A QB, RB, WR and TE prepared for massive Week 12 performances

We’re back to another week of football, which begins Thursday night with the Steelers taking on the Browns.

Last week I stated that Russell Wilson was one of the best fantasy plays. I was right about a few other key plays with Joe Mixon and Jonnu Smith finishing at the top of their respective positions, but I was wrong about Wilson, who finished the week as QB26 and only tallied 7.3 fantasy points against the Ravens.

Still, the Steelers won this game and went on to win 18-16 to improve to 8-2 on the season. It’s hard to believe this Steelers team is This fine, but never doubt Mike Tomlin, I guess? The Steelers are on the verge of finishing above .500 once again, and the team still has seven games to play.

Let’s take a look at a player at each skill position in fantasy football who will have a strong Week 12 performance in 2024.

Baker Mayfield doesn’t directly benefit from the quarterback turmoil in New York this week as the team moves on from Daniel Jones and starts Tommy DeVito in his place. Negative benefit, right? Either the Giants offense tackles more, leading to more possession for the Bucs, or the Giants offense fixes the problem with DeVito under center and Mayfield has to keep pushing deep into the game.

Mayfield is having one of his worst games of the season, throwing for a season-low 116 yards. He had 200 yards in the game before that. There weren’t any major upsets, but they did come against the Chiefs and 49ers.

Before that, Mayfield was a top-10 fantasy quarterback at quarterback in seven of the first eight games of the season. The former No. 1 overall pick played very well for the Bucaneers, but with only a few slight hiccups along the way.

What about a matchup with the Giants? This does not appear to be one of the potential glitches.

Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. He returned last week after a two-game absence and nearly finished as RB1 against the Eagles with 16 carries for 63 yards, a touchdown and one catch for nine yards.

This week, Robinson heads into an exciting matchup with a Dallas Cowboys team that is currently in disarray. The Cowboys seem to have forgotten how to play on both sides of the ball, and their run defense has been abysmal, allowing the second-most rushing yards and most rushing touchdowns in the NFL this season.

Texans running back Joe Mixon demolished that defense on Monday night. Mixon had 20 carries for 109 yards and three touchdowns in Houston’s 34-10 victory.

At this point, fantasy managers should back off any running backs against the Cowboys. I don’t care who the running back is. Robinson is a talented player, so he’s definitely a must-play player, but the Commanders could lose all their running backs this week due to the flu and sign the 47-year-old Trung Candidate, and I recommend Candidate as a flex play.

It’s been a tough year for DJ Moore and the Bears’ entire passing attack. Chicago currently ranks 30th in passing yards and 31st in passing yards.

But the Week 12 matchup with the Vikings could be an opportunity for the Bears offense to figure something out — or at least an opportunity for Moore to figure something out against a defense that allows wide receivers the third-most fantasy points per game.

The fact that Moore finished just once as a fantasy WR1 and once as a WR2 this year underscores just how bad this year has been for him, but it’s not because of a lack of targets. Despite the difficulties in production, Moore’s 73 targets rank 18th in the NFL this year.

Besides the matchup, another thing that makes me trust Moore is that he had a strong performance against the Packers, catching all seven of his targets for 62 yards.

I know it’s a big ask to trust Moore considering how this season has gone in Chicago, but I really like his usage patterns and matchup as of late. I’m not saying he’ll be the best receiver in the league this week, but he’s very close to finishing in the top 15 in fantasy.

It’s weird to compare the current weekly tight end rankings to our preseason expectations. For example, if I told you that both Cade Otton and Will Dissly would line up ahead of TJ Hockenson, Dallas Goedert, Mark Andrews and Sam LaPorta, you would either lobby me to never talk about football again or you would salute me. a clairvoyant.

But things are changing, and that’s the reality we’re in this week.

Will Dissly has seen an uptick in work for the Chargers since Week 5, scoring five or more touchdowns in five of six games.

That included six touchdowns last week against the Bengals, which Dissly turned into four receptions for 80 yards and his first touchdown of the season. The veteran tight end has 12 touchdowns and nine receptions in the last two games and has at least 30 receiving yards in four of the last five Chargers games.

Once you get beyond the top five or very tight ends, it all starts to get a bit mysterious, but Dissly is playing good football right now and facing a Ravens defense that allows the 10th-most fantasy points per game at the position. He’s not an elite player, but fantasy managers with question marks at the end can still get Dissly in most leagues as he’s currently only on 15% of the roster.