Fantasy Football: Top smash plays, upgrades and fades for Week 11

Week 11 of the NFL season is here, and so is the weekly look at the top smash, upgrade and fade plays for fantasy football. I'll integrate NFL totals, spreads, implied points and proprietary PFF matchup data each week, looking for players who score highly or poorly across all metrics.

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We will also look at the projected DFS rostership for additional context for building tournament lineups.

KEY:

• SOS: PFF's Fantasy Strength of Schedule (SoS) metric provides a league-wide, season-long view of opponent matchups for each fantasy position.
• OL Pass Block Advantage (OL PBA): offensive-line pass blocking matchup; derived from the OL/DL Matchup tool (pass blocking advantage — the higher the percentage, the better the matchup for the offensive line, and vice versa).
• OL Run Block Advantage (OL RBA): offensive-line pass blocking matchup; derived from the OL/DL Matchup tool (run blocking advantage — the higher the percentage, the better the matchup for the offensive line, and vice versa).
• WR/CB Matchup Advantage (WR/CB MU): wide receiver versus cornerback matchup; derived from the WR/CB Matchup tool (matchup advantage grade — the higher the grade, the better the matchup for the receiver, and vice versa).
• TE Matchup Advantage (TE MU): tight end versus linebackers and safeties; derived from the TE Matchup tool (matchup advantage — the higher the percentage, the better the matchup for the tight end, and vice versa).
• Projected PPR Points (PPR Proj)

QUARTERBACKS

For quarterbacks, we are looking for big point totals and implied points. The spread doesn't matter as much for pass-heavy teams, but we are looking for trailing scripts that could cause run-heavy offenses to throw more than usual.

Smashes

Brady had a rough outing against Washington, finishing outside the top-12 quarterbacks for only the third time this season. The Buccaneers are heavy favorites versus the Giants, but that doesn't mean Brady won't keep the accelerator pegged to the floor — Tampa Bay passes the ball 9% more than the league average when leading by 4 or more points.

• Scoring Environment: third-best game total and the No. 1 implied points
• Matchups: seventh-highest QB SOS and third-ranked OL PBA

Upgrades

Tannehill lands a great matchup versus the Texans, but the Titans have shown a willingness to run the ball when leading, taking some of the shine off of this upgrade. However, the veteran quarterback handled a season-high 14% of designed rushing attempts in Week 10 and has five rushing touchdowns (tied for first). He has three top-12 finishes in his last four outings and is a low-end QB1 this week who currently projects around 5% rostership on DraftKings.

• Scoring Environment: third-worst game total and the No. 5 implied points
• Matchups: third-ranked QB SOS but below-average OL PBA

Newton faces a Washington defense that allows the most fantasy points per game to quarterbacks (27.5) in his first game as the starter for Carolina. The former No. 1 draft selection didn't perform well via the air in 2020, but he gets a massive upgrade in weaponry with D.J. Moore, Robby Anderson and Christian McCaffrey. He handled 8% of the team's designed rushing attempts on only 12% of the snaps in Week 10 — including two totes inside the 5-yard line (50%).

• Scoring Environment: sixth-highest game total and 15th-most implied points
• Matchups: No. 3 QB SOS but a negative OL PBA

Fades

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