Daily Newsletter: NFL Week 11 Sleepers & Busts (Nov. 16th)
Welcome to our daily fantasy football newsletter! In today’s edition, we’re diving into the top sleepers and busts to target as we head into the second half of the season. Whether you're looking for breakout stars like Jauan Jennings and Kayshon Boutte or trying to avoid fading players like Sam Darnold and Tony Pollard, we've got you covered with the latest insights to help you make informed decisions for your fantasy roster.
Sleepers
Jauan Jennings
San Francisco is a team I’m buying all the stock in for the remainder of the season when it comes to fantasy football. They’re finally healthy on offense, and they need to get back into a play-off spot so they’ll be playing motivated football for the next two months. Jennings has quietly been great for them since Brandon Aiyuk went down with his knee injury. He’s been a top-10 WR in football in YPRR this year, and is being targeted on over 30% of his routes with Aiyuk off the field. He is set for a big role down the stretch of the season and I would begin targeting him this weekend.
Kayshon Boutte
For those that haven’t been following closely, Boutte has begun to breakout for the Patriots. This is a former five star recruit that set college football on fire in his freshman season at LSU. He’s dealt with a myriad of off the field issues since then, but it seems he is finally coming into his own at the professional level. He’s seen 6 targets in three straight games and is dominating the Patriots Air Yards over that span. New England gave him a further vote of confidence this week when they cut Tyquan Thornton. I’m expecting Boutte’s role to continue to grow and I’m buying stock now in the young WR.
Davis Allen
Similar to Boutte, if you haven’t been paying attention as of late, Allen has completely taken over as the Rams lead TE. His snap participation has risen in each of the last three weeks – while last week it nearly reached 90%. He caught five balls in that game, and this is a spot where we can capitalize opponents sleeping on a starting TE in a valuable passing offense.
Busts
Sam Darnold
It appears the magic has run out for Darnold, failing to top 20 fantasy points in three of his last four games and coming off a sub-10 point game in Week 10. The big point of emphasis here is turnovers – Darnold has turned it over SIX times over the Vikings last two games. He’s struggled outdoors this season as well, and has performed much better in the dome in Minnesota. This is a tough spot on the road against a good Titans defense and I will be avoiding Darnold until further notice.
Josh Downs
Downs was looking like a potential league winner with Joe Flacco at QB, but now the team has transitioned back to Anthony Richardson tanking any potential consistency from the pass catchers from week to week. Richardson operates a very volatile offense, where they’re going to lean on the run game and take deep shots down the field. The ceiling for a big play will always be there, but he’s failed to score double-digit fantasy points in any Richardson start this season and it’s a tough on-paper match-up with the Jets.
Tony Pollard
Pollard has been featured in this article multiple times this season under the sleeper category, but the time has come to fade him. This is a tough spot to trust the Titans offense whatsoever against Brian Flores defense, and the rest of season outlook for Pollard isn’t that optimistic. Tyjae Spears returned last week, and it resulted in a major decrease to Pollard’s workload. He saw a season low in route% and saw his overall snap-share drop to nearly 50/50 with Spears. Overall, he saw the ball just three more times than him. I can’t trust Pollard with Spears usage looking likely to increase as the season moves on, and the team continually in spots where their team total sits below 18 points.
Written by Ben Hossler