Week 11 Reactions: Record-Breaking Rookies

Rishard Matthews, Mike Evans and Doug Baldwin were the only wide receivers to reach 100 receiving yards Sunday, and not a single one caught a touchdown pass. Scoring was down across the league, particularly with wide receivers, enough so that Evans' six catches on 13 targets for 105 yards left him outside the top-10 in fantasy points (standard scoring) despite having the second-most receiving yards. Fantasy owners of Baldwin were made almost whole thanks to his 15-yard passing touchdown to Russell Wilson, which was a great sign that the Seahawks are ascending as the regular season starts to wind down.

Rawls had been sidelined since Week 2 because of a broken fibula, and while he didn't start Sunday ahead of C.J. Prosise, it certainly looks like he'll be getting that job in Week 12 against the Buccaneers, as Prosise was forced out of Sunday's game with a shoulder injury. Prosise looked solid early on, including rushing for a 72-yard touchdown, but Rawls took over the backfield and is likely to be heavily used as the fantasy regular season winds down, with news that Prosise could miss at least six weeks because of the injury.

Prosise's injury certainly hurts fantasy owners who took a chance of him, but A.J. Green's injury could be devastating. Green came into Sunday needing just 36 yards to reach 1,000 for the sixth consecutive season, a level only Randy Moss reached in his first six years in the league. However, Green suffered a suspected torn hamstring on the second play from scrimmage and is expected to miss the rest of the season, keeping Moss' name alone in that section of the record book. While a number of different receivers could help fill the huge void left by Green's absence, none of them have his fantasy upside.

Adding to the trend from earlier, tight end Travis Kelce caught seven of nine targets for 108 yards, but he too failed to reach the end zone. Instead, Zach Miller was the highest-scoring player at the position, but he caught only three balls for 61 yards and a score, and no other TE even reached 47 yards, though eight others caught touchdown passes and Eric Ebron rushed for one. Ebron's 13.1 fantasy points were the fewest leading weekly score of the season for tight ends.

Running backs once again ruled the day, and while only Le'Veon Bell (146), LeGarrette Blount (124) and David Johnson (103) rushed for more than 100 yards, Ezekiel Elliott, Carlos Hyde, Rashad Jennings, Tim Hightower, Doug Martin, Frank Gore and Chris Ivory all put up more than 100 total yards from scrimmage. Amazingly, Jennings was the only member of the latter group to score a touchdown, something that Blount couldn't do despite the second-most rushing yards on the day.

So if there weren't that many receiving yards to go around, then obviously passing yards were at a premium Sunday too. Jameis Winston (331) and Dak Prescott (301) were the only quarterbacks to throw for more than 300 yards, which represented fewer than half of the previous low for a week this season (five in Weeks 4 and 9). Obviously bye weeks play into the midseason decrease, but as Chris Liss pointed out earlier this week this has been the year of the running back. Or, maybe we should give credit to Peter Schoenke, who indicated that running backs may be undervalued back on Aug. 4. Either way, the RB domination of 2016 rolled right along in Week 11.

Speaking of rolling, Prescott has the Cowboys doing just that, as they won their ninth consecutive game Sunday against the Ravens. The rookie threw two touchdown passes to Dez Bryant and one to Cole Beasley, as he became the first rookie QB to throw for over 300 yards and multiple touchdowns with no interceptions in back-to-back games (he had 319 yards and two touchdowns in Week 10 against the Steelers). He has also thrown for multiple touchdowns in five consecutive games, which ties him with Russell Wilson and Dan Marino for the longest streak by a rookie in league history. And not to be outdone with the records, Ezekiel Elliot now has the most rushing yards by any rookie in Cowboys history, and he is on pace to finish with more rushing yards this season than Tony Dorsett (1,646) or Emmitt Smith (1,773) ever put up in their hall-of-fame careers.

The combination of Prescott under center and Elliott in the backfield has led the Cowboys to over 400 offensive yards in eight straight games, which is now just two games short of the NFL record held by the 2012 Broncos. The Seahawks may look like they could be headed to the Super Bowl, but they'll have to make their way through Dallas to get there.