Fantasy Football Saturday Mailbag for Week 13

Good morning Footclan! I hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving. Welcome back once again to the latest edition of The Fantasy Footballers’ Saturday Morning Mailbag! This is the column here at Ballers’ HQ where each and every Saturday morning, I take a handful of your questions from The Fantasy Footballers’ Discord server and give you my thoughts and insights ahead of this week’s games! Remember, The Ballers’ Discord is home to the biggest and best online fantasy football community in the world and is your one-stop shop if you’re looking to talk about all things fantasy football. Head over today, register your username, and start interacting with the thousands of members we have waiting to talk ball. There are dozens of dedicated channels for start/sit questions, trade advice, and waiver wire insights, as well as exclusive areas that are only available to you—the loyal members of the Footclan.

It may be Saturday morning but we are already four games deep into this week’s matchups after the Turkey Day triple-header and Black Friday’s AFC West clash between the Raiders and the Chiefs. We may have all stuffed ourselves full of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie… but there’s always room for more football—and there’s a veritable smorgasbord of fantasy delights on the menu this weekend! We’ve hit that portion of the season where the gaze of managers firmly starts to turn toward the playoffs in an attempt to shore up those rosters in an attempt to secure a #FootclanTitle. We’ll be discussing which quarterbacks you can (and can’t) trust as we enter the post-season, and just what to do with a pair of wide receivers going in opposite directions as the season progresses. As usual, there’s lots to be getting on with… let’s dive right in!

Question #1 – Playoff Primer (Call of Duty QB Special) 

Gobble Gobble Ballers! Can I trust Kyler Murray for the next 2 weeks and as my starting QB heading into the fantasy playoffs? – TheSoup

Answer: Gobble Gobble to you to TheSoup—I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I was going to start my response with some hilarious quip about cutting to the chase and giving you the short answer (yes, that was supposed to be a badly constructed height joke)—but that would be unfair to my 5’10” Fantasy King Kyler Murray.

Despite Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 being released on October 25th, we haven’t seen too much of a deviation from the norm for Kyler in terms of fantasy performances. In the Cardinals’ four games since COD dropped, Murray has finished as a QB1 on two occasions, and outside the top 20 in the others… pretty par for the course when reflecting on his season as a whole. It’s been somewhat of a rollercoaster for Kyler Murray managers so far this year—his best fantasy outings have all come in matchups against teams ranked in the top 15 against the position in terms of PAE, yet last week against Seattle (his easiest opponent of the season so far), we saw Kyler barely break through the double-digit ceiling, finishing with 10.8 points on the week and as the QB23… infuriating!

In Kyler’s defense, the Cardinals’ run of games to start the season was brutal. Using The Fantasy Footballers Strength of Schedule Tool, we can see that through the first 10 weeks of the year, Kyler had the toughest stretch of games of any QB in the league, facing off against five top-10 defenses against the position in that time. The good news for Kyler—coming out of Arizona’s Week 11 bye, the script has been entirely flipped on its head, with the Cardinals having the ninth easiest SOS for the remainder of the season. The bad news—the new Prop Hunt mode went live in Black Ops 6 on Wednesday, so who knows how this may impact Murray’s performance in Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon. 

All jokes aside, can you trust Kyler Murray as we reach the business end of the season, absolutely not… but with trade deadlines long gone and the waiver wire stripped bare of likely streamers for the coming weeks, you may just have to. As Andy alluded to on the Footcast, the Cardinals can win without their star QB having a particularly useful fantasy game—but with Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey McBride at his disposal, as well as his rushing ability, Murray can still deliver for your fantasy team when it matters. Don’t lose hope, King Kyler can still wear the crown.

Question #2 – Season-Long Strategy (Vikings WR Edition)

Pew pew pew Ballers! Has Jordan Addison done enough in recent weeks to be trusted as a starting WR moving forward? – finger-guns-mahoney

Answer: Pew pew pew finger-guns-mahoney, and thanks for your question. If you’ve made it this far starting Jordan Addison, then I salute you, it couldn’t have been easy! However, if you’ve had Addison casually chilling on your bench, or perhaps recently picked him up after a fairly disastrous opening two months—then I can fully understand where the temptation to plug him into your lineup after a couple of good games is coming from.

Heading into the season, the Vikings’ sophomore wide receiver had an ADP of 7.12, making him the WR39 off the board—sandwiched between potential ban-candidate Rashee Rice, and the Chargers’ second-round rookie pick, Ladd McConkey… hardly fitting for a guy who ended his debut season as the overall WR21. Perhaps this was somewhat of a foreshadowing of things to come with Addison’s less-than-stellar start to the season, seeing him sit as the overall WR70 through the opening eight weeks. Sure, in that time Minnesota did have their bye, and Addison missed two full games with an ankle injury—but even on a FPPG basis, the 22-year-old former USC Trojan was still only the WR43 on the year, averaging 8.6 PPG… and that included a monster 21.4 point effort at Lambeau in Week 4.

