Transcription
A lot just changed in week 12 of the fantasy football season. Some backfields completely shifted, and some major players went down with injuries. All of that and more is going to impact the rest of the fantasy season, which is important because we're heading into the playoffs right now. So, these are the 10 key takeaways that you need to know from fantasy football this past weekend so you can stay on top in your league.
And let's start with the takeaway that I was the most eager to see this week, and it had to do with Rhamondre Stevenson returning from injury. And the reason why that was so important was Rhamondre Stevenson of late was absolutely dominating. The rookie, the second-round pick for the New England Patriots. You've seen it these last couple of weeks. He had five total touchdowns over his last two games alone. He was averaging over 120 total yards per game during those two games. A Thursday night football game, a Sunday game, and even a game before that where he came in for Stevenson, who got hurt. So the question was, what will this role look like? Because if it was just one game, maybe Stevenson goes back to his normal usage. But it was two massive performances for Stevenson where his coach, Bill Belichick, was praising him each time.
But we got to this game, and oh my goodness, it was just a Rhamondre Stevenson show. 18 carries, 66 yards. Wasn't overly efficient. But the more important thing was Ty Montgomery just one carry. Rhamondre Stevenson just one carry in this game. You scroll down, Stevenson had three catches compared to just one for Rhamondre Stevenson. Now, Rhamondre Stevenson was coming off of a toe injury. They never clarified if it was turf toe or not. Usually, this is an injury that for most players is going to linger over a month. He only missed about two and a half weeks or so. So, there's a chance that they're ramping him back up, but there's also a chance that he'll never be 100% again this season. And obviously, if you're a Ty Montgomery fantasy manager, you love that. Stevenson in this game played 46 snaps, 22 for Stevenson, just three for Ty Montgomery. If this continues to be the trend that Stevenson is going to come in here and see 65% of the snaps, see 71% of the backfield carries, obviously that's going to make him a league winner down the stretch. Over his past few performances, he's already a league winner in fantasy. But if indeed he continues this into the fantasy postseason, weeks 15, 16, 17, maybe 18 for you, even better.
Now, the one thing that didn't happen in this game for Stevenson with Rhamondre back, and maybe moving forward, it does cap his upside in the fantasy postseason on a good offense is we didn't see him become like the unquestioned leader when it comes to the goal-line carries. The Patriots ran the ball three times at the one-yard line in this game. Two of those went to Rhamondre Stevenson for zero yards and no touchdowns. One of those went to Ty Montgomery, believe it or not. He was literally subbed into the game. He only played three snaps in this entire game. One of them he was subbed into on the one-yard line ahead of Ty Montgomery, who had zero carries in that situation. Now, it should be mentioned that these past two weeks, especially on Thursday Night Football in week 11, we saw Stevenson command and have success in the red zone inside the five-yard line scoring touchdowns. So maybe this was just kind of like the way the game was flowing. But the fact that Ty Montgomery had a goal-line carry, a one-yard line carry out of his three snaps, one of them was there, that's a little bit concerning. It's also worth mentioning that in terms of like the performances that Stevenson had this past week, he did face like the easiest matchup against the Bengals. They're allowing 161 yards per game, like 15 more yards than any other team is allowing per game. So Stevenson having like 9.6 fantasy points. Ideally, you would have liked to see more there. Part of that probably is that he didn't have that goal-line role against a pretty weak run defense. If he does have that goal-line role and just cashes in on one of those three goal-line carries that the Patriots have, it looks like a much better fantasy day of like 16 fantasy points and around 100 total yards.
So, at the end of the day, your takeaway here, at least from this usage, is that Stevenson still looks like the lead back right now, but moving forward, we're very much going to have to see if he does lock down that goal line and red zone usage. It was just three snaps. Hopefully, we're not going to see an increase in usage for Stevenson moving forward as he gets healthier and more removed from his toe injury. So, right now, Stevenson looks like a lead back. If you have a trade deadline coming up, he's probably a hold right now. But as I always say, and as I said last week, if somebody is willing to overpay and you can sell high on a player like this for a more stable piece down the line, of course, look at the market and see what's out there.
And this is really important for these Patriots running backs because their rest of season schedule is unbelievably good. They're going to be facing at home on Monday night, the Giants, the second worst, I believe. Let's look at it. We just had NFL Pro up right here. Yes, the second worst run defense, 150 yards per game. Let's not stop there. The week after that, at home, they face the Buffalo Bills, who they've already faced this year. Oh yeah, the third worst run defense. Oh, we're not going to stop there. We're going to have the Ravens, a bottom 10 running defense. The Jets, arguably a bottom five defense after trading Quinnen Williams. And then if you play into week 18, in fantasy, January 18th game at home against the Dolphins. The Dolphins, oh yeah, the fourth worst run defense. The Patriots have arguably the best rest of season schedule for running backs. So that's why this is so important to see how this backfield shakes out.
