Lions vs Jets Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 15

The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 15 Detroit Lions at New York Jets Sunday afternoon game.

• The Lions lead the league in points per drive (3.14) since Week 10.
• Over that same span, the Jets are allowing 1.28 points per drive, second in the league.
• The Jets are allowing 25.8 yards per drive defensively, the fewest in the league.
• The Lions are allowing 38.5 yards per drive, the most in the league.
• 26.8% of the passing plays against the Jets have resulted in a first down or touchdown, second in league.
• 36.2% of the passing plays against the Lions have resulted in a first down or touchdown, 31st in the league.
• 23.0% of the Detroit drives have failed to gain a first down or touchdown, the lowest rate in the league.
• The Jets have converted 30% (3-of-10) of their red zone possessions into touchdowns the past three weeks, 30th in the league.
• The Lions are second in the league in collective yards per route run (1.46) behind the Dolphins (1.54).

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Jared Goff: It is nice when the plan comes together like last week when Goff took full advantage of a great spot. He ended the week as the QB3 (26.1 points) a week after he torched the Jaguars for a QB3 finish (21.6 points). 

Goff has thrown just two touchdown passes on the road this season, but the Lions have scored 31 points in each of their past two road games. More so than his home and away splits, this matchup is one that will put the hot streak this offense is on to the test. 

The Jets are allowing just 6.4 yards per pass attempt (third) and a 2.8% touchdown rate (fifth) to opposing passers on their way to allowing a league-low 10.2 passing points per game. They have allowed just two QB1 scorers over their past 10 games, with both of those games coming from Josh Allen, who did his lifting on the ground in those games. Goff does not have that out. We also know that Robert Saleh is more than familiar with Goff over their time spent in the NFC West and Goff was at his worst against many of those San Francisco defense. In seven career starts against San Francisco with Saleh there, Goff turned in 13.3 fantasy points per game, completing 59.8% of his passes for 6.6 yards per pass attempt with 14 touchdown passes.

If Goff can hit here, he can cement himself as a weekly starter the rest of the way out, but following games against the Jaguars and Vikings defenses, we should be treading lightly here in 1QB formats and keeping Goff as a QB2 play.

Zach Wilson: Wilson is back under center this week after Mike White was not cleared to play due to his rib injury.

Wilson was certifiably rough (he was benched of course), ranking 34th in EPA per dropbacks (-0.14) Week 4-11 as the starter. Only Cooper Rush completed a lower rate of passes than Wilson's 55.6% over that span. In fantasy he was the QB19 or lower in each of his final five starts.

Wilson is at best a matchup based 2QB play and I cannot defend him objectively, but those final five starts did at least come versus teams that rank 8th, 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 4th in DVOA against the pass. They have made a lot of good quarterbacks look bad and were able to devour a passer like Wilson.

Detroit is 21st in that department. Detroit has shored up their run defense a bit since their bye, but it has just pushed teams more toward attacking their soft pass defense. Detroit has allowed nine QB1 scoring weeks on the year and at least 15.0 fantasy points to six of the past seven quarterbacks they have faced. 

Since their Week 6 bye, the Lions are allowing 7.9 yards per pass attempt (30th), 12.2 yards per completion (28th), and a 4.6% touchdown rate (21st).

Running Back

Zonovan Knight: Knight remained the primary back for the Jets even with Michael Carter coming back this week. 

Carter did out-snap Knight 37-to-35, but Knight out-touched Carter 19-to-8, producing 77 yards and a touchdown. The only real rub with this split is that in the two games that Knight has played with Carter, he has run a route on just 26.7% and 29.4% of the dropbacks. That pushes Knight towards being an efficient runner and finding the end zone. White is a touchdown-dependent RB2.

The Lions have been game against the run. Since their Week 6 bye, the Lions are ninth in yards allowed per carry to backs (3.77 YPC), 10th in yards before contact per carry (1.18), and 12th in success rate on running back carries (64.7%). While that has been a vast improvement from where Detroit opened the year as Knight has also played the Vikings and Bills the past two weeks and gotten there, two better run defenses than even Detroit has been since their bye. 

The forced change back to Wilson under center could aid Knight. With Wilson playing, the Jets had a 52% passing rate compared a 69% with him out of the lineup. Adjusted for game script the Jets were -6% below pass rate expectation compared to 2% over expectation with Mike White and Joe Flacco.

D’Andre Swift: A week after Detroit teased us with Swift playing 51% of the snaps and handling 18 touches, he dropped right back down to a 36% snap share and nine touches against Minnesota. The Lions also struggled to run the ball all game and Swift ran a route on just 41.5% of the dropbacks. 

We are not quite in the clear with Swift being more than an upside FLEX who carries a low floor. He has more than 10 touches now in just two games this season. 

The Jets are allowing 4.06 YPC to backs (10th), but they are another opponent that leaves the door open for backs like Swift to impact the passing game. New York is allowing 9.3 receiving points per game (20th) to running backs.

Jamaal Williams: Williams led the Lions with 16 carries on Sunday, but once again found limited production with 37 yards. Over his past six games, Williams has rushed 102 times for 342 yards (3.35 YPC). Only Alvin Kamara has a worse yards per carry over that span. 

