Thanksgiving’s always a busy week, with three Thursday games, family events, and the fantasy playoffs bearing down on us. I’m lucky to have a big family, both on my wife’s side and mine, but it does make things tricky around the holidays when I write about football for a living. And then this week, of all weeks, is the one where we get both Leonard Fournette and Joe Mixon missing, as well as Raheem Mostert and potentially Josh Jacobs after he became a late addition on the injury report Friday, which is never a good sign (particularly when you’re talking about a team that sits at 3-7 and presumably doesn’t have much need to push veterans in these instances).
We also should see Ronald Jones active for the first time this season, and with Clyde Edwards-Helaire headed to IR and the Chiefs not making any RB moves this week, he has a strong shot to be active for the next four weeks, at minimum. And of course, when I refer to RB moves, there are the two surprise cuts — Melvin Gordon and Darrell Henderson — who vacate pretty decent snaps roles in their prior offenses, which creates opportunity for shifts with the Broncos and Rams going forward.
That’s just what’s happening at the RB position, and there are a also a ton of QB changes around the NFL, among other developing situations. We’ve talked for weeks now about unknown events coming, and I do have to say while it’s exciting that we should get very startable roles for guys like Rachaad White and Samaje Perine, among others, it’s a bit of bad luck that it’s all happening at once. I’m sure many of you have both White and Perine and will have to make that decision for one lineup spot, for instance, and the hope with the Frankenstein RB idea is these kinds of things might spread out a bit to allow a scenario where a team in that position would have gotten both White’s and Perine’s Week 12 situations into their lineups, but in different weeks.
That’s sort of how things go, but getting these RB decisions right is in my opinion the biggest storyline of Week 12, so this week’s column is going to be focused on that. Situations like the QB changes are typically really tough ones to play into in any meaningful way, but let me also hit on those quickly, just to start.
QB changes
If you’re in a 2QB or SuperFlex league, the best play of the bunch of first-time starters this week is probably Bryce Perkins, after the Rams went very run-heavy last week when he took over for Matthew Stafford, and Perkins showed some strong mobility on some read options. There’s some risk the Chiefs run the Rams off the field so early and so thoroughly that Perkins doesn’t accumulate much yardage at all, but we’re likely talking about a game script that forces more passing than they’d like to get into, especially in the second half, and there’s an element with mobile quarterbacks where at some known quantity of total yards, the percentage that are rushing is just so beneficial because of how fantasy scoring works. What I mean is if we knew the Rams would have a pretty terrible game and Perkins would account for 150 total yards, we might expect a third of those to come on the ground, and 100 passing and 50 rushing yards is going to be 3-to-3.5 fantasy points more than 150 passing and no rushing in most scoring systems.
In other words, I don’t love Perkins as a play, and don’t love the Rams passing game, but we just go back to mobility being a key at QB. That’s also because the other options have similar floors. Trevor Siemian would be the worst of the bunch, in my estimation, given the road game at a good Jets defense. At the same time, Siemian likely elevates the pass attempt floor and ceiling in the offense, and he could have a positive impact on Darnell Mooney and co. On the other side of that game, you have Mike White, who I think is somewhat viable alongside Perkins given the Bears’ defense struggling these past few weeks. White’s known for his massive rate of RB targets in his brief 2021 sample, and that could play well for Michael Carter, but I’m pretty unsure how to read his insertion into the lineup for the Jets’ downfield weapons, though the baseline to improve over Zach Wilson is low.
You get a similar vibe with Sam Darnold taking over for Baker Mayfield, especially as it relates to D.J. Moore, where Moore’s volume splits between Mayfield and P.J. Walker suggest the issue is more on the Mayfield side than Moore’s, and Darnold might be an improvement simply due to that low baseline. But a matchup with the Broncos’ pass defense isn’t ideal here, either, an Darnold himself is a tough sell as an option.
And then Kyle Allen starting for Houston as massive underdogs to the Dolphins is another unknown for how he’ll impact the receivers, since Davis Mills has struggled lately. Mills being immobile is notable in the sense that there’s probably not some massive expected increase in passing volume, so Allen would just need to play quite a bit better for it to be a major change in expectations. I would probably play him over Darnold or Siemian if I had those options in a deep league, but behind Perkins and White. Some of the reasoning there is just looking at implied totals from the betting lines, particularly with respect to White with the Jets favored at home. The other four are leading teams with implied totals below 18, which is incredibly low and a real concern for everyone in a way that argues to break ties against playing anybody in these offenses. At the same time, probably at least one of them will get into the right game environment, with potentially some good fortune like turnover luck, to produce a solid fantasy day. Trying to predict that is the impossible part, even knowing the possibility is there.
Some run-of-the-mill RB volatility spots
Again, I want to get to the major depth chart shakeups, but on weeks like this, you run the risk of overlooking subtle changes. Chuba Hubbard impacted D’Onta Foreman’s snap share negatively last week, and with the QB change and offensive situation, it feels like a stayaway. Still, it wouldn’t surprise if Foreman had more 20-carry games in him going forward, and he has shown an ability to be efficient. I’m not sure this is the right week, but I could see betting into that if your options are dire. Darnold playing half-competent could really benefit Foreman.
Gus Edwards is expected back for the Ravens, and that muddies things there. Edwards, Kenyan Drake, and Justice Hill all look like tough plays, but the Ravens have also really struggled throwing the ball for some time now, and it’s possible the RBs get a lot of work if game script allows. Best guess is Drake or Edwards have the upside for double-digit points here.
Some backs that have seen usage gains that could stick and be really nice for their ceilings include Antonio Gibson (vis-a-vis Brian Robinson), Najee Harris (with Jaylen Warren out), James Conner (since the Eno Benjamin trade), Jeff Wilson (which could expand even more with Mostert out, and it makes Wilson a must start as a huge home favorite in a great matchup, but we also might see some other backs work in), and Christian McCaffrey (where the Elijah Mitchell usage remains a big point of contention and a very interesting fantasy development; I continue to believe it’s a relatively minor issue relative to CMC’s expected efficiency gains in this offense, and that there’s too much focus on his previous massive roles with Carolina because RBs can get there multiple ways and his current usage still carries real upside).