Analyze Evan Engram's matchup for week 11
Engram’s 4.7 PPR-per-game average, 50 % snap share behind Adam Trautman, zero touchdowns and lingering calf/back issues make him unstartable even in a plus home date with the Chargers—leave him on waivers.
Denver draws a mid-pack Chargers defense that has allowed the 10th-most TE receptions but the 7th-fewest TE touchdowns this year. The matchup is theoretically neutral, yet it’s rendered moot by Engram’s role: he’s run a route on only 38 % of drop-backs since Week 6 and has not seen a single red-zone look all season. Adam Trautman continues to dominate early-down and goal-line work, capping Engram’s already floor-level ceiling.
Since returning from his back injury in Week 6 Engram has logged 5-3-4 targets, failed to crack 40 yards in any contest and played fewer than half the snaps in three straight games.
The Sean Payton "joker" experiment has flat-lined. Engram’s aDOT sits at 4.1 yards—lowest among all TEs with 10+ targets—and Bo Nix has a 45.8 passer rating when targeting him. Even in a week where the Broncos project to throw 35-plus times, Engram’s route participation and target share are so anemic that his realistic ceiling is a 4-40-0 line. That is a back-end TE2 outcome in a 12-team league and is easily replaceable by streaming options who actually run routes and see end-zone work. Add in the ever-present quadriceps/back flare-ups that have landed him on the injury report six of the last seven weeks and you have a player whose roster spot is worth more than his sporadic 4-point fantasy outings. Unless Trautman misses time, Engram is waiver-wire fodder in all redraft formats and a desperation DFS punt only in 25-plus-entry tournaments.