Mike Davis Week 11 Outlook -
By Mike Tagliere (FantasyPros), Thu, Nov 19th 2020, 8:43am EST
We heard last week that McCaffrey had "a chance to play" in Week 11, but that's quickly went south as the latest reports are saying that he's likely going to be held out through their bye in Week 13. We knew the Week 10 matchup against the Bucs was going to be tough, and Davis was forced to leave with an injury to his finger, which certainly didn't help his ability to catch passes, which is where he needed to make value. In games that McCaffrey has missed, Davis has totaled 130 of the 163 available opportunities to Panthers running backs (80 percent), so when you see the Lions opponents have averaged 31.7 touches, you should be getting excited. If you take a look at the Lions competition this year and look at their points-per-game averages, you'd learn that the Lions are allowing 9.3 more fantasy points per game to those running backs than they typically average. That's the most in the NFL, as no other team is over 7.0 points per game. Of the 84.5 PPR points the Lions allow to skill-position players, 42.5 percent of them go to the running back position, which is the second-highest percentage in the league. In fact, the Packers and the Lions are the only two teams who've allowed more than 38 percent of that production go to running backs. Wide receivers facing the Lions are outscoring running backs by just 1.2 PPR points per game, which is the lowest mark in the league, while the Packers are the only other team with a number less than 6.1 points per game. When you add all of this together, you get a matchup that's produced a league-leading 35.9 PPR points per game. That's a full 4.3 PPR points per game than the closest team (Packers). They've allowed more rushing (13) and receiving (5) touchdowns to running backs than any team in the league. The best part is that they've allowed more fantasy points per game through the air (14.1) to running backs than any other team in the league, which is where Davis has really shined. Whew, that was a lot of ways to say, "start Mike Davis this week as an RB1."
