3 Vital DraftKings Trends for Week 11

Welcome to Week 11, a slate of games I am dubbing: “Backup Quarterback Bonanza.” We have six (!) second-string signal callers at the helm this week including the infallible Blaine Gabbert starting against Seattle on the road! How fun.

Let me be clear, I don’t hate anyone. But I live in Jacksonville and the “Gabbert years” in this city were… painful. Watching Gabbert trot out there every week and single-handedly set the quarterback position back 25 years was a special version of hell. Gabbert completed less than 60% of his passes in 22-of-28 games as a Jaguar. I’m not bitter still. I promise. That statistic is just forever ingrained in my memory.

While I try to console myself, let’s move onto Week 11’s most important trends.

 

1. Dez Bryant Is The Most Interesting Play on The Week 11 Slate

 

The above trend is Dez Bryant’s Plus/Minus (average actual points – salary-based expected points) when his salary declines. Dez was $8,700 with Tony Romo healthy in Week 1 and is $7,700 this week on DraftKings.

With Tony Romo back, I think Dez Bryant makes for the most interesting play on this week’s slate. Much like Antonio Brown when Big Ben returned from injury, Bryant is underpriced and has his ceiling and floor back in place with Romo active. Also helping the case for Dez this week is the Dolphins’ are bleeding fantasy points to opposing wideouts.

Miami has the highest opponent plus/minus allowed to wide receivers (2.7) and have allowed three “ceiling” games to wide receivers in their last four. The ‘Fins allowed 33.7 PPR points (9-127-2 on 16 targets) to Nate Washington in Week 7, 27.1 points (7-81-2 on 9 targets) to Julian Edelman in Week 8, and 30.8 points (8-168-1 on 8 targets) to Sammy Watkins in Week 9.

Dez Bryant was 7% owned in the Thursday slate on FanDuel.

 

2. Matthew Stafford, At Home, Against Weak Secondaries

The Oakland Raiders secondary has allowed 20-plus fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks in seven of nine games. The only two signal callers to post fewer than 20 fantasy points against Oakland was Peyton Manning in Week 5 and Teddy Bridgewater in Week 10. The Raiders’ secondary is continually getting ripped to shreds by competent quarterbacks — they rank 22^nd in Football Outsiders’ Pass Defense DVOA and are one of three teams allowing quarterbacks to throw for 300-plus yards per game.

I completely realize that Matthew Stafford and the Lions’ offense has been downright abysmal at times this year. Their offensive line ranks 28^th in run blocking and 15^th in pass protection (per Football Outsiders), and Stafford himself has thrown for over 300 yards just once this season. However, that one time was in Week 6 at home to Chicago – Stafford threw for 405 yards and four touchdowns. Going into that game, the Bears defense was allowing a 65% completion percentage and an 11:2 TD-to-INT ratio.

The thing is, Stafford has always dusted bad opponents at home. Using RotoViz’s Game Splits App, here are Stafford’s splits against pass defenses ranked 20^th or worse (in split) and all other games (out of split) since 2013:

 

3. Eric Decker Is Consistently Underpriced and Underowned

 

What does Eric Decker need to do to garner more respect? He’s still -$200 cheaper this week ($5,800) than he was on opening day ($6,000) despite smashing expectation each week since. Decker has scored in seven of eight active games and has four straight games of six receptions, at least 60 yards, and a touchdown. Per Rotoworld’s Evan Silva, Ryan Fitzpatrick has targeted Eric Decker 38 times since the Jets Week 5 bye, and Brandon Marshall 36 times since the off week. Decker is always in play.