (25%), and Brock Bowers (21%).
This doesn’t look like a smash spot for Henry, but he’s going to be out there a lot and has performed fairly efficiently this year. He’s a low-end TE1.
The Patriots shuffled up their WR usage last week. With Kendrick Bourne benched, K.J. Osborn was back up to 55% route participation, and Ja’Lynn Polk climbed back up to 34%. But Kayshonne Boutte remained locked in at 100% route participation, leading the team with six targets. His profile looks pretty damn weak, but his coaches clearly trust him, and Maye is very comfortable throwing to him. He’s on the WR4 borderline.
Demario Douglas was down to 62% route participation last week – his lowest mark of the season, save his illness-related 24% mark in Week 7. I view this as personnel related, though; the Patriots played a lot of 2TE sets, with Austin Hooper posting 48% route participation. As home underdogs, we should see significantly more 3WR sets this week, making Douglas a solid PPR WR4.
