After two straight anemic performances by the offense, the Arizona Cardinals announced a change at quarterback for Week 11. Blaine Gabbert will slide in as the team's starting quarterback, a move that shifts Drew Stanton to the bench. Gabbert will make his first start of the season against the Houston Texans.
For Arizona, it's a move the organization felt it needed to make. In two games as the team's starter, Stanton completed 39 of 77 pass attempts (50.6 completion rate) for 474 yards and a 1-1 record. While a knee injury suffered didn't help Stanton perform, Arizona saw a struggling offense and the chance to try and make an adjustment to turn things around.
Gabbert is in no way a reliable quarterback who any team would choose as its starter in normal circumstances. Unfortunately, these aren't normal circumstances for the Cardinals. So they have to turn to Gabbert, who completed 56.9 percent of his pass attempts last season with the San Francisco 49ers and posted a five-six TD-INT ration.
While Gabbert is certainly turnover prone with a career 38-37 TD-INT ratio, he should at least complete 55-plus percent of his passes and that's good news for Larry Fitzgerald. Since Carson Palmer's season-ending injury, Fitzgerald continues to serve as a WR2 in fantasy. Despite a tough matchup last week, Fitzgerald posted 10 receptions for 113 yards on 14 targets.
The change at quarterback should keep Fitzgerald going as a WR2 play who can produce with consistent volume and overcome poor quarterback play. If Gabbert can make a few more accurate throws than Stanton, it might push Fitzgerald up one or two spots on weekly rankings.
As for Adrian Peterson, he is a matchup-based RB2 who will see significant volume but will often struggle given constant matchups against stacked boxed with a leaky offensive line trying to create running lanes for him.