Week 12 Fantasy Football Sneaky Starts & Sleepers
All but the luckiest fantasy owners at some point need to find the proverbial diamond in the rough—a waiver wire or bench player capable of putting up some points in a pinch. This weekly feature is dedicated to that part of fantasy football. It's not pretty, but it's part of the game.
I’ll put the defense’s aFPA (adjusted fantasy points allowed) rank in parentheses below. As of Week 4, we are now using only 2024 data for our signature strength of schedule metric, which makes it a great apples-to-apples comparison of each defensive matchup.
Let’s see who might surprise this week:
Quarterbacks
Justin Herbert, Chargers (vs. BAL, 29)
Herbert was a Sneaky Start last week and he delivered 297/2 plus 65 yards rushing against the Bengals. In retrospect, it sure seems like he was limited with that foot injury to start the season. He didn't attempt more than 27 passes in the first four games and only rushed for 34 total yards in his first six games. Since Week 7, he's averaging 274 yards, 1.4 touchdowns plus 31 yards and 0.2 touchdowns as a runner. He's the fantasy QB6 in that span and has three "green" matchups in his next four games including this week’s game against the Ravens. Baltimore has yielded an average of 304 passing yards to enemy quarterbacks, though they did hold Russell Wilson in check (205) last week.
Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins (vs. NE, 23)
As a Week 11 Sneaky Start, Tagovailoa posted 288/3 in a good matchup against the Raiders and has averaged 240/1.75 since returning from another concussion. He has a good matchup again this week against the Patriots, who have given up sizable fantasy lines to fellow pocket passers Matthew Stafford (295/4), Mason Rudolph (240/2), and Aaron Rodgers (233/2) just since Week 8.
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