All right, the next situation I wanted to track was with Josh Jacobs ruled out on Sunday morning with his knee injury. Potentially could play in week 13. Short, uh, week, uh, really short week playing at like noon on Thursday because of Thanksgiving. Packers running back Josh Jacobs was ruled out for week 12. So the question became quickly after this, what does life without Josh Jacobs look like for the Packers? We've seen Emanuel Wilson and Christopher Brooks. They've been backing up in previous weeks. They've been stepping in if Jacobs steps out and goes like the blue medical tent, especially Emanuel Wilson. We've already seen him have past success, and that's exactly what happened this past week. Emanuel Wilson just continued to be an absolute dog. 28 carries. They said, "Oh, there's no Josh Jacobs." It doesn't matter. 28 carries in this game, 107 yards, multiple rushing touchdowns in the red zone. You scroll down, this is a guy who had a touchdown last week for the Packers. He had a key two-point conversion against the Giants as well, so they obviously trust Emanuel Wilson. He adds in two receptions for 18 yards. This dude off the bench, as a backup, and I get it, he filled in last week when Jacobs didn't come back for like the whole second half. He had 30 touches in his first start this season. They trust this guy with their lives, the Packers.
Now, you could actually see when you look at the snap counts according to Player Profiler or according to PFF, it was like a split backfield. 37 snaps for Emanuel Wilson, 29 snaps. Like watching the game, you wouldn't think that Christopher Brooks was getting 29 snaps. Now, towards the end of the game, this was a three-score lead for the Packers. They put in Malik Willis in the fourth quarter with like six minutes left, and the running back on the field during that time was Christopher Brooks. So he did probably get out of these 29, like six to nine of them were garbage time, is what I would say. But it's not like he really did much with them. It's not like even though he saw snaps, he wasn't earning a larger role here. He only had eight carries for 21 yards in this game. He had three fantasy points. He caught a ball for five yards. But like the workhorse league winner type back in this game was Emanuel Wilson.
Now, I pause to say a true league winner because by all the reports, Josh Jacobs should be back on Thursday. But I will say with how well Emanuel Wilson has played these past two games, there's a chance that they say, "It's a short week. Get rested up for week 14, and we look like a playoff team at 7-3-1. I know it's a big game against the Lions, but rest up again. Wilson's got this." And if that's the case, obviously Wilson on a short week, even though it's not the greatest matchup against the Lions, he still becomes a must-start for an offense that is going to move the ball for a guy who's going to be on the field in the red zone like he was in this game. He just saw 77% of the backfield touches compared to Christopher Brooks. Like it wasn't a 70-40 backfield. It was nearly an 80-20. So what does this mean? It means that pretty clearly now moving forward, this is a player that needs to be rostered in fantasy everywhere. I know he's already rostered in like 64% of the league, so he's not necessarily a waiver wire ad for the video, but he needs to be rostered.
Josh Jacobs, though, very likely to play week 13, would not anticipate major limitations plus moderate reinjury, according to Sports MV analysis, a Harvard-trained surgeon, a sports surgeon over on Twitter. And that's important because apparently they're saying it was like just a bruise. I don't, it wasn't a bone bruise to the knee, like just literally a bruise. So maybe there was just too much swelling for him to go out there, and it would just make things worse, and he would end up missing what they consider probably a bigger game against the Lions on Thanksgiving Day. So moving forward for Emanuel Wilson, maybe he gets some extended playing time or even a start against the Lions. But he needs to be rostered in all leagues because we now know that if something happens to Jacobs, who's been dealing with so many different injuries this year, this knee injury, he was dealing with a calf strain earlier in the year for like four-plus weeks. If something ever happens to him down the stretch, the Packers have a solid schedule for the fantasy postseason. They'll have the the the Bears twice heading in. And to start the fantasy postseason, they'll get a matchup against the Ravens. And then they would also get a matchup at week 18 again against the Vikings if your league plays that far. And we just saw Emanuel Wilson against the Vikings. 30 touches, 100-plus yards, two touchdowns.
