The Detroit Lions will face the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 11. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Lions skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 11 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Jared Goff, QB
- Quarterbacks greatly impact winning NFL championships.
- Quarterbacks greatly impact winning fantasy championships.
With those two facts, I can understand the desire to back a QB on a Super Bowl threat, but Jared Goff has just two finishes better than QB9 this season. For reference, Geno Smith and Derek Carr have more. Heck, Justin Fields has the same number of such performances this season.
I don’t think the five-interception version of Goff that we saw on Sunday night is here to stay, especially against a bottom-three pass defense in yards per pass, completion percentage, and passer rating. The lack of rushing upside and the run-heavy script have Goff outside of my top 12 this week, though I think you could talk yourself into him putting up big numbers early against a vulnerable defense when it comes to DFS builds.
David Montgomery, RB
I don’t love the fact that David Montgomery has failed to clear 12 carries in five of his past six games, but with a touchdown in seven of his past nine while playing for one of the top three offenses in the league, I’m more willing to overlook the limited touch ceiling.
The Jaguars own a bottom-10 red-zone defense, allowing a touchdown on 60.5% of red-zone drives, making them the perfect spot to employ Montgomery with plenty of confidence.
Jahmyr Gibbs, RB
Sunday night was a crazy game for a variety of reasons, but with Jared Goff struggling, it was great to see them trust Jahmyr Gibbs with a season-high 19 carries. He wasn’t very efficient with that work (71 yards), but if you’re telling me we are giving an explosive player like Gibbs usage like that, I’ll take it to the bank.
Gibbs’ boom/bust rate (difference in the percentage of carries gaining 10+ yards to carries failing to gain any yards) is +2.5% — he’s the only qualified RB with more 10-yard gains than stuff efforts this season. That level of explosiveness has fueled eight top-20 finishes, and I see no reason to bet against this profile moving forward.
Detroit ranks 23rd in pass rate over expectation, a style of play-calling that allows them to give us two running backs whom we can trust at a high level every week.
Amon-Ra St. Brown, WR
We praise Khalil Shakir’s efficiency in Buffalo but acknowledge his upside is limited. We love the floor he provides, even if it comes with the understanding that he is unlikely to post a week-altering fantasy point total.
Amon-Ra St. Brown is the superhero version of Shakir. He’s scored in a franchise-record seven straight games, hauling in 40 of 43 targets over that stretch. Scoring streaks like this often come from an A.J. Brown type of profile, where he is producing highlight after highlight and benefiting from an elite volume that puts an athlete in a position to dominate.
Not for St. Brown. He’s winning in every single situation, and no defense has figured out how to come even close to slowing him down. In all seven games during this run, St. Brown has produced at least 30% over fantasy expectations. Detroit is getting whatever it wants, whenever it wants it with its WR1.
The list of receivers who could lead the position in fantasy points the rest of the way isn’t long, but it certainly has St. Brown’s name on it.
Jameson Williams, WR
Jameson Williams returned from his two-game PES suspension on Sunday night and gave us … well, he gave us essentially spot-on what his season averages tell us to expect (three catches for 53 yards).
That may sound underwhelming, but that’s on you if you’re expecting more. We were all encouraged by what we saw early in the season, but on a per-game basis, Williams is giving us 2.9 catches for 59.1 yards. He hasn’t taken the leap forward that we expected, and I’d argue that he is closer to regressing than progressing.
In Year 2, his catch rate is identical to what it was in Year 1 (57.1%) with a near mirror image in terms of aDOT (15.6 yards this season, 15.8 last). The hot start to the season was nice, but that’s proven to very much be the outlier and not the norm. In his five games since, he’s earned a target on just 12.5% of routes, a rate below what he produced as a rookie (17.5%).
Now, he did make a few tough catches that proved critical in Detroit’s comeback win last week, and maybe that sparks something, but he’s firmly in the “I need to see it” tier.
He could show us something against a Jags defense that allows the second most yards per deep pass attempt through 10 weeks (16.5), and I’m fine with you considering him as a Flex option, I’m just not saying you have to (I have Ladd McConkey and Cedric Tillman ranked just ahead of him as a part of the same tier).
Sam LaPorta, TE
Sam LaPorta has quieted some of the haters by scoring in three of his past five games and posting 91 air yards in Sunday night’s win (his first game north of 42), but I still have my concerns.
Jared Goff hasn’t funneled a red-zone target the way of his starting tight end in four of the past five games. In an offense based on efficiency like this one, I worry about the target-earning capacity of LaPorta’s role.
Last season, he was consistently featured and saw a target on 23.8% of his routes. That rate is down to 15.7% this season. While I still have him ranked as a fringe fantasy starter (Jacksonville allows the third-most yards per pass this season), his odds of hitting his floor are as low as anyone in that range of my rankings.
Jacksonville Jaguars at Detroit Lions Trends
Jacksonville Jaguars
Team: The Jaguars have lost three straight games, all to playoff hopefuls (Packers, Eagles, and Vikings). In those games, they’ve been out-scored by a total of 13 points.
QB: Per our QB+ metric, Mac Jones posted a D+ on Sunday, which is the exact average of Trevor Lawrence this season.
Offense: Jacksonville ranks 29th in average time to throw this season, pacing for their third straight bottom-5 finish in that metric.
Defense: The Jaguars had three takeaways last week vs. the Vikings after posting just five all season. Jacksonville hasn’t had consecutive games with multiple takeaways since Weeks 4-6 of last season.
Fantasy: Brian Thomas Jr. has three games with over 21 PPR points and four single-digit performances.
Betting: Unders are 10-2 in the Jaguars’ past 12 games as an underdog of more than seven points.
Detroit Lions
Team: The Lions won last week despite a five-interception game from Jared Goff – the NFL record in such spots now sits at 9-117 since the 1970 merger (this was the first such win since Matt Ryan in 2012).
QB: Over the past two months, Goff has a five-interception game and five games with no more than five incompletions.
Offense: Three of the top-5 teams in rush attempts per game are also top-5 units in terms of yards per pass (Ravens, Eagles, and Lions).
Defense: Detroit allows a touchdown on just 15.8% of opponent drives, the fifth lowest rate in the NFL (Jacksonville is fifth worst in this category at 27.8%).
Fantasy: Jahmyr Gibbs’ boom/bust rate (difference in the percentage of carries gaining 10-plus yards to carries failing to gain any yards) is +2.5% – he’s the only qualified RB with more 10-yard gains than stuff efforts this season.
Betting: Overs are 4-1 in the last five games in which the Lions have been favored by more than seven points (they’ve failed to cover three of the past four).