NFL DFS WR/CB Matchups: Week 11
Wide receiver cornerback matchups are hardly the gospel for daily fantasy sports on DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo. Every situation is different and they haven’t always been used optimally over the years. That said, there are still situations on the extremes where we may want to target (or avoid) a player based on their direct opposition on defense. Each week we create a WR vs. CB Matchup Chart to help us bring extreme matchups to the surface. We will now dive deep into the matchups for daily fantasy football and see who we will need to consider adjusting our projections and projected ownership for in this upcoming slate.
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NFL DFS WR vs. CB Matchups for Week 11
Keenan Allen
Likely CB: Arthur Maulet
WR Rating: 68.06
CB Rating: 42.55
CB Yards Per Route Allowed: 0.88
CB QB Rating Allowed: 118.75
I feel like I have talked about Allen so much in these articles the past few weeks that I can recite the numbers off the top of my head at this point. We know he is good. We know Herbert loves throwing to him. Blah blah blah.
And then I load up this week’s WR/CB Matchup Chart and see that Allen has one of the biggest gaps in Matchup Rating in terms of best to second best. Are you serious!? Is it possible to like him even more this week now?
His 25.51 Matchup Rating leads the Week 11 main slate, and it is more than 10 points more than the second guy on the list (who we will discuss shortly). Yes, a lot of that has to do with Keenan, as his 68.06 WR Rating is the eighth best on the slate. But even more of it might have to do with Arthur Maulet, who has the third lowest CB Rating on the slate.
In Allen, we have a guy we already liked due to a ton of volume, probably a slightly depressed price tag still, and a great macro matchup against a Jets defense that ranks dead last in Pass Defense DVOA. Then we see that he also has a great micro matchup as well.
So yes, it is possible to like him even more this week. And that, my friends, is how you answer your own rhetorical question!
Adam Thielen
Likely CB: Anthony Brown
WR Rating: 66.34
CB Rating: 51.24
CB Yards Per Route Allowed: 0.92
CB QB Rating Allowed: 100.45
Seeing Thielen pop up on this chart with the second best Matchup Rating (15.10) adds even more intrigue to using him together with Kirk Cousins as a way to differentiate yourself from the Dalvin Cook chalk.
Guess which defense has given up the most passing touchdowns in the league to opposing wide receivers? You are darn right it is the Dallas Cowboys; their 16 touchdowns allowed is tied with one other team (the Vikings, believe it or not…shootout!?), with the next closest being 13 allowed.
It seems Justin Jefferson has the reputation for being the bigger downfield threat, but their aDOT’s this season are stunningly similar (both slightly above 12). On top of that, Thielen slightly edges him out in terms of market share of air yards (39.9% to 36.5%).
And when they get inside the 20 yard-line, Cousins basically has eyes for only one of them. In that scenario, Thielen has 11 targets, while Jefferson has a measly two.
So all of that mumbo-jumbo, combined with this phenomenal individual matchup against Anthony Brown, has me extremely interested in a Cousins/Thielen mini-stack if you are looking to get away from the Cook chalk.
Jakobi Meyers
Likely CB: Vernon Hargreaves
WR Rating: 54.52
CB Rating: 40.56
CB Yards Per Route Allowed: 1.69
CB QB Rating Allowed: 107.73
Meyers is on pace to be some pretty heavy chalk this weekend, and this matchup against Hargreaves would seem to only increase that number as we get closer to Sunday. Meyers is actually projected for the highest ownership at wide receiver on DraftKings, with the aforementioned Keenan Allen trailing him in second. On FanDuel, their spots are switched.
I mentioned up in that Allen blurb how Allen/good + Maulet/bad was leading to such a huge Matchup Rating. Well, this one for Meyers is way more about Hargreaves being bad. How bad? His 40.56 CB Rating is even lower than Maulet’s. A mere two hundredths of a point is keeping him from having the worst CB Rating on the entire slate.
Hargreaves allows the fourth most yards per route run on the slate. On top of that, Meyers holds a four-inch height advantage on him.
Considering how much Cam Newton has been looking to Meyers (hint: it’s a lot) since Julian Edelman went down, it gives me even more reason to think that Meyers has a big game this weekend. In the last two games alone, he’s hauled in 17 of his 21 targets. It doesn’t appear that Hargreaves will have much to say about stopping that connection on Sunday.
At least at the wide receiver position, it sure looks like the chalk is good chalk this weekend. It is going to be a pretty uncomfortable sweat if you have the stones to fade it.
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- NFL, NBA, MLB and PGA