Now, the next situation we have to talk about is very important. This happened in the 4:00 slate of games. Alvin Kamara, he got an MCL sprain in that game. This is according to Nick Underhill over on Twitter. He ended up leaving this game, not returning, so a knee injury. He did avoid a major injury, but we'll see how it progresses. He says he could take a little bit of time, but we know that it's nothing serious or life or or threatening. Not life-threatening, but of course not life-threatening either, long-term. Now, here's the deal. This is a team, uh, this is a team that very much so is not playing for anything. Alvin Kamara, for the most part, is an older running back. It could take a little bit of time for him to recover. So, I would say he's probably going to miss at least one week here. So, what that means is we have to see what else is left in this backfield. And truly, truly, Jamaal Williams is the only thing left in this backfield. Kendry Miller is on IR. Audrey Audrey Guest, I believe he might have been called up, but he was on the practice squad in past weeks this past week. So here's, here's what you got in this game. You got Jamaal Williams coming in having seven carries for 18 yards. That's pretty gross. That doesn't mean anything for you. That's less than two fantasy points. But more importantly, Jamaal Williams in this game, a game in which the Saints trailed the entire time, allowed Chris Olave to put up a vintage performance as he's been doing all year, mostly. Nine catches, 70 yards, right? These short-area targets. But Jamaal Williams quietly five catches, 43 yards. Five catches, 43 yards get you a flex-worthy play of like 11 to 12 fantasy points because of that in PPR formats. It's something to pay attention to.
But what's even more important about this usage? Nobody else saw a snap in this backfield. Alvin Kamara played 11 snaps and then got injured. Jamaal Williams then went on to play 59 snaps in this backfield. 59 snaps is absolutely insane, especially for a rookie running back. There was nobody else that they trusted to get the ball in this game. They said, "Jamaal Williams, you're going to be the guy who's going to take on as many carries as we can possibly give you right now." And that's what you got in this game. This was a guy playing over 80% of the snaps. Once Alvin Kamara left, he played 100% of the snaps and saw 100% of the backfield opportunities. Now, if you're not familiar with Jamaal Williams, he's a sixth-round pick out of Kansas. He's a 5'11, 213-pound back. He's actually looked pretty good in his limited run these past couple of weeks since Kendry Miller went down with injury, but more importantly, he's just kind of like your stable back. He reminds me a lot of like Ray Davis. Maybe not the exact same type of player, but Ray Davis in Kentucky. Devin at Kansas, they were always so consistent every year. They rarely like fumbled the ball, always picked up production. Three straight seasons to end his college career of at least 1,000 rushing yards. Finished off strong with 1,200 in his final two years, averaging 6.1 yards per carry that time, 17 touchdowns per season. He was also able to catch the ball with 20 receptions in three straight years, which is solid for a college running back. 8%, 11%, and 10% target shares. All pretty good. He played four years in college, and usually with like these four-year starters, maybe they're coming out like and they're already 23 years old. I believe that was the case with guys like Rachaad White. Not the case here. Even Ray Davis, who I mentioned, not the case here. He came out at 21 years old. So he went to college very young, like just turned 18 when he got into college. So this is a player that he's been productive in college. He's coming to the NFL now. There's nobody else around him. And if Alvin Kamara, with a sprained MCL, was forced to miss time or when he plays, he'll probably be limited if he was starting to play through it. Jamaal Williams to me becomes a priority add when it comes to the waiver. And also the reason why Jamaal Williams matters is this schedule is amazing rest of season. This upcoming matchup against the Dolphins is great. Fine matchup against the Bucs, especially with all their injuries. Fine matchup against the Panthers at home, great matchup against the Jets, great matchup against the Titans in the fantasy postseason. It is probably one of the five best running back schedules rest of season. So yeah, Jamaal Williams is a priority add.
