Week 11 doesn’t tiptoe; it splinters across continents and knocks at rosters already taped together. Jets–Patriots is already in the books, Foxborough clearing its throat for the rest of the slate. Madrid takes the next spotlight, Commanders–Dolphins at the Bernabéu, the league’s first regular-season game in Spain. Kickoff hits 9:30 a.m. Eastern, a full-lineup stress test. Sunday night swings back to Philadelphia, Eagles–Lions under playoff lighting. Cam Jurgens returns inside while Detroit arrives without Sam LaPorta and a fully healthy secondary. Monday closes the loop in Vegas, Cowboys–Raiders on a scarred field. Quinnen Williams debuts for Dallas while both franchises fight relevance more than aesthetics. In between, Buffalo–Tampa and Bengals–Steelers lose Dalton Kincaid and Samaje Perine. Rico Dowdle gets greenlit for Panthers–Falcons while bye weeks strip out the Colts and Saints. This is the part of the season where injuries become identity and travel quietly dictates tempo. The edge lives in tracking who just inherited the empty spaces—first reads, red-zone work, and real, uncompromised snap shares. With that frame, here are my Five Lists of Five: Week 11 edition, here, and, like the digits in the week, double down on some stashes, dart throws, breakouts, and, probably most importantly, as always, running back sleepers for fantasy football Week 11.
The refrain remains the same—All I want is for you to be better than your friends. You’re going to be surrounded by them on Sunday, probably. How sweet would it be if you could be sure you’ve checked every box possible that might guarantee you a resounding victory this week? Some kick-your-feet-up insights? I’ve got some. And I know my audience. The smoke-break audience. The quick-scan-of-the-phone-on-the-way-to-the-fridge audience. The I-ain’t-reading-all-that-but-good-luck folk. I’m a man of the people.
And so: the Five Lists of Five series. Think of these as byte-sized, two-minutes-to-yourself lists to scan during your weekend as you foam at the mouth for any competitive fantasy edge. As much relevant analysis as I can fit into, like, ~250 words per player.
Below: Top five smash starts for fantasy football Week 11. Must-starters based on matchup and sky-high ceilings.
Here are the other offerings from my 2025 Fantasy Football Five Lists of Five: Week 11 edition:
- Top five breakout running backs for Week 11 of 2025 fantasy football
- Top five breakout wide receivers for 2025 fantasy football Week 11
- Top five WR/CB matchups to target for Week 11 fantasy football
- Top five fantasy football players to trade for at the 2025 deadline
Follow my handle @dansby_edits for all of my fantasy football content—as well as plenty of NFL and College Football betting goodies—all season long.
Top five smash starts for Week 11 of 2025 fantasy football
Ashton Jeanty, RB, Las Vegas Raiders
Ashton Jeanty is officially, mercifully past promising-rookie and deep into tyrant-usage territory, which is exactly what you chase in November. He owns 70.4% of Raiders RB carries, second-highest share in the league, and has already logged 143 attempts. Chase Brown is in that elite band at 66.7%, but Jeanty sits above him, which frames a true bell-cow. Layer in that he’s responsible for 70% of Las Vegas’ rushing yards, third in the NFL behind only Jonathan Taylor and De’Von Achane, and you’re staring at a back who is his run game, not just featured in it.
The leverage gets nastier in close. Jeanty has 22 red-zone carries, an 81.5% red-zone carry rate, six rushing scores, plus 24 red-zone routes and six targets for a full 50 red-zone fantasy points. That’s a stranglehold, not a committee. Over the last two weeks the staff has stopped pretending otherwise: snap shares of 90% and 88%, 16.6 fantasy points per game, and a Utilization Score of 92, with historical comps finishing top six 72% of the time.
Now he walks into the exact environment you want to press that edge. Cowboys–Raiders carries the highest total on the slate at 50.5, with both defenses allowing above-average play volume. Dallas has quietly been the defense you attack with running backs, sitting first in fantasy points allowed to the position at roughly 25 per game, with opponents around 110 rushing yards and six catches to RBs.
You don’t bench a 70% team-yardage share and monopolized red-zone role in that spot. Jeanty is a stone must-start.
Chase Brown, RB, Cincinnati Bengals
Some workloads don’t shout; they accumulate until the depth chart looks inevitable. Chase Brown sits there now. A 66.7% share of Bengals RB carries, eighth in the league, on 108 attempts, against Samaje Perine’s 19.8% and 32 totes, already framed a clear lead. Perine’s high ankle sprain on that hip-drop in Chicago, followed by a week of DNPs and an official “out” tag with eyes on Week 12, removes the last structural competition.
The underlying profile is volume married to a proven résumé. Brown logged 990 rushing yards and 360 receiving in 2024, 1,350 scrimmage yards that cemented him as more than a rotational spark. This year brings 108 carries for 420 yards and two rushing scores, plus 33 catches for 201 yards and another touchdown; 3.9 yards per carry looks ordinary until you fold in 7.07 average defenders in the box, a 37% success rate, and 21% of rushes moving the sticks. This is a back asked to operate into crowded fronts and still keep drives on schedule.
