5 Fantasy Football Takeaways for Week 12
As you could tell, this weekly series has now shifted from “overreactions” to “takeaways” as we’re almost at the midway point of the regular season. Although this NFL season has been a bit disappointing for fantasy football, with scoring going down by 22% compared to last year, there’s still plenty of things to dive into. As ya’ll know, I will be doing this takeaway article over the course of the 18 weeks of the NFL season, so let’s jump right into it.
1. JUSTIN HERBERT IS BACK TO BEING…JUSTIN HERBERT
From Weeks 5–10, the fantasy QB2 from last year, Justin Herbert was someone who you couldn’t even start, as he was the QB21 during that entire stretch. However, with the return of Keenan Allen, Herbert looks like the MVP candidate that he was to begin the season, finishing as the QB3 this week. Herbert has the easiest fantasy schedule for QBs the rest of season, and with his weapons getting healthy at the right time, he should be a league winner. If you traded for him before the deadline, you’re on your way to a championship.
2. THE WASHINGTON RB CAROUSEL CONTINUES
At this point, starting a Washington Commanders RB is basically a toss up. In Week 11, it was Antonio Gibson that had a decent game, and this week, it was Brian Robinson with a massive RB5 performance. Both Gibson and Robinson are borderline RB2s with massive risk rest of season, as they’re equivalent to someone like D’Andre Swift. Consider benching either one so you don’t have to deal with the pain of a letdown week.
3. JAMES CONNER IS A TOP 10 RB REST OF SEASON
Since Conner has come back from his ankle injury, he’s been the RB4 from Weeks 9–12. He’s dominated the snap share and has had pretty much every opporutnity in the backfield. With his elite workload, he’s guaranteed to be a top 10 RB and is a lock for double digit points every week. Now, the matchups do get tougher, with games against the Patriots, Broncos, and Buccaneers, but Conner should still produce regardless.
4. DO NOT PANIC ON CMC
After his worst game of the season and his first non double-digit fantasy performance this week, managers are panicking on Christian McCaffrey, but the future moving forward is amazing for him despite his down week. This is because Elijah Mitchell will miss the rest of the regular season with the same knee injury that sidelined him for the first half of the season. McCaffrey should be seeing an 80%+ snap share in every game and will see nearly every target out of the backfield, and he’ll have that elite usage we all drafted him for. He’s suffering from a sore knee, but CMC should be able to suit up this week and give you high end RB1 production.
5. ROOKIE WRS = LEAGUE WINNERS
Every season, there’s a rookie WR that has a massive stretch during the second half of the season and becomes a league winning player. In 2020, it was Justin Jefferson. In 2021, it was Amon-Ra St. Brown. This year, there’s three candidates who will be winning people leagues. Garrett Wilson is a locked in WR2 with Mike White at QB for the Jets, and he has massive upside every single week. Christian Watson has the most upside out of this entire group with his vertical, down the field play, and he’s been the WR2 from Weeks 10–12. He’s a low end WR2 with top 5 upside. Treylon Burks may be the most polarizing of the 3 just due to the Titans run-heavy offense, but he continues to make plays and has now seen 6 targets in three straight weeks. He’s a WR3 moving forward with top 12 upside.
