Week 11 is underway, bringing fantasy managers another round of crucial start/sit decisions. These are my biggest stands and fades at every position heading into Sunday's slate.
▶ Quarterback
Start: Jacoby Brissett, Cardinals
You might not like it, but this is what peak streaming looks like. Brissett has at least two passing touchdowns in all four starts this year. His lowest yardage total of the season is 258. Brissett is the QB10 over the past four weeks. Now he faces a San Francisco defense that ranks 28th in EPA per passing play allowed. The 49ers are giving up the 10th-most fantasy points to opposing passers this year. If you need a streaming QB2, Brissett is your man.
Start: Matthew Stafford, Rams
The Seahawks are generally a tough matchup for quarterbacks, primarily because of how much havoc their defensive line creates. Seattle’s defense ranks fifth in pressure rate and sixth in sack conversion rate. This combo, in turn, has boosted them to first in total sacks per game. Stafford, however, is the perfect counter to this defense. He has the seventh-best pressure-to-sack rate this year. PFF has him graded as a top-five passer under pressure. He has six touchdowns and no interceptions under pressure. Stafford should have no issues surviving the Seattle matchup.
Sit: Bo Nix, Broncos
Few quarterbacks have been more matchup-dependent than Nix this year.
That’s 24 points per game against below-average pass defenses and 15.7 versus above-average units. Nix has four QB1 outings this year. Only one has come against a defense that ranked inside the top 20 in EPA per play. The Chiefs, his Week 11 opponent, are ninth in EPA per dropback allowed.
Sit: Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars
Vegas has lost faith in the Jags. They have the sixth-lowest team total of the week at 20.25 points. The Bengals, Texans, Cardinals, and Commanders—all of whom are down to their backup quarterbacks—are all projected to score more points than the Jags. He faces a Chargers defense this week that ranks fourth in EPA per dropback allowed. Lawrence has one top-10 fantasy finish in 2025. The ceiling is too fleeting and the floor is too present to keep him in our fantasy lineups.
Ranking and evaluating all of Week 11’s top plays at quarterback.
▶ Running Back
Start: Jaylen Warren, Steelers
The Steelers are seven-point favorites over the Bengals at home. No team—not a single NFL franchise—is projected to score more points on Sunday than the Steelers. Warren has seen 80 percent of the Steelers' carries over the past month and that will be more than enough to take advantage of a horrific Bengals run defense. Cincinnati has allowed more rushing yards than any other team and only two defenses have given up more rushing scores.
Start: Kimani Vidal, Chargers
Vidal strangely ceded work to Jarrett Patterson two weeks ago. That vanished in Week 10. Vidal dominated the backfield work to the tune of a 94 percent snap share with 89 percent of the team’s carries. It’s been a bumpy ride if you picked up Vidal over a month ago, but the returns in total have been solid on the whole. He has finished as an RB1 in three of his past five games. PFF has him graded as a top-25 back. He ranks fourth in Next Gen’s rush yards over expected per carry. Vidal and the Chargers are field goal favorites over the Jags, meaning game script will be on his side on Sunday.
Sit: Jordan Mason, Vikings
Mason clung to a minor backfield lead two weeks ago. The Vikings erased that in Week 10, giving Aaron Jones nine carries to Mason’s four. Jones also led the way with a 63 percent route rate compared to just 17 percent for his backfield counterpart. Jones is averaging more yards after contact per attempt this year and has a higher explosive run rate. The team is hedging toward talent with their backfield touches. Mason can stay on the bench this week while Jones is a solid FLEX play versus the Bears.
Sit: Kyle Monangai, Bears
The Bears saw Monangai’s breakout with D’Andre Swift sidelined and decided they will be having no more of that. Monangai plummeted to a 39 percent snap share and saw just a third of the team’s carries. Swift also got the team’s only goal line look and ran more routes. Now the Bears are road underdogs to the Vikings. If they do end up losing, that will mean less work to trickle down to Chicago’s RB2. Monangai could wind up unseating Swift in the long run, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Ranking and evaluating all of Week 11’s top plays at running back.
