New England Patriots Start-Sit: Week 13 Fantasy Advice for Drake Maye, TreVeyon Henderson, Kayshon Boutte, Mack Hollins, and Others
The fantasy football landscape shifts each week, bringing fresh opportunities and unexpected challenges that separate the prepared from the pretenders. Savvy managers know that last week’s performance tells only part of the story, and diving deeper into the underlying metrics reveals the accurate picture.
This week presents some intriguing decisions. Here’s insight about key New England Patriots players heading into their matchup with the New York Giants to help you craft a winning lineup.
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Drake Maye, QB
After routinely posting finishes inside the top 10 to open the season, he’s now gone four straight weeks without one, a “slump” that is coming at a bad time for managers who have now considered him a lineup staple.
Even in a poor performance last week, he averaged 8.4 yards per pass and ran for 22 yards. If that’s the worst-case scenario, we live with it, even if a one-TD game against the Trey Hendrickson-less Bengals fails to make sense.
At the end of the day, I’m not worried and have Maye ranked as QB4 this week. We know the athletic profile is there, but I’m just as impressed with the maturity shown when blitzed this season:
- 67.6% complete
- 8.4 yards per attempt
- 8 touchdowns
- 0 interceptions
The recent dry spell is more annoying than it is predictive. Starting QBs have operated with a 17-fantasy point floor recently against New York, with Caleb Williams, Bo Nix, and Jalen Hurts all clearing 25 points since Week 7.
We fell in love with what Maye was giving us early in the season, and I expect more of that on Monday night.
Rhamondre Stevenson, RB
I’m not exactly sure who asked for this sequence against one of the most vulnerable defenses in the NFL, but this is how the first drive of the second half went for the Patriots last week in Cincinnati after a DPI put them at the five-yard line:
- Incomplete pass
- TreVeyon Henderson, 4-yard run
- Incomplete pass
- DPI, ball placed on the one-yard line
- Terrell Jennings, no gain
- OPI, ball on the 11-yard line
- Completion down to the one-yard line
- Rhamondre Stevenson, no gain
- Rhamondre Stevenson, no gain (turnover on downs)
I hate talking in absolutes, but this absolutely shouldn’t happen.
Stevenson was given one touch for every three that went to Henderson last week in his return from the toe injury. With his seven opportunities picking up 10 yards, I can’t imagine that he’s in line to see his workload increase in a major way as the Pats chase the AFC’s top seed.
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If you roster Stevenson, I’d hold for now, understanding that this coaching staff showed unconditional love toward him earlier in this season. If this is the Henderson show again on Monday night, and he exits that contest healthy, I think you can cut ties ahead of the Week 14 bye if the roster spot holds value to you.
If not, the schedule isn’t prohibitive moving forward, but if he’s not projecting for more than 6-10 touches, he’s not going to rank as a top 30 play, no matter the matchup.
TreVeyon Henderson, RB
TreVeyon Henderson got the first carry of last week, a notable development with Rhamondre Stevenson back. In fact, the rookie handled all four of New England’s rush attempts on the first drive (11 yards).
Terrell Jennings did get a carry on the doorstep, and while he was stuffed, it was still annoying. All things considered, I’m more encouraged by usage patterns than disappointed by the bottom line.
Week 12 RB1 Split
- Henderson: 64.2% snaps, 21 touches, 11.1 points
- Stevenson: 31.3% snaps, 7 touches, 2.0 points
If we are going to get three Henderson touches for every one from Stevenson, I’m here to tell you that a deep playoff run is in your future. The G-Men just got lit up by Jahmyr Gibbs, and they’ve allowed the lead runner on the opposing team to produce above his season average in 10 of 12 games this season.
Add in the fact that this is a limited defense playing for a 13th consecutive week, and this has the makings of a top 10 week.
DeMario Douglas, WR
DeMario Douglas continued one of the weirder trends in the league: the 5’8” slot weapon has a 25+ yard catch in five straight, the third longest active streak in the league (Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Alec Pierce).