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Now, we got to talk about J.J. McCarthy. And unfortunately, I would wish that heading into week 12 against the Packers, I was hoping I could come in here and be like, "Yes, finally J.J. McCarthy has turned the corner. This helps guys that we really care about in fantasy football. Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, the running backs to a lesser extent at this point." But man, oh man, that just was not the case. I probably have never seen a worse offensive performance at the quarterback position, at least in a long time. And maybe it is recency bias, but man, if you watched this game, 12 of 19, 87 total yards. And it's not like he got injured. He didn't get injured in this game. They didn't bring in another quarterback. This was the full complement of snaps the entire fourth quarter, all the way throughout the game. And all he mustered was 87 yards, two interceptions. One of them was pretty gross. Both of them were not great. 12 of 19 in this game. I mean, this was a game where the Green Bay Packers from the beginning of the game, literally the first drive of the game, they score a touchdown. They led the entire time. They led by two to three scores basically the entire second half. And they still did not trust J.J. McCarthy to throw the ball to the point where he only threw 19 times. Now, in some of those situations in the second half where they were trusting him to throw the ball, he threw interceptions. So maybe that's why they didn't trust him to throw the ball all that much. But the Vikings in this game, I mean, they only ran the ball 20 times. They only had 19 overall passing attempts. So part of this is like the Packers offense was just great. It stayed on the field, it drained the clock. We showed you earlier, Emanuel Wilson ran the ball 28 times, right? Christopher Brooks ran the ball six times. So there's a situation here where they were just not getting the ball. But that doesn't change the fact that McCarthy still looked bad, and he still, even though they were trailing by multiple scores, could not feed his players. I'm shocked that Justin Jefferson had four catches for 48 yards in this game. I mean, the fact that he had more than half of J.J. McCarthy's overall production of like 82 total yards is surprising to me. Nobody scored a touchdown. Jordan had no catches in this game. T.J. Hockenson had four catches for 19 yards. Gross. I mean, Aaron Jones might have had the best day here if I had to pick a single player, just because he added in three catches for 16 yards to go along with his eight carries for 42 yards. Like the fact that he was able to even get close to 10 fantasy points in this game was a miracle. It was disgusting to watch for the Vikings. But the problem is like, I don't think it's changing anytime soon. I don't think it's changing for J.J. McCarthy. Sure, the matchups moving forward might get easier, but even in a game script where the Packers were putting in backups in the fourth quarter, the Vikings still couldn't move the ball on offense with J.J. McCarthy at quarterback. He is tanking and he continues to tank, unfortunately. That's the update here. These Vikings pass catchers, we now have a four-game sample of J.J. McCarthy running this offense since coming back from an injury. And here's what he's done so far. He's barely completed over 50% of his passes. He's averaging 157 passing yards per game, and he only has four touchdowns to seven interceptions. In that environment, it's impossible for any of these guys to pay off, especially since you spent a first-round pick on Justin Jefferson and probably a mid-round pick, who knows, somewhere between rounds seven and eight on Jordan Addison. Those aren't going to get paid off here.
Now, I don't want to seem like I'm just piling on J.J. McCarthy, but these are very important questions. People ask me questions and even trade questions until their deadline if it's still going on right now about Justin Jefferson. Every single week, people are panicking. It makes sense. There is a lot of reason to be panicking on Justin Jefferson. Unfortunately, I do not see this turning around. Could Jefferson moving forward have these games of five catches, 60 yards, and a touchdown? Sure, we've actually seen those types of games with J.J. McCarthy before, but the mega ceiling of 20 to 25 to 30 points consistently from him is completely gone.
The next situation I want to talk about is the Lions backfield because we got reports from Dan Campbell himself that this right here, the Lions will try and give David Montgomery more carries heading into the week 12 performance. So, that was already when Jahmyr Gibbs, like he's had a great season this year. Before week 12, he had 30-plus fantasy points in two out of his last three games, but he was doing it on somewhat limited snaps and touches because David Montgomery was still involved. Not overly involved, but now we got a report that Montgomery is going to get more involved. So that kind of stinks if you're a Jahmyr Gibbs fantasy manager until the game was actually played and David Montgomery saw five carries to 15 for Jahmyr Gibbs. Now, why did David Montgomery not see more carries? Because Jahmyr Gibbs, first of all, was playing unbelievable. 219 yards. But Jahmyr Gibbs was also breaking off long touchdowns in this game in overtime, a 70-plus yard touchdown. Long runs before that for touchdowns in just big games as well. So it's really hard for the other running back in the backfield to get carries when the drives are ending because the other running back in Jahmyr Gibbs is scoring touchdowns. And he didn't even stop there. He added 11 catches for 45 yards in this game. 26 total touches, almost 300 total yards, a touchdown, 55 fantasy points.