What we know about Williams hasn’t changed. He is still a touchdown-or-bust RB2/FLEX. He has not caught a pass since Week 8 and has been the RB41, RB51, RB36, RB22, and RB43 in his games without a touchdown.

Wide Receiver

Garrett Wilson (TRUST):  Wilson stayed productive on Sunday, catching 6-of-7 targets for 78 yards. Wilson has five or more receptions in five of his past six games. Since Week 8, Wilson is sixth among all wideouts with 554 yards, ranking 29th in target share (23.9%) and 19th in share of air yards (33.0%) over that period.

I know you are thinking that we can't trust Garrett with Zach back under center, but he was a top-15 scorer in two of his final three games with him under center. Garrett led the team with a 22.1% target share with Zach in the game. As mentioned above, those were against a litany of front-end pass defenses.

We have mentioned that because Detroit has been better against the run that it has funneled work to wide receivers. Since their bye, Detroit has allowed the most receptions and yardage to opposing wide receivers to go along with eight touchdowns (22nd). Over that span, they are allowing 19.5 points per game to opposing WR1 targets. 

Detroit plays man coverage on 31.6% of passing plays, the fifth-highest rate in the league. Wilson has been targeted on 29.3% of his routes versus man coverage as opposed 19.7% versus zone. With Zach Wilson in the game, his target rate versus man coverage is 26.3% vs 15.9% against zone. Against man coverage, Wilson has a team-high 31.2% target share while the next closest Jet is at 12.0%.

Zach Wilson being under center does add more volatility in the range of outcomes for Garrett Wilson, but he is still in a situation to turn out a high end outcome.

Amon-Ra St. Brown: Despite the offensive explosion last week, St. Brown watched all of the other Detroit wide receivers get into the end zone. St. Brown ended up catching 6-of-9 targets for 68 yards, adding a six-yard run. Despite failing to hit a spike week, St. Brown did still see 25.0% of the team targets, the seventh game in a row that he has seen at least a quarter of the team targets. 

St. Brown has a depth of target of 6.4 yards downfield and only 3.7% of his targets are deep targets. There are going to be weeks when he fails to hit the end zone that look like this, which is why he holds such a higher floor in full-PPR formats.

This will be a test all around for this offense, including St. Brown. He plays 45% of his snaps out wide and 52% in the slot (he logs a sprinkle of backfield snaps). The slot has been the lesser of evils against New York. 46.6% of the wide receiver receptions against the Jets have come from the slot, the fourth-highest rate in the league. 

While the matchup dampens ceiling expectations, St. Brown is still a volume-based option on the WR1 line, with a higher floor in full-PPR formats.

D.J. Chark: Chark has turned in two strong showings against the Jaguars (5-98-0) and Vikings (6-94-1), but now he runs into a stiff test on the outside. Chark is playing a team-high 80% of his snaps out wide, where the Jets are allowing 6.5 yards per target (third) and a league-low 54.3% catch rate on those targets to wide receivers. 

Chark has run a route on 95.4% and 90.2% of the dropbacks the past two weeks so his role is strong, but this matchup makes him a volatile FLEX.

Elijah Moore: Moore had popped up with two WR3 scoring weeks since White took over center. With Corey Davis forced to exit last week with a concussion after just nine snaps, Moore ran a route on 92.2% of the dropbacks, his highest rate since Week 3. As a byproduct, Moore matched a season-high with 10 targets, catching six for 60 yards.

With Davis potentially out this week, Moore gets another runway for production in a great matchup. Detroit is allowing a league-high 11.7 yards per target and a 6.1% touchdown rate (25th) to opposing slot receivers. Moore has played 68% of his snaps in the slot the past two weeks. 

Moore may not have lived up to his draft expectations to this point, but he is a viable WR3/FLEX play with upside, even with Zach Wilson back under center.

Jameson Williams: Williams caught his first NFL pass, which also happened to be a 41-yard touchdown where he got behind everyone on a blown coverage. 

That is the good news. The downside is that Detroit is still slowplaying his development. Williams only ran six pass routes. Pairing that usage with this tough matchup, Williams is still only a bench stash until he gets significantly more opportunities.

Tight End

Tyler Conklin: Conklin received another eight targets last week, giving him 15 looks now over the past two weeks. The downer is that he has just 37 yards in those games. 

Conklin’s counting targets are inflated by the team passing volume here in this offense, but if we can push another 7-8 targets here, this is a good matchup to throw those at the wall in using Conklin as a streamer and fringe TE1.

Detroit is allowing 8.2 yards per target (26th) and an 8.9% touchdown rate (30th) to opposing tight ends.

More Week 15 Fantasy breakdowns from The Worksheet:

SF at SEA | IND at MIN | BAL at CLE | MIA at BUF | PHI at CHI | ATL at NO | DET at NYJ | PIT at CAR | DAL at JAX | KC at HOU | ARI at DEN | NE at LVR | TEN at LAC | CIN at TB | NYG at WAS | LAR at GB