Thankfully we’ve seen a significant uptick in form for Minnesota’s WR2 in the last month, with Addison finishing inside WR2 range against Indianapolis and Tennessee, as well as ending Week 12 as the WR1 after a 162-yard and one touchdown performance in the overtime victory over divisional rivals Chicago… but will it last? My honest opinion to that question is… no, it won’t. The success of Addison (and to an extent T.J. Hockenson) has come at the expense of a relatively unknown young receiver named Justin Jefferson. In the weeks that saw Addison finish as the WR21, WR22, and WR1, Jefferson ended up at WR8, WR29, and WR64 (his worst output in almost two full years)… this won’t, nay, can’t continue. We have all seen how this story plays out—superstar WR has multiple successive down weeks, makes comments to media/on socials about getting targets, and suddenly receives 40% target share in the coming weeks… it’s a tale as old as time. 

Addison will be a useful flex option next week against the Falcons and their 28th-ranked defense against WRs, especially during the second of this season’s bye-pocalyses… but after that it’s contests against the Bears in Week 15 and the Packers’ number one ranked defense in championship week. Start him in a pinch, but don’t get your hopes up for a repeat of the last few weeks.

Question #3 – Season-Long Strategy (Now You’re a MAN Special)

Happy Thanksgiving Ballers! How would you rank Deebo Samuel rest of season? I’ve clinched a playoff spot already, but is it time to start benching him? My league is Half-PPR with playoffs running week 14 – 17. – BudlightBryan

Answer: Happy Thanksgiving to you BudlightBryan—and at this time of reflection, I am thankful that you have already clinched that playoff spot… because Deebo Samuel wasn’t going to help you lock one up if you hadn’t. 

It’s been a rough season for last year’s overall WR12. In 2023, Deebo averaged 14.2 FPPG in his 15 starts for the 49ers… this year, that’s plummeted to a mere 8.8. It feels like if something can go wrong in San Francisco this season, it will… and it doesn’t look as if things are going to improve anytime soon for Kyle Shanahan’s team. At 5-6, San Fran currently sits third in the NFC West, and as it stands, last year’s Super Bowl finalists are out of the playoff picture… woof. Deebo trails both George Kittle and Jauan Jennings in targets, receptions, receiving yards, and touchdowns through 12 weeks. While this normally wouldn’t be of huge concern to Samuel’s fantasy managers due to his elite rushing upside… 27 carries for 79 yards and a solitary score so far this season just isn’t going to get it done.

If you had asked this question just two weeks ago, I would have been filled with enthusiasm for what could have been in the cards for Deebo due to the return of Christian McCaffrey… however, with Brock Purdy going down to a shoulder injury and potentially missing more than the one week he already has—I am very pessimistic about the fantasy future of the man we once called THE MAN. 

The 49ers face a trip to Buffalo this weekend before hosting the Bears in Week 14, then heading to South Beach to take on the Dolphins for semi-finals weekend. All three matchups are no bueno for wideouts, making an already risky start even more daunting for Deebo managers. Samuel for me is firmly in WR3 territory the rest of the way, with potential WR2 upside in the home game against the Rams in Week 15. If San Francisco loses in upstate New York on Sunday and falls to 5-7, we may not see much of Deebo over the last few games of the year—it’s time to sit him and see how things play out in The Bay.

Question #4 – Playoff Primer (QB Special)

Pokeballers! Pick two of these QBs for your playoff run roster: Jayden Daniels, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, and Jordan Love. – It’s Pukachu!

Answer: First things first It’s Pukachu!—if that’s your stable of quarterbacks on a dynasty roster… you are absolutely stacked! I’m going to approach this purely from a single-QB re-draft perspective and give you the two guys I would go with for the remainder of the season… there would perhaps be some subtle variances in a two-QB setup due to individual weekly matchups—but the sentiments would largely be the same.

Let’s get the easy one out of the way—Jordan Love is OUT for me. Out of the four guys mentioned, Love has the hardest remaining strength of schedule through Week 17, and to be honest… I just don’t trust this Green Bay passing offense. Since Week 8, Josh Jacobs has been on an absolute tear for the Packers with seven touchdowns in just five games. In that spell, Love has just one finish inside the top 12 at the position. That’s not the form I want my starting QB coming into the fantasy playoffs with… next.