▶ Wide Receiver
Start: Christian Watson, Packers
Watson hasn’t done much since returning to the lineup this year, but it’s worth leaving the light on for him one more week. The Giants use man coverage on 35 percent of their defensive snaps. That is the third-highest rate in the league. It’s a limited sample, but Watson easily leads the Packers with 2.6 yards per route run versus man coverage this year. We can look at 2024 for a larger dataset. Watson’s 3.3 YPRR versus man ranked sixth in the entire league. He has a monstrous 39 percent air yards share since returning to the lineup three weeks ago but hasn’t hit for a big fantasy day just yet. The man-heavy Giants have given up the seventh-most deep completions and the sixth-most deep yards in 2025. The stars are aligned for a Watson breakout.
Start: Khalil Shakir, Bills
Shakir has turned things around after a quiet start to this season. He has dominated targets since Week 3, racking up a 26 percent target share and catching at least five passes in all but one game over that stretch. Shakir missed much of the offseason with an injury and was slow to step up. He appears to be back to normal now and the Bills will be leaning on him even more this week with Dalton Kincaid out.
Sit: Jerry Jeudy, Browns
Jeudy posted his first usable fantasy score of the year last week with a 6/78/1 line. Don’t be fooled. It will not last. He has a middling target share of 21 percent. Those targets are among the least valuable in the league. Jeudy ranks 62nd out of 66 qualified wideouts in catchable target rate (61 percent). That number has fallen to 57 percent with Dillon Gabriel under center.
Sit: Courtland Sutton, Broncos
Troy Franklin’s takeover of the WR1 job in Denver is all but complete. Franklin leads the team in targets (73) and catches (42). His grip on the job has grown stronger over the past month. He has a 28 percent target in his past four games. This has crushed Sutton’s role. Sutton has a 19 percent target share during that stretch. He has turned that into 10.2 fantasy points per game and zero top-20 weekly finishes.
Ranking and evaluating all of Week 11’s top plays at receiver.
▶ Tight End
Start: Cade Otton, Bucs
Otton has quietly amassed a sizable target share in the absence of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, just like he did last year. Godwin last played in Week 5. Evans played 14 snaps in Week 7 but otherwise hasn’t played since Week 3. Otton has earned a 24 percent target share in his past four games, good for 32 targets in total. He averaged 12.2 points per game during that stretch and now gets a potential shootout with the Bills.
Start: Greg Dulcich, Dolphins
I cribbed this take from Denny Carter on the latest episode of the Rotoworld Football Show. Be sure to check it out.
If you are down unfathomably bad at tight end, Dulcich is your man. He has a 15 percent target share over the past two weeks and jumped to a 74 percent route rate in Week 10. His Week 11 opponent, Washington, has given up the fifth-most fantasy points to tight ends this year.
Sit: David Njoku, Browns
The Browns appear to be winding down Njoku’s playing time. He last ran more than 56 percent of the routes in Week 5. He has just two games with a target share over 16 percent, the last of which also came in Week 5. Njoku was banged up before the team’s Week 9 bye, giving him an alibi for the light usage. Coming out of the bye, Njoku wasn’t even on the injury report and still ran half of the routes. He’s just a backup tight end now.
Sit: Zach Ertz, Commanders
Both the ceiling and the floor are gone for Ertz with Marcus Mariota under center. Mariota has made four starts this year. Ertz hasn’t finished better than TE15 in a Mariota game.
He is averaging fewer than seven PPR points per game when Jayden Daniels is out of the lineup. This is in part because of how run-heavy the Commanders lean when Daniels is injured. They have posted an average pass rate over expected of -5.8% in his starts. Playing a close game with a bad Miami run defense, expect more of the same, and less of Ertz, in Week 11.
Ranking and evaluating all of Week 11’s top plays at tight end, kicker, and defense.
Patrick Daugherty