Now, David Montgomery did add three catches for 19 yards, but in terms of like this, "give Montgomery more carries, get closer to a 50/50 split" with Dan Campbell in his third game as the offensive coordinator calling the plays, at least in this contest, did not happen at all. Montgomery still was not involved. To the point where even the snaps don't look good for David Montgomery. 51 of a possible 69 snaps. That's 74% of the snaps for Jahmyr Gibbs. One of the highest snap totals he's seen in a game in his career when David Montgomery is healthy. To David Montgomery, just 23 snaps in this game. Gibbs ended up seeing 77% of the backfield opportunity. So yeah, you now have David Montgomery coming out here and only getting this past week nine touches now in back-to-back games. He has really not really taken off in terms of we look at his overall usage from a carry standpoint. Hasn't really taken off this year. Like there was the one game where he kind of commanded it. I believe that's when he was at home and his sister was in the crowd and all that, right? 11 carries, 11, 12, 9, 18. That was this game right here with multiple touchdowns. Since then, 4, 13, 11, 15, six. Like, this is kind of disgusting at this point in terms of like what we're looking at. This was six, by the way, in week 11. This past week, he only had nine. So, you're looking at games this year with just four, six, nine overall carries in games, not getting involved overly as a pass catcher. Jahmyr Gibbs, it was mentioned in training camp in August that he's taking on a bigger role. And that's exactly what's happening. Now, moving forward, I wouldn't be shocked to see a game where Gibbs gets 12 carries and Montgomery gets 10 and Gibbs gets activated as the receiver, as he has for basically his entire career so far. But this was an encouraging sign to see that he could get just absolutely commanding type usage. Now, it sucks that he had to do it in a game to get 300 yards to just see this type of usage. But maybe moving forward they're like, "Oh yeah, let's keep getting that guy who just absolutely dominated for the best performance of the year, topping what Jonathan Taylor did in week 10 overseas. Yeah, let's get that guy the ball more."
Next situation I want to look at is Chris Godwin because he actually somewhat surprisingly returned from his fibula injury, and they said he would be limited in this game. Now, let's see what happened in week 12 on Sunday night. If you watched this game, I mean, you probably didn't watch it long. 34 to 7, the Rams absolutely dominated. Baker Mayfield gets injured in this game. So that leads to on offense, everything stinking. Absolutely stinking. I mean, it was bad already before the injury. Mayfield attempted 19 passes for just 41 yards against this Rams defense. But overall, Teddy Bridgewater comes in, 15 attempts, just 62 yards. It was gross on offense for this team. They barely threw for 100 total yards on 34 attempts. They completed only 50% of their passes. So that just sets the context for why what I'm about to show you is very disgusting. Everybody here. Mike Evans, just three catches for 32 yards, right? Trey Palmer, once again, just continues to score touchdowns. So he's somewhat fantasy relevant with 11 fantasy points. Chris Godwin, just two catches, nine yards. He does earn five targets in this game. More importantly though, I wanted to look at what the usage will be for Chris Godwin. And the usage in this game for Godwin was exactly what they said. It was pretty limited here. He plays 25 snaps overall in terms of the total snaps out of 75. So you're playing like around 40%, 35% of the snaps in this game. But it's kind of hard to get a true read on that. They said he would be limited coming off of the fibula. He ended up reinjuring it in some ways, right? He had discomfort or whatever. But this is also a blowout. A game where his quarterback got hurt. There's a chance that they said, "Hey, we got you your 25 snaps. You're not going to play more." Maybe they were going to let him play 50 to 60% of the snaps and just not get a whole complement of snaps. So it's really hard to tell. And I mean, at this point, it's really going to depend on what happens with this Baker Mayfield injury. Like, the update we got last night was that X-rays on his shoulder were negative, but now he has to go and get an MRI. So we know it's nothing bone. He didn't break anything. He didn't fracture anything. At least from what X-rays showed. Sometimes they don't show everything. So we have to go see, what did he do? Did he tear something? Did he pull something? Is he going to miss one week? Is he going to miss the rest of the season? That's really going to matter here because I'll be completely honest with you. If Baker Mayfield is not out there and it is indeed going to be Teddy Bridgewater behind center, I don't want any of these wide receivers. Mike Evans goes from being probably a top 20 player rest of season to somebody that, I mean, you're going to start because he's on your team, but I don't really want on my team. And Chris Godwin probably becomes somebody who's on the bench and could be dropped if Baker Mayfield does not return. Now, if Baker Mayfield does return and Godwin gets ramped up, there's a chance for the fantasy postseason. He is a flex option for you. So, the takeaways from Godwin's usage is it's exactly what they told us it would be. Maybe it would have been a little bit better if Baker didn't get hurt and this wasn't a blowout.