Now it gets tougher, and here I’m going to make one safe pick and one slightly riskier selection. My chalk pick is Justin Herbert… it’s not overly sexy, but if I am heading into the knockout stage of the season and just need a QB who can give me that very solid floor of 20 fantasy points—Herbs is my guy. Ever since their Week 5 bye, the Chargers have shifted away from their high-T run-first approach, to a far more balanced attack through the air and on the ground—and nobody has benefitted from the change more than Justin Herbert. Big Herb has finished as a QB1 in each of his last five starts and since Week 8 as the overall QB6—he has the 13th easiest remaining SOS for a QB including very plus matchups against Atlanta and Tampa Bay… he’s in.

If when I said my other selection was risky, you thought I meant Jayden Daniels… you would be incorrect. While the Washington Commanders’ rookie can be a boom/bust kind of player—it is the current overall QB2 on the season, the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow, that I feel is the more precarious pick of the two. There’s no denying that Joey B has been on a heater in recent weeks—his 91.9 fantasy points in Weeks 9-11 were just 2.8 shy of the 94.7 Jalen Hurts combined for in Weeks 8-10, with Hurts’ tally including six rushing touchdowns to Burrow’s zero. How then can we consider the hottest QB in fantasy at the moment as a risky selection? Well, if you have listened to this year’s Megalodon episode, you would have heard Andy, Mike, and Jason voice their concerns over Burrow’s potential for the rest of the season should the Bengals fall to a defeat against divisional rivals Pittsburgh this weekend. A loss all but ends Cincy’s faint playoff hopes, and with it, any real point in playing their very highly paid superstars. Yes, Burrow is probably the most talented of the four QBs we’ve discussed, but he could be the first one whose season ends prematurely—as The Ballers said… let’s all hope the Bengals find a way to win on Sunday, for all our sanity.

Question #5 – 2025 Fantasy Draft (Sophomore WR Edition)

Yo yo yo Ballers! Pure gut call, who gets drafted first next year: Marvin Harrison Jr., Brian Thomas Jr. or Jason’s Little Ladd McConkey? 

Thanks guys and enjoy yall’s much deserved family time/Thanksgiving – KyleLee90

Answer: Thanks KyleLee90—Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours as well!

Who would have thought that two-thirds of the way into the season, that of these three rookie wideouts, it would be the guy taken as the first receiver off the board that would be bringing up the rear in terms of fantasy performance? 

Looking at the above we can see that all three of these young pass-catchers are receiving roughly six targets per game through 11 games played, with McConkey just edging it with 69 on the year (nice). Although La-dee-dee has the most receiving yards so far this season, his YPR is almost a full yard shorter than Harrison Jr.’s and nearly two shy of Thomas Jr.’s mark—perhaps unsurprising given that McConkey lines up in the slot 69% of the time (real nice), compared to MHJ’s 20% and BTJ’s 25%. 

Who do I think will finish the year as the leader of this trio… that’s easy, McConkey. And who do I think will be the first of the three drafted in fantasy drafts next season… that’s also easy, Marvin Harrison. We fantasy managers are a fickle bunch, and despite MHJ having what some may call a “disappointing” season, he’s still likely to finish his rookie campaign inside WR2 territory and will be drafted ahead of both McConkey and Thomas on name value alone. Those who spend a second-rounder on him next year won’t be drafting him anywhere near his true value, but savvy fantasy managers will be able to scoop Harrison up somewhere in the late third/early fourth as a very usable WR2 for 2025. Me? I’ll be targeting Jason’s Little Ladd in as many drafts as possible to pair with a bonafide stud at the wideout position. Don’t sleep on the slot receivers, especially ones that can run a 4.39 40-yard dash.

Question #6 – Dream Half-Time Show

Hey Boys! What is your ideal Half-Time show? This could be specific artists, or you could go for something like the Puppy Bowl, Tyson vs. Paul II, 15 minutes of Wicked songs etc. What would you enjoy the most? – Freckle Foot

Answer: I am still full from all the Thanksgiving turkey I ate yesterday so I am going to get straight to the point and keep this one short and sweet (that’s not a Sabrina Carpenter reference btw).

After traveling approximately 800 miles from my native Scotland to see The Eras Tour in Germany—I’m opting for a Taylor Swift extravaganza for my ideal halftime show! Nothing spectacular, just a condensed version of the 3.5-hour setlist into the greatest 14 minutes of non-football action that the National Football League has ever seen. Fans around the world would be treated to a megamix of Fearless, Love Story, Shake It Off, and Cruel Summer, before closing out the performance in the most epic possible fashion… a duet of “Higher” with Scott Stapp of Creed, as a nod to the greatest halftime show that didn’t include a left-shark.

Happy Thanksgiving Footclan!