Pittsburgh offers resistance, but not a veto. The Steelers are allowing 3.8 yards per carry and about 86 rushing yards per game, a sound run front, yet backs are still averaging roughly 21.7 PPR points against them with over 90 rushing yards and five receptions, and Kimani Vidal just posted 95 and a score on them in prime time. Cincinnati’s 3–6 record, historically leaky defense, and Joe Flacco’s veteran temperament tilt offensive responsibility toward reliable touches rather than experimentation.
A top-ten rushing share, condensed depth chart, and divisional game where attrition matters make Brown an unemotional must-start RB2 with RB1 volume.
Jaylen Warren, RB, Pittsburgh Steelers
Warren owns 58.0% of Steelers RB carries, 113 attempts and the 18-highest rushing share in the league, living in the same band as Bijan Robinson (59.0%) and just below the McCaffrey/Jeanty/Brown tier—real lead-share territory, not rotational garnish.
The last month has sharpened that hierarchy. Across the past five games, he’s stacked 319 rushing yards on 74 carries with two scores, plus 15 catches for 85 yards, good for 52.4 fantasy points (10.5 per game). Week 10 brought the cleanest picture: Warren led the backfield in snaps, carries, and routes, scored again, and handled a season-high 88% of Pittsburgh’s rushing attempts, with veteran backs pushed into true relief work. External start/sit grids have responded by labeling him one of the best RB starts on the Week 11 slate, noting 77% of team carries over the last four games.
The opponent turns volume into leverage. Cincinnati’s defense is described as historically bad, worst in Defensive Success Rate and near-worst in EPA/play, and is giving up 166.4 rushing yards per game, dead last in the league. Running backs against the Bengals have averaged 27.2 PPR points per game, over 50% above league norms, with 1,270 rushing yards and 399 receiving through nine weeks. Warren already hung 127 rushing yards on 16 carries in the first meeting.
A contract-backed lead share, ascending usage, and a collapsing divisional rival run front combine into a very simple conclusion: Warren belongs at the helm of Week 11 lineups.
Jaylen Waddle, WR, Miami Dolphins
Jaylen Waddle walks into Madrid as the precision tool this matchup demands. Through ten games he has 46 catches for 670 yards and five touchdowns, a steady 67 yards per week in an offense that just shredded Buffalo’s front. Underneath the box score, the efficiency sings. Against man, he’s run 50 routes with a 24.0% target rate, nine catches, 84 yards and 0.47 PPR points per route. Versus zone, the volume expands: 232 routes, 37 catches, 586 yards, a 22.4% target rate and 0.52 PPR points per route. He leads Miami’s receivers in both target rate and fantasy points per route against man and zone, which marks him as Tua’s most coverage-agnostic read.
Washington offers exactly the kind of stressed structure that profile punishes. The Commanders play man at a top-ten rate yet sit bottom five in yards allowed per man snap (7.23) and in first-down-plus-touchdown rate allowed from man (51.9%). They are 31st in pass defense and 30th in total defense, giving up 273.7 passing yards per game, 8.9 yards per attempt, 22 passing touchdowns and a 112.7 opposing rating. Wideouts have translated that into 32.63 half-PPR points per game, third-most in the league. Dan Quinn has reclaimed play-calling after a five-game skid with 35.8 points per game allowed, but scheme tweaks do not erase personnel losses or travel fatigue in one week.
In a neutral-site game with a 47.5 total and Miami favored by a field goal, volume and efficiency intersect cleanly. The wider fantasy market has already slotted Waddle alongside Chase, Jefferson and A.J. Brown as an automatic Week 11 start. Treat him that way.
Emeka Egbuka, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Evans–Godwin era in Tampa never really ended; it just handed the torch (or bonfire, for you Elden Ringers out there!) to Emeka Egbuka and kept marching. Through nine games he sits on 40 catches for 677 yards and six touchdowns, a 16.9 yards-per-catch profile that already places him top ten in receiving yards and top ten in PPR points at the position. The volume is alpha-level, not opportunistic: roughly 25% of team targets and 38% of team air yards, with an average depth of target over 12 yards and a 25.2% targets-per-route rate.
Efficiency matches the diet. Egbuka is sitting around 16.3 PPR points per game, with expected fantasy output only a tick lower, which means the production is sustainable rather than smoke. Advanced boards slot him inside the top ten in composite “expected points” metrics and grade his 0.48 fantasy points per route and +2.4 over expectation as true WR1 signals. Four top-ten weekly finishes, multiple games with eight plus targets, and a September Offensive Rookie of the Month nod confirm the film you drafted—he’s the primary answer, not a rotational splash. Even the brief hamstring scare in October turned into a resilience marker once he came back from the bye and dropped 115 yards and a score on New England, his third 100-yard day.
Buffalo is a stern but exploitable canvas. The Bills allow just 170.2 passing yards per game, yet their coverage has leaked explosives and sits near the bottom of the league in limiting yards after catch once the ball is completed. A Week 11 total of 50.5 with Tampa as a 5.5-point underdog demands sustained aggression from Baker Mayfield. In that script, with WR1 usage and league-level efficiency already banked, Egbuka belongs locked into every lineup.