Next situation we have to talk about is the Seattle Seahawks backfield because we saw in week 11, at least Kenneth Walker had his best fantasy performance of the season. 20 over 20 fantasy points. Looked like the better back was taking on more of the usage. And heading into this week, we got kind of similar stuff here. Kenneth Walker, 11 carries, 71 yards in this game compared to Zach Charbonnet, just six for 35. And now Charbonnet once again did score the touchdown in this one, but Walker three catches for 30 yards as well. So he goes over 100 total yards once again. Zach Charbonnet doesn't catch a pass. So it's Walker seeing 14 opportunities to just six for Zach Charbonnet. But of course, Charbonnet continues to score the touchdown and remain a thorn in the side of Kenneth Walker fantasy managers. But the snaps here from PFF were the biggest takeaway. If we look at the backfield snaps overall in this game, they ran 48 plays on offense. 30 of those 30 snaps went to Kenneth Walker, 15 went to Zach Charbonnet, and then the rest were just fullbacks. Know the running backs were involved. So, George Fant, thankfully he was gone after being involved early in their season. So, you're getting 63% of the snaps and 71% of the backfield carries going to Kenneth Walker. This is the second straight game now that he's been like a workhorse type back. And for the past month, he's been more involved in all situations. Hence why he's catching more passes, being involved in the red zone more lately. And you can see Matt Harmon says over on Twitter, Kenneth Walker's 70% share of the RB touches in week 12 was his highest of the season by far by one of their backs as well in a significant gap over second. Second in this game. So you can see all of the the leaders in terms of snap shares this year for a Seahawks running back. If we scroll over here, Kenneth Walker has had the four highest snap shares, running back touch shares, I would say. So backfield carries 70%, 59, 56, and 55. So, it's good to see that Walker's getting all those, but no, no, no other game was he at 60%. This past game, he got over 70% at 71%. So, this is very good to see because if we get vintage Kenneth Walker back that we haven't seen since weeks one through nine of last year before his injury, that's a good thing because last year when he did that in weeks one through nine, right, those seven games that he played during that time, there's a bye week in there. He ends up getting injured, I believe, in week nine. He's averaging 19 fantasy points per game. He's a top 12 running back in fantasy. Between his rush attempts and receptions, he's averaging nearly 19 touches per game, 88 total yards per game. I mean, during that time, he was only playing like 65% or seeing 65% of the backfield opportunities, not even 70-plus% like he's recently seen. You can also see this tweet from Jacob Gibbs over on Twitter, a great Twitter follower. Make sure to follow him. He says, "Kenneth Walker has outsnapped Zach Charbonnet now in four straight contests. These are their snap shares every week. The blue line is Kenneth Walker." So, you can see that earlier in the season when these were closer, this means that they were playing pretty similar snaps. And since then, it's just been all Kenneth Walker. We've seen positive reports from Mike Macdonald as recent as last week saying like, "Yeah, Kenneth Walker has earned more touches. He's been doing good things with these opportunities." And this past week, he averages over five yards per touch, 100 to 100 total yards, breaking tackles. Once again, I think moving forward, this is the Kenneth Walker show.
And before we move forward into the next backfield that had a pretty interesting result on Sunday in week 12, I just want to let you know that this week is the Black Friday deal for the Fantasy Blueprint. It will be by far the best offer. The only offer that we run all season long when it comes to Black Friday is around the Fantasy Blueprint. You can see there's a countdown timer on it right here. The Fantasy Blueprint Friday deal. It is just 4 days away until it officially goes live. And here's the deal. You're going to get a $77 credit towards the Fantasy Blueprint. So, you can check that out if you're interested right now. One way to check it out and make sure that you're notified is to sign up for the newsletter. That's where I'll be sending all the updates about the Black Friday deal out for all of you and that $77 credit. Once Black Friday's over and this weekend's over for Thanksgiving, it's completely gone. So, to make sure you don't miss out on it, you can go to waiverwins.com. That is waiverwins.com. You will get not only this Black Friday offer and credit and updates about it, but I'll also send you my top waiver wire adds for this week as well, a guide that I've built for you totally free. So, check it out at waiverwins.com. It's also linked in the description below.