I don’t mind the big play addition to his profile, but when it is all he offers, that’s an issue. Douglas has just 24 catches (36 targets) this season and has scored six touchdowns in 43 career games.
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The Patriots’ offense is dangerous in a good way, while counting on any pass catcher outside of Stefon Diggs is dangerous, often in a bad way.
Kayshon Boutte, WR
Kayshon Boutte had a nice run of spike plays a month ago, but that is in the past now, and with a limited track record of winning routes consistently, there’s no need to overextend in this fashion for a piece of the Patriots offense.
This season, 20 times a New England player has finished a game with an 18% target share or greater, and Boutte has accounted for two of them.
Two.
He forced a long DPI last week, but the 6.1% target share carries more weight than the potential of a single big play. Boutte hasn’t seen more than three targets in seven of his past nine games and should be off your radar in all formats at this point.
Mack Hollins, WR
After consecutive double-digit PPR performances (and three times in four games), Mack Hollins fell flat on Sunday in the matchup of all matchups against the Bengals.
If fantasy football were easy, everyone would be good at it.
The day started just fine as Drake Maye’s first pass went to Hollins and picked up six yards. The problem was the next 59 minutes: one catch on five targets for 24 yards.
With 12.4-yard aDOT, a clear WR1 playing in front of him, running backs that can catch passes, and a tight end that shows up once every few weeks, asking Hollins to retain weekly value would be difficult if he played for a team that was constantly in a passing script.
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The 10-2 Patriots are far from that, and with the final game of Week 13 opening as a 7.5-point spread, there’s not much optimism in the prediction markets that Maye is going to be forced into a high-volume game.
For me, he’s not much different than Darius Slayton in this same game: slightly more target-earning chops, but less volume and less role upside to chase. Neither is sniffing my top 40 this week, with every team in action, and with both on bye next week, you should feel free to cut ties should you need to open up a roster spot, even if it’s to stash a streaming defense you like for your playoff run.
Stefon Diggs, WR
Every Patriot not named Hunter Henry left us wanting much more last week in what was set up to be a perfect matchup in Cincinnati, and Stefon Diggs was no exception.
He entered the game with a TD reception or 7+ catches in five straight games: he promptly posts a 9.1% target share (over 27% in the two games prior and over 21% in four of the previous five) and 28 air yards (fourth lowest this season).
The trust from Drake Maye remains, and we saw it with a 14-yard hookup late to convert a third-and-11 and ice the game. Realistically, that’s all I need. The Giants have allowed a receiver to clear 20 PPR points in each of the past three weeks (Rome Odunze, Christian Watson, and Amon-Ra St. Brown), and there’s no question who the Patriots WR is most likely to capitalize on that trend.
Hunter Henry, TE
We have 11 federal holidays in the US, and that’s roughly the timeline of Hunter Henry.
Over the past three seasons, give or take 11 months of football, Henry has cleared 14 PPR points nine times. A little under once a month, we get these seemingly random spike performances, and we love it when it’s expected (facing the Bengals would certainly qualify). Still, we do tend to get out over our skis a bit when projecting it forward.
READ MORE: Soppe’s Week 13 Fantasy Football Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em: Analysis for Every Player in Every Game
Don’t get me wrong, the 7-115-1 stat line was impressive and could have been even better if he hadn’t had a touchdown wiped off the board due to Mack Hollins not properly executing the pick play. But is it predictive?
In the month before this explosion, Henry averaged 4.4 targets and 29 receiving yards per game. The development of Drake Maye is both a blessing and a curse in that it makes these sorts of weeks possible, but it also means that a 3-31-0 stat line could be waiting for us.
We are coming up on a federal holiday-heavy stretch, so I guess if you want to take my analogy really literally, you can fire up Henry for the remainder of the season.
I can’t. He’s a fringe TE streamer for me, just like he was last week and just like he’ll be in Week 15 (the Patriots go on bye in Week 14 and you don’t want to get me started on that).
