Reports indicate that Dalvin Cook is not only going to play tonight, he’s going to handle his regular workload. He’s going to be their main back, apparently, and that makes him an appealing choice against a Pittsburgh defense that’s really struggled against the run recently.
With D’Andre Swift leading the way, the Lions ran for 229 yards at Pittsburgh a month ago, and Joe Mixon hit them for a career-high 165. Earlier in the season, Alex Collins ran for 101 yards against them. So while Cook will be playing hurt, probably best to just roll him out there and hope for the best.
Cook has a shoulder injury that was supposed to sideline him for a couple of games, but he’s missed only one. He was a limited participant in practice this week, and he’s going to play wearing a shoulder harness.
Cook has done this before. Playing against New Orleans in a playoff game in 2019, he wore a shoulder harness and handled the ball 31 times. This isn’t a playoff game, and the injury might be a little more severe, but he’s looking like a reasonable enough choice for Week 14.
In the product yesterday, I had Cook graded around 20th-24th among running backs in the various scoring systems (if he were active for the game). I had concerns at that time about Cook maybe playing but being dramatically less than his usual self, perhaps playing half time. Those concerns seem to be reduced now, so let’s move Cook up to about 10th among running backs. My revised numbers read 74 rushing yards, 19 receiving yards and a 75 percent chance of a touchdown. That makes him 9th in standard scoring and 11th in PPR among running backs.
Previously I had Alexander Mattison as about the No. 1 running back on the board. He’s now looking more like a change-of-pace option, who probably won’t pay off much unless Cook has some kind of setback. In his last three games, he’s averaged 14 rushing and 10 receiving yards. For this game, I’m going to adjust him to 30 rushing and 8 receiving yards, with a 25 percent chance of a touchdown. That puts him just outside the top 40 among running backs in the various formats.
—Ian Allan