Now, that backfield that I want to talk about and an interesting thing that happened is the Steelers backfield because in this game, we got Jaylen Warren returning from an injury. Now, we didn't miss any time with this specific injury like he did earlier in the season, but he was on the injury report with that ankle injury. He missed time in last week's game. He did not practice on Wednesday, so it looked a little bit sketchy, but then he returned and limited on Thursday and was a full participant on Friday. So, it was pretty obvious that, okay, Jaylen Warren, he's not left off the final injury report, he's going to come back. And it looks like since he was a full go on Friday, left off the final injury report, he should be a full go in this game. And that basically happened in this game since he's seeing 18 carries. But once again, Kenneth Gainwell put his stamp and his presence was known. 10 carries, 92 yards, though 55 of those did come on like this sneak to tush push play where he was stopped at the one-yard line and it was a pretty impressive play. So it's somewhat skewed in terms of his overall usage there. But once again, six carries, six catches for 30 yards for Kenneth Gainwell. He saw 16 opportunities in this game, over 120 total yards. He continues to be involved as a legitimate flex option. And even with Jaylen Warren healthy like he was in this game right here. Jaylen Warren with 18 carries, no catches for Warren in this game. Gainwell continues to be somebody that you can start in fantasy, especially since we still have the byes. Some big teams on bye in week 14 as well. The 49ers, McCaffrey, the Giants will go on bye. So if we look at the usage here though, it was a split backfield. Kenneth Gainwell plays 37 snaps, Jaylen Warren 36. Now, the easy way to say this is just because, okay, Jaylen Oh, we're on the wrong camera there. There we go. The easy way to say this is just because Jaylen Warren was banged up coming into this game with an ankle injury. That's why it was a 50-50 split. And that's probably right. But there was already signs before this injury, before week 11 when he initially banged up the ankle, that Kenneth Gainwell was being more involved in all situations, especially passing situations, which happened this past week where he caught six passes compared to zero receptions for Warren. I mean, we got in this game 23 routes run for Kenneth Gainwell, just 11 for Jaylen Warren. We got in this game a 50% snap share split, like a 50% opportunity share split for the most part. This was a pretty interesting spot. So, like moving forward, yeah, I do think Jaylen Warren is still the lead back, but Kenneth Gainwell has now proved like what this guy is doing on a week-in and week-out basis. In week 11, 29 fantasy points. This past week, he goes out there, he gets you another 16-plus fantasy points, right? We've seen earlier this season him put up 31 points when Jaylen Warren wasn't healthy. This has been a guy who for the most part is like a waiver wire guy. But now that we're this late into the season, especially if Jaylen Warren is on your team, he has to be stashed. We've already seen the upside when Jaylen Warren misses time or misses a game completely. We're literally talking 30 fantasy points per game. Twice he's done that, and now we've seen the upside this past week if they give him more usage. 16 touches, 100 total yards. Moving forward, the Steelers schedule this week is great. I mean, at home against the Bills, awesome matchup. On the road against the Ravens, will probably be a dogfight right now for the division as it stands. That looks pretty good. At home against the Dolphins heading into the fantasy postseason, also great. So, some nice upcoming matchups. The fantasy playoff schedule isn't the greatest. You get the Lions, you get the Browns, but overall it starts with the Dolphins. So, that's good enough to be still holding on to Kenneth Gainwell.
Another backfield we have to talk about, and this is probably the most interesting one. D'Andre Swift and Khalil Herbert of the Bears because we've seen it when Swift has been healthy this year. Even in games where he's not healthy, playing through groin injuries, he still commanded the backfield touches a ton. But this past week, we saw something change, and there was a reason for it. 12 carries for 48 yards and a touchdown, by the way, from Khalil Herbert. Just eight carries for 15 yards for D'Andre Swift. If you scroll down to the receiving production, one catch for 14 yards for D'Andre Swift in this game. Nothing for Khalil Herbert. This was a very interesting game because there was a clear event that changed the way the backfield played out, and it'll be interesting to see if that happens, continues to happen moving forward. And that event was D'Andre Swift fumbling the ball. In week 12, before the fumble, D'Andre Swift was playing 61% of the snaps. 39% went to Herbert. Swift saw six carries compared to three for Herbert. Once again, he was the commanding back, playing 66% of the snaps or seeing 66% of the touches. But after that fumble, Herbert saw 63% of the snaps. Herbert saw nine carries to two for Swift. And Herbert outsnapped Swift in the red zone five to one, including the goal line, I believe, at the one or two-yard line touchdown that Herbert got.
