Our own Pat Fitzmaurice has been among the most accurate fantasy football experts in the industry over the last several years. Fitz was THE most accurate in-season ranker in 2020. What better way to prepare for your fantasy football start/sit lineup decisions than by reviewing his fantasy football rankings? You can do just that below.
You can also find our expert consensus fantasy football rankings for the week here. And you can sync your fantasy football league for free using our My Playbook tool for custom advice, rankings, and analysis.
Fantasy Football Rankings: Week 12
Fitz’s Fantasy Football Takes
Rookie Bo Nix is close to being a slam-dunk, every-week starter. And with six teams on bye this week, he’s undoubtedly starting for a lot of fantasy teams this week. Nix is averaging 6.4 yards per pass attempt, which isn’t that good. But let’s look at how that has evolved. Over his first four games, Nix averaged 4.8 yards per attempt. Over his last seven games, Nix has averaged 7.4 yards per attempt. Nix had four interceptions in his first two games. He’s thrown only two interceptions in his last nine games. He’s completing 65.5% of his throws this season. He has 295 rushing yards and four TD runs. And don’t look now, but Nix is only six points behind Jayden Daniels in fantasy scoring for the season, and they’ve played the same amount of games. Start Nix with confidence in Week 12.
My best guess is that the Chiefs use Isiah Pacheco lightly in his return from a major leg injury. But he’s going against a Carolina defense that’s so bad, Pacheco might be able to put up good numbers even if he only gets six or seven carries. The Panthers’ run defense ranks dead last in DVOA, has given up 17 touchdowns runs this season, and has yielded a league-high 133.9 rushing yards per game to RBs. I have Pacheco ranked RB29 and Kareem Hunt ranked RB20. I think most observers are expecting Hunt to have the bigger role for Kansas City in Pacheco’s first game back. But let’s not completely discount the possibility that the Chiefs slide Pacheco right back into the feature role he had pre-injury. He’s been wildly productive in his two seasons in Kansas City, and if the team is convinced he’s full go … well, Pacheco could pleasantly surprise us.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba investors were excited when JSN had seven catches for 180 yards and two touchdowns against the Rams in Week 10, but that was with D.K. Metcalf out with a minor knee injury. Could Smith-Njigba produce once Metcalf came back? JSN had turned in lackluster performances in all but one of the games he’d played with Metcalf this season — the exception being a 12-117-0 performance back in Week 2. Well, mission accomplished. Smith-Njigba caught 10-of-11 targets for 110 yards last week against the 49ers. The recent surge is what we’ve been hoping to get from a guy who had 95 catches and 1,600 yards as a 19-year-old sophomore at Ohio State while sharing targets with Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave. I’m buying what looks like a Year 2 breakout for JSN and have him ranked WR19 this week vs. Arizona.
While everyone is quietly celebrating Will Dissly, Jonnu Smith has quietly averaged six catches and 79 receiving yards a game since Week 5 — and that includes games that QB Tua Tagovailoa missed with a concussion. Jonnu checks in at TE8 in this week’s rankings, and there’s a case to be made that he’s a better Week 12 bet than Dissly.
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