Week 12 was a unique week of football, with three games on Thanksgiving, one on Black Friday, 11 on Sunday and one remaining tonight. The week was filled with interesting fantasy happenings, starting with an efficient passing attack carving up their opponent like a turkey on Thursday. Two rookie running backs are ascending after their performances in Week 12. Yet, everything wasn’t rainbows and butterflies. A non-NFL caliber quarterback is tanking his team’s fantasy value, another inexperienced quarterback didn’t run many plays and a rookie undrafted free agent is on sack watch.

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Fantasy Football Week 12 Takeaways

Surprises

Green Bay’s Passing Attack is Cooking
Jordan Love is blossoming. According to Pro Football Focus (PFF), he’s completed 70 of 112 passes (62.5%) for 878 passing yards, seven touchdowns, two interceptions, a 76.5% adjusted completion rate, three turnover-worthy plays, nine big-time throws and an average of 2.67 seconds to throw since Week 10. Love also had 44 rushing yards in those games.

Sadly, Love has a tricky matchup against the Chiefs in Week 13. However, he has a tasty runout for the remainder of the season, making him a borderline QB1 going forward. Love’s improving play can trickle to his pass-catching weapons.

Christian Watson has scored a touchdown in back-to-back games and had season highs for receptions (five) and receiving yards (94) in Week 12. He’s a boom-or-bust flex.

Jayden Reed was third on the Packers in routes (83) but second in targets (17), first in receptions (13), first in receiving yards (164) and had two touchdown receptions in his previous three games. The rookie slot wideout also had five rush attempts for 62 yards and a touchdown. Reed has scored a touchdown in three straight. Yet, he’s not a touchdown-or-bust player, posting at least four receptions and 50 scrimmage yards in each game during his touchdown streak. Reed is a WR3/flex.

An Exciting Dirty Bird is Flying High
Assuming rational coaching can lead fantasy gamers into trouble. Fortunately, Arthur Smith did the right thing after Atlanta’s bye in Week 12 by featuring Bijan Robinson. The eighth pick in this year’s NFL Draft had 16 carries, 91 rushing yards, one rushing touchdown, six targets, three receptions, 32 receiving yards and one receiving touchdown.

The box score was brilliant. Thankfully, his underlying usage was even more encouraging. According to PFF, Robinson led the backfield in snaps (39 versus 34 for Tyler Allgeier and Cordarelle Patterson), rush share (47.1%) and routes (14 compared to five). Robinson can flourish if he supplements half of Atlanta’s backfield’s rush attempts with the majority of their routes.

Disappointments

The Jets Have Downgraded at Quarterback
Gamers with Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson probably didn’t believe it could get worse than having Zach Wilson as Gang Green’s starting quarterback. Those who thought that were wrong. Tim Boyle might not start for most spring football teams. In his start on Black Friday, Boyle passed for only 179 yards on 38 attempts, had one touchdown pass and two interceptions, and took seven sacks.

Boyle has thrown only four touchdowns and had 11 interceptions on 158 pass attempts in his NFL career. Remarkably, Boyle’s NFL stats are better than his college stats. According to Sports-Reference, Boyle had a 48.4% completion rate, 4.5 yards per pass attempt, one touchdown pass and 13 interceptions in 19 games at UCONN.

Boyle’s futility is a nightmare for Hall and Wilson. The latter salvaged his fantasy line in Week 12 by scoring a garbage-time touchdown. Still, Hall and Wilson are better used as bench stashes than as fantasy starters, if possible. The Jets could eventually turn the offense over to Trevor Siemian. The 31-year-old signal-caller would be an upgrade from Boyle and could increase Hall’s and Wilson’s value.

Cincinnati’s Play Volume is a Problem
According to ESPN, the Bengals ran 41 plays and had only 10 first downs against the Steelers, leading to just 10 points. Incredibly, their already lousy performance was lucky. Ja’Marr Chase saved the offense’s bacon by catching two deflected passes and turning them into positive plays.

Jake Browning attempted only 26 passes, and Joe Mixon had all eight of the backfield’s rush attempts for 16 scoreless yards. Chase is a fantasy starter, but Mixon is only a desperation bye-week fill-in choice.

Miscellaneous Notes

Sack Watch is On in the Big Apple
The Giants have won back-to-back games that their fans likely wish they lost. The story for fantasy football is Tommy DeVito‘s penchant for taking sacks. The rookie undrafted free agent (UDFA) has attempted 105 passes and taken 29 sacks, giving him a 21.6% sack rate. He’s taken at least five sacks in four straight games.

He’s a gift to gamers streaming defenses. The G-Men are on a bye in Week 13 before wrapping up the fantasy season with the Packers, Saints, Eagles and Rams. If Tyrod Taylor doesn’t return from injured reserve, all of New York’s remaining opponents will be dreamy DST streamers.

Baltimore’s Backfield Had a Seismic Shift
According to PFF, Keaton Mitchell, Justice Hill and Gus Edwards were on the field for 33, 20 and 19 snaps, respectively, against the Chargers. Moreover, Mitchell’s 14 routes were the most in the backfield, besting Hill’s 11 and Edwards’s five. The speedy rookie also had the highest backfield rush share (40.9%) and the most targets (two).

Mitchell had 89 scrimmage yards on nine rush attempts and two receptions. He’s a big-play machine and can be a fantasy asset on eight-plus weekly touches. Meanwhile, Edwards’s value is now entirely touchdown-dependent, with Mitchell cutting into his rushing workload and Hill siphoning work as well, namely on third down and in the two-minute drill. Mitchell is the most exciting fantasy option in the backfield, and Edwards is a touchdown-chasing choice.

Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.