So, here's the deal. The takeaway is at least for this game, once Swift fumbled, they said, "We have a good running back who's not fumbling, even though he's a seventh-round pick behind you. He's getting the rest of the work. We trust him more right now." Now, who knows if that continues moving forward, but we already have a large sample now of like four straight games since Swift has been dealing with injuries or missing time of a guy being very fantasy relevant. I mean, he's scored now in back-to-back games. And over his last four, three games leading into this one, he was averaging 14 fantasy points per game, 15 rushing attempts per game. This past week, he went out there and got you another 12 and a half or so fantasy points. So, over the past month, even with Swift playing in three of those contests, he's averaging over 13 fantasy points per contest. And if you look in this past game, at least where he was getting his opportunities, the dark blue is Khalil Herbert. The light blue is D'Andre Swift. Early down runner, goal line runner in this game. And then they were pretty much split when it came to the third down, short yards, and the two-minute drill. Still went to D'Andre Swift. Again, the fumble was a big reason for this, but the fumble maybe opens up more opportunities for a running back, a young running back, a rookie, a seventh-rounder who's already seizing all the opportunities he's getting. The Bears rest of the way. It probably won't be that easy, though. Like, I mean, you're going to get the Eagles this week, then the Packers, then the Browns, then the Packers again. Like, this is a brutal lineup of games. The Packers run defense has been hot or cold depending on the week and depending who's healthy. They're really healthy right now. Their linebackers are playing great. The next month of the season stinks for this Bears offense. The one thing that does look good, fantasy championship. They do get the 49ers banged-up defense who might be a little bit healthier by then, but no stars are coming back in terms of like Fred Warner and some of their biggest pieces. But rest of season schedule for the Bears running backs, pretty gross. This could be a sell-high moment for Herbert if you have him and your trade deadline hasn't hit.
Next up, I want to talk about another quarterback. Last time we talked about J.J. McCarthy and why he's been bad for his pass catchers. Now, we have to talk about Kyler Murray and why he is absolutely feeding families. After setting the NFL completions record in a single game last week. Murray comes out this past week, actually gets banged up in the game. That doesn't stop him though from coming back in, completing 33 of 49 passes for 317 yards. And oh my goodness, all he is doing right now is feeding families. What is the job of Kyler Murray in this offense? Be good enough so that Trey McBride, number one, and whoever the next pass catcher is right now, it's Michael Wilson. In the future, it could be Marvin Harrison. Those guys can get us there in fantasy. And I mean, that's just what this guy did. One week after Michael Wilson set the highest receiving yard total of 185 for the season, he doubles it up with 10 catches, 118 yards. Trey McBride, nine catches, just continues to pile on catches at the tight end position. 79 receiving yards in this game. Unfortunately, he didn't find the end zone as he has for plenty of games. But McBride 10 targets, 15 targets for Mike Wilson. Even Greg Dortch now, in back-to-back games, he has nine targets. Greg Dortch is becoming a fantasy waiver wire ad. Six catches, 53 yards, and a touchdown in this game after having multiple catches, decent yardage, and a touchdown in last game. Kyler Murray is literally sustaining three different pass catchers in this Cardinals offense. Now, I don't know every single week how often he's going to have to go out there and like he did this past week, throw 50 times, 49 times. The week before that, he was throwing 50-plus times, right? I don't know how often this is going to continue to happen. The Cardinals defense hasn't been that great. All offenses are scoring on them. That's exactly why this past week they played from behind against the Jaguars once again, who got a lead of multiple scores on them. So if that continues to happen, Murray's going to continue to pass the ball, and that will continue to make Michael Wilson a must-start. He was a top 24 must-start receiver for me this week. That will continue if Marvin Harrison remains out. If Marvin Harrison comes back, well, it'll mess things up a little bit for both these wide receivers. Probably pushes them both outside like my top 24 receivers on a weekly basis. But it continues to make Trey McBride every single week the number one tight end in fantasy. Thank you, Kyler Murray. The upcoming schedule. The Bucs, this is my concern. Baker Mayfield, in terms of your health in general, obviously we want you healthy. Please be healthy, but definitely be healthy for this game so you can sustain offense and make the Cardinals play from behind on the road. Then you get the Rams. They're definitely playing from behind in that game. You get the Texans. These are tough defenses, sure, but if they're playing from behind, you're going to get soft matchups where it leads into the fantasy postseason and good matchups against the Falcons and an amazing matchup in championship week for Trey McBride, Michael Wilson, Marvin Harrison, Kyler Murray against the Cincinnati Bengals defense. So, from the bottom of my heart, I would just like to say that with Thanksgiving being this week, I am thankful for Kyler Murray. I'm also thankful for all of you tuning in for this video. So, I appreciate it a ton. Later in the week, we're going to have our normal schedule, and that will be tomorrow. The next video will come out, the waivers stat for week 13 heading into the fantasy postseason. This one is very important. So, be sure to check it out. Actually, some pretty decent names on the waiver wire we've been getting these past couple of weeks. That video will help you dominate waivers. So, once it's out, check it out right there. And I'll see you all in the next.