The Week 11 matchup between the Oakland Raiders and the Detroit Lions features one team with lots of promise against another filled with disappointments. We’ve got the fantasy projections courtesy of numberFire.
Fantasy football projections, Week 11: Raiders-Lions featuring Derek Carr, Amari Cooper and Calvin Johnson
We break down the Week 11 matchup between the Oakland Raiders and the Detroit Lions.
Oakland Raiders
It looks like quarterback Derek Carr is going to be a high-volume passer for most of the season. In the last three weeks, he’s attempted at least 36 passes per game and also managed to get over the 300-yard mark. If it weren’t for the fact that he threw two interceptions against the Minnesota Vikings last week, his numbers would’ve likely been monstrous. Still, he’s doing well enough to consider starting him on a weekly basis. It’s clear the younger brother of former NFL quarterback David Carr has a brighter outlook than his sibling. That’s good news for fantasy owners for the rest of the season and down the road.
Carr will look to continue delivering bombs to his young rookie wideout Amari Cooper against the Lions. Cooper caught five passes for 79 yards against the Vikings last week. He doesn’t always put up monster numbers, but the targets and the physical ability are both present on a week to week basis. Cooper should continue to grow against a Lions team that has struggled to keep teams close this year and is also very kind to wide receivers.
Detroit Lions
2015 has been a rough year for pretty much every fantasy-worthy player on the Lions, and unfortunately star wide receiver Calvin Johnson is no exception to the rule. He has just three touchdowns on the season and has crossed 100 receiving yards just once. That was back in Week 6 against the Chicago Bears. Aside from that, Megatron has failed to collect more than 86 yards in any game. Hopefully he can put together a huge day against the Raiders to provide his fantasy owners with a much-needed boost, but it looks like the likelihood of that is slim. Who would’ve thought we would be saying that about Calvin Johnson this late in the season?
Quarterback Matthew Stafford has had an equally rough year, if not worse. As hard as it is to believe, he has almost as many interceptions as he has touchdowns this (15 touchdowns compared to 12 interceptions). He has also only topped 290 passing yards just once this year. That’s even harder to believe. An average of 258.3 yards per game if it holds up for the rest of the year would be his lowest since Stafford’s second year in the league, a year in which he only played three games. The silver lining for him going into Week 11 however is that the Raiders are quite the juicy matchup for passing games.
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