Fantasy Football Target Trends for Week 11
Welcome to the target trends article headed into Week 11! In his weekly article, I take a look at the season-long target trends before recapping the most fantasy-relevant target performances of the previous week, all to give you an edge in your leagues.
Tyreek Hill was leading the NFL with 111 targets headed into Monday night, but Cooper Kupp overtook him yet again, seeing 13 targets to bring his season total up to 116. He also leads all players with 11.6 targets/game. Travis Kelce is pulling away from the rest of the tight end field. His 89 targets on the season are 18 more than current runner-up Darren Waller, who’s played two fewer games. Kelce and Waller are tied on a per-game basis at 8.9 targets/game. As for running backs, D’Andre Swift continues leading the way with 63 targets and 7.0 targets/game on the season.
But enough about the season-long leaders, let’s take a look at the most telling target performances from Week 10.
Stefon Diggs – 13 targets, 8 rec
The 13 targets Diggs saw this week matched the season-high he set back in Week 1. He turned them into the WR1 performance of Week 10. Josh Allen targeted eight different Bills against the Jets on Sunday, but no other Buffalo pass-catcher saw more than three targets in the game.
Diontae Johnson – 13 targets, 7 rec
Ray-Ray McCloud – 12 targets, 9 rec
Pat Freiermuth – 9 targets, 5 rec
Once again, it’s no surprise to find Diontae Johnson popping up in the article. The same can’t be said for Ray-Ray McCloud. He’d never seen more than four targets in any previous game of his four-year career and had only seen ten total targets over the first eight games of this season. Meanwhile, Pat Freiermuth set another new career-high with nine targets and has seen an average of 7.3 targets/game over the last four weeks.
Marquise Brown – 13 targets, 6 rec
Rashod Bateman – 8 targets, 6 rec
Mark Andrews – 8 targets, 6 rec
Hollywood is taking a huge step forward in his third season. He’s seen double-digit targets seven times in his career, and five of them have already come this season. He’s only 18 targets away from his career-high (100) with eight games still left to play. Mark Andrews is also pacing to smash his career-high in targets. He’s currently on pace for 130 targets, 32 more than his career-high. Baltimore’s increased passing volume has even allowed Bateman to see an impressive 28 targets over his first four career games.
Justin Jefferson – 11 targets, 9 rec
After seeing just nine total targets over the previous two weeks, Jefferson bounced back with his fourth double-digit target outing of the season. He turned them into a season-high 143 receiving yards and finished as the WR7 on the week, despite not scoring a touchdown.
Christian McCaffrey – 10 targets, 10 rec
After missing 18 of his last 24 games, CMC is getting back into his groove as the best pass-catching running back in the league. In Week 11, he saw double-digit targets for the 17th time in his career. He’s played just five games so far this year, but he still has the same amount of targets (32) as Ezekiel Elliot. If you take out the Week 3 game that McCaffrey left early, he’d be averaging 7.5 targets/game.
Darrell Williams – 9 targets, 9 rec
Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce each had ten targets, but that’s just a ho-hum performance for two of the most targeted players in the league. Seeing Darrell Williams targeted nine times was a bit more surprising. He’s the first Kansas City running back to see nine or more targets in a game since Kareem Hunt in 2017. It remains to be seen if Clyde Edwards-Helaire will see similar passing game usage when he returns.
Jerry Jeudy – 9 targets, 6 rec
Courtland Sutton – 3 targets, 2 rec
Jerry Jeudy leads the Broncos with 21 targets since he returned in Week 8. Over that same period, Cortland Sutton has only been targeted nine times. That’s fewer than Tim “Fireball” Patrick (14) and Albert Okwuegbunam (11). Sutton is talented enough to bounce out of this target slump, but it’s tough to trust him in fantasy lineups until he does.
DK Metcalf – 8 targets, 3 rec
Tyler Lockett – 8 targets, 2 rec
Gerald Everett – 8 targets, 8 rec
Russell Wilson’s looked awfully rusty in his first game back. The targets were evenly distributed between his top three pass-catchers, but the success rate went down as the depth of targets went up. Everett, who caught all eight of his targets, had a meager 2.9 yard aDOT. Metcalf caught three of his eight, with an aDOT of 13.9 yards, and Lockett caught just two of his eight, with an aDOT of 22.4 yards.
Mike Gesicki – 7 targets, 0 rec
Gesicki goosed in Week 10, but his seven targets were still enough to lead the team. His 70 targets so far this season are the third-most among tight ends. His current 17-game pace would put him at 117 targets on the season, destroying his current career-high of 89 from 2019.
Adam Trautman – 6 targets, 5 rec
I mentioned Trautman in this article last week, and he saw another moderate target total this week. He’s seen 19 targets over the past three weeks, which is the same amount as Mike Gesicki and Tyler Conklin over that span. He’s a viable tight-end streaming option in Week 11 in an ideal matchup with the Eagles.
A.J. Brown – 4 targets, 1 rec
The four targets for Brown in Week 10 were the fewest he’d seen in a full game played since Week 10 of last season. Prior to last week, he had seen 9.2 targets/game since returning from injury in Week 5 and 11 targets in back-to-back weeks. We should expect his target volume to bounce back with Julio Jones and Derrick Henry both still sidelined for several weeks.
T.J. Hockenson – 1 target, 0 rec
Charting Hockenson’s weekly target totals would resemble a roller coaster. He’s seen eight or more targets six times this season but seen three or fewer in the other three games. After finishing as the TE1 before his bye in Week 8, the goose in Week 10 is likely rock-bottom for Hockules.
Check here for all the season-long target leaders.