The NFL All-Sleeper Fantasy Lineup: Week 12

Week 12 sees a special edition of the Snap Count, getting us psyched for a very intriguing set of games on American Thanksgiving.

Every week during fantasy football season, we’ll give you a lineup full of sleepers to help you fill the gaps in your own starting crew.

A brief caution: These picks are NOT intended to replace the actual starters you drafted. But if you’re weak somewhere, or battling injuries, this is a lineup full of high-upside plays that should be available in plenty of competitive fantasy leagues, or perhaps rotting on your bench, about to have their best week of the season.

QUARTERBACK

Colin Kaepernick, SF: Nothing changes here, at least until Kaepernick is owned in more than one quarter of fantasy leagues. His legs give him a solid floor (he’s averaging just over 50 yards on the ground per game) and he’s shown a willingness to take deep shots to his receivers and tight ends. Kaep’s floor keeps him ahead of your other viable streaming option, Philly’s Carson Wentz, who has a great matchup against a bad Packers secondary, but who has also thrown just four touchdowns to six interceptions over his last five games.

RUNNING BACK

Wendell Smallwood, PHI: If you want a piece of the Packers crappy defence, here’s where you go. Smallwood has been a big part of the Eagles offence the past two weeks, and might even get the backfield to himself this weekend as Ryan Mathews and Darren Sproles both battle injuries. He might be too small to play Mathews’s between-the-tackles role successfully against the Packers’ front line, but he’s also shifty and has the hands to take over Sproles’s passing-game duties, too, which would make him immune to the game script.


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Jerrick McKinnon, MIN: The results haven’t come, but over the past four games McKinnon has been clearly separating himself from Matt Asiata and others as Minny’s best back. He handled upwards of 50 percent of the touches last week and easily outplayed his competition. That trend should continue this week, as the Lions are excellent at plugging holes between the tackles where Asiata prefers to run, so the Vikings should be using McKinnon in the passing game and on outside handoffs. One caveat: Asiata is likely to remain the goalline back, so in non-PPR leagues McKinnon is much more risky.

RECEIVER

Tajae Sharp, TEN: A pre-season favourite turned early-season bust, Sharpe has quietly been earning back Marcus Mariota’s trust over the past few weeks, posting back-to-back efforts of 68 yards and a score. More importantly, he seems locked in as the No. 2 receiver and gets the Bears barely-there secondary (allowing the most fantasy points to WRs of any NFL team) this week. A nice matchup with a side of stretch-run upside is exactly what you’re looking for.

Brandon LaFell, CIN: A.J. Green isn’t playing, but instead of LaFell’s ownership skyrocketing, owners seem to prefer his rookie teammate Tyler Boyd. And that’s fine—he’s a good option, too!—but it was LaFell who out-targeted Boyd 9-7 after Green left last week, and it’s also LaFell who has a little bit more of a pedigree and is more likely to be available in your league. We won’t pretend to know who has the bigger game this week, but if you’re playing the percentages, LaFell gets the edge.

Malcolm Mitchell, NE: Chris Hogan is still hurt. Rob Gronkowski is still hurt. Tom Brady is still Tom Brady. And Mitchell is seemingly his preferred downfield threat. There are no guarantees with any Pats receiver outside of perhaps Julian Edelman (as Martellus Bennett demonstrated last week), but if you’re chasing a big line because you’re an underdog who needs a win, Mitchell’s upside makes him the Patriot worth dreaming on.

TIGHT END

Vance McDonald, SF: This is assuming you play in a competitive league, and Zach Ertz and Jared Cook have been snagged. McDonald has long been a sleeper favourite, but has rarely if ever done much to justify that. Over the last month or so, however—basically since Colin Kaepernick began giving the 49ers a prayer in the downfield passing game—he’s been looking like a worthy bench stash. He’s seen six targets a game in four straight contests, and several of those passes have been of the 15- to 20-yard variety. His size makes him a red-zone asset, too.

DEFENCE

New Orleans: Let’s go for Goff again. The L.A. Rams rookie quarterback was not horrible in his NFL debut, but the lack of talent around him means that he has to be a lot better than that to run up the points. The Rams could only muster 10 points against a Dolphins defence that isn’t exactly the class of the NFL, and the much-maligned Saints D has actually gone five straight games giving up 23 or fewer points. Seems like a few turnovers, at least, are worth hoping for in this one.

KICKER

The NFL’s PR man has clearly learned his craft from the king of reacting calmly and rationally to media opinions:

And you know what? He’s right. Kickers only ever do make headlines when they screw up. Which is why you should never, ever use them in fantasy. When you do, someone always ends up #Sad.

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