10 Things to Know for Week 12 #FantasyFootball

Thanksgiving is on Thursday which means you have three games to prepare your lineups for.

The Thanksgiving slate this year includes the Bears at the Lions at 12:30 PM ET, Redskins at the Cowboys at 4:30 PM ET, and the Falcons at the Saints at 8:20 PM ET. Before you fall into a turkey food coma be sure to make sure your lineups are set for the entire day. Between family, food, and drinks you might not realize until Sunday that you left Alex Smith in your lineup or forgot you had four wide receivers on bye this week and could have rolled out Tre’Quan Smith in a juicy matchup. Get a good night’s rest Wednesday night in preparation for the festivities and wake up Thursday and get that lineup set before anything else.

The bye week madness is almost over.

Week 12 is the last week of NFL byes for the 2018 season. Unfortunately, it includes the Rams and the Chiefs which are two of the top three offenses in the league. If you are a team in the playoff hunt who is losing Todd Gurley or Kareem Hunt to a bye do whatever you can to fill that spot. It won’t matter if you have one of them on your roster if you don’t make the playoffs. The end of byes also means you can officially not worry about rostering fourth and fifth running backs on your team. You know your starting lineup, for the most part, the rest of the way so make sure you have your handcuffs for your top running backs. Grab an extra defense or QB for their playoff schedule.

The Ravens have a new starting running back.

The Ravens announced on Sunday that they would have a new rookie quarterback starting in Lamar Jackson. What they didn’t announce was that they were going to start a new rookie running back in Gus Edwards. The game setup up great for the Ravens’ running backs, and Alex Collins owners were probably pretty excited when he scored an early touchdown. However, the rest of the game did not go that way. Edwards out-snapped Collins 49-17 and had 17 carries to Collins’ 7. As long as Lamar Jackson is the starting QB the Ravens’ running back will be a good play especially in Week 12 against the Raiders.

Evan Engram played as the third tight end for the Giants in Week 11.

Engram played fewer snaps than both Rhett Ellison and Scott Simonson. The Giants are a run-first team now with Saquon Barkley. Engram isn’t much of a blocker at the tight end position and because of that, he isn’t on the field much. It seems the Giants would prefer to use their other tight ends because know Engram isn’t going to block. In Week 12 the Giants play the Eagles who have been the third-best team against tight ends this year. The Eagles offense has also struggled and this game may not be a game where the Giants want to throw a ton.

Eric Ebron did not run a single route in Week 11.

This was the danger of Eric Ebron. Ebron simply was not getting the number of targets necessary to sustain his touchdown production. Hopefully, you were able to sell him high, because he is a major risk to start every week as long as Jack Doyle is in the lineup. We saw the Colts use their best weapon in TY Hilton this past week and guys like Doyle and Marlon Mack could score more. Ebron is not a tight end you should feel comfortable starting especially in your fantasy playoffs.

George Kittle has more yards after the catch than any wide receiver.

Kittle is one of the few lone bright spots at the tight end position in fantasy this year. He is an every week starter and this week he goes up against the second worse team at defending the position in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs can’t stop any position on defense, but they are very bad at the tight end. Kittle should finish the year as a top three tight end and gets a great matchup in Week 12.

Keke Coutee lead the team in target share in Week 11.

While I wouldn’t expect the above statement to be true regularly with DeAndre Hopkins on the team, it is notable that Demaryius Thomas was basically irrelevant with Coutee’s return. Coutee showed promise early in the season before getting hurt, and now there is a void with Will Fuller gone. He is running 71% of his routes from the slot giving him good matchups often. The Titans have given up the most points to wide receivers over the past five weekends.

The Cardinals offense is better, but still one of the worst in the league.

There was hope when the Cardinals fired OC Mike McCoy a few weeks ago. New OC Bryon Leftwich has improved the fantasy outlooks for David Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald, but how much? The Cardinals are still running the second-fewest yards per drive over the last four weeks when Leftwich took over. Fitz and Johnson are still going to be somewhat touchdown dependent moving forward and fantasy owners shouldn’t have their hopes super high for a resurgence late in the season.

Josh Adams played a career-high in snaps and is getting work in the passing game.

The Eagles backfield has been a mess all year. In Week 11 there might finally be some clarity. Adams played the most snaps of any back and also had 18 percent of the team’s target share. Wendall Smallwood barely played at all and Clement didn’t show any big play ability. If the Eagles offense can get rolling the lead back will have value in fantasy. In Week 12 the Eagles should be able to run against the Giants making Adams an RB2 candidate.

The Alex Smith injury hurts Adrian Peterson more than anyone.

Smith went down this week with a gruesome leg injury. The Redskins already didn’t have the best offense, but losing your starting quarterback is never good. The team will likely try to lean on the run game and their defense going forward. However, the defense isn’t all that great and the run game needs a lead to be effective. Adrian Peterson averages over 100 yards when the team wins. When the Redskins lose he averages 23 yards and ten fewer carries. Peterson isn’t used much in the passing game at all either. Peterson owners may be in trouble going forward unless Colt McCoy can move the offense or the defense steps up in a big way.

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