Week 12 is (mostly) in the books! In case you aren’t an insane person like me who likes to spend his Sunday night digging through usage data, I’ve curated five stats that will help you make better decisions in all fantasy football formats for the coming weeks.
Based on my findings, I’ll also do my best to provide buy, sell, and waiver recommendations for managed leagues where applicable. For a broader (if slightly less detailed) overview of usage across the league, I recommend this Twitter thread.
Stat #1: I Apologize For Ever Doubting Jonnu Smith
Jonnu Smith had averaged a 20% target share, 59.8 receiving YPG, and 15.0 FPG since Tua Tagovailoa returned in Week 8. Those marks would rank 6th-best, 4th-best, and 3rd-best among TEs this season. Smith joins George Kittle and Travis Kelce as the only TEs with more than two games above 20 fantasy points this season. He’s been a bonafide fantasy TE1.
And this isn’t just the type of checkdown-heavy, PPR scam-esque usage that many a lesser TE has ridden to fantasy relevance; entering Week 12, Smith was leading the position in first downs per route run (1D/RR) — a catch-all efficiency/effectiveness stat that measures how often a player moves the chains among all of their on-field opportunities. Smith has been more efficient at picking up first downs than Brock Bowers, George Kittle, Trey McBride, and every other TE in the league. In fact, only five WRs (Nico Collins, Amon-Ra St. Brown, A.J. Brown, Chris Godwin, and Jauan Jennings) ranked better than Smith.
What the Dolphins are doing with Smith has been working so well that it’s come at the expense of the rest of their weapons — especially Tyreek Hill.
Jonnu Smith has always been better than Tyreek Hill
— Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) November 24, 2024
Arthur Smith just didn't play him enough
Before now, Hill had not gone more than three consecutive games without eclipsing 20 fantasy points during any stretch since joining the Dolphins. We’re now at five such games (with Tagovailoa) or 10 games (including when Tagovailoa was injured) and counting. Hill has averaged just an 18.8% target share and 13.2 FPG since Week 8.
Even more horrifying, Hill’s matchup against the Patriots in Week 12 was one of the best he was likely to see all season from a schematic standpoint. Tagovailoa threw for 317 yards (his most since Week 1) and four touchdowns (the most he has all season), having no issues picking apart a reeling Patriots secondary… via every receiving weapon available to him save for Hill.
If Hill couldn’t even out-target Smith or Jaylen Waddle in this spot, I’m unsure when we can expect a ceiling game from him this season. He’s just a mid-range WR2 to me moving forward.
Stat #2: The Backfields That Will Drive Us Insane, Week 12
Buccaneers OC Liam Coen suggested Sean Tucker could become more involved coming out of the bye, as the Bucs entered Week 12 intending to give significant touches to all three of their running backs. That came to fruition at first, with all of Tucker, Rachaad White, and Bucky Irving touching the ball on the first series, with Tucker re-entering the game to vulture Irving at the goal line after the latter went down at the one-yard line.
Much the same happened on the third drive, as Tucker again entered the game after Irving was tackled at the one. But this time, Tucker put the ball in the dirt, forcing Baker Mayfield to recover the fumble and the offense to settle for a field goal. Tucker had no carries and just saw one target the rest of the day.
I’ll be closely monitoring Coen’s and HC Todd Bowles’ comments on the backfield throughout the week, but the most likely outcome here seems to be White and Irving returning to a virtual 50/50 split. That’s exactly what happened for the rest of the game, with the pair receiving nine carries and one target each, evenly splitting the team’s two remaining carries inside the 10-yard line.
In the game at large, Irving encouragingly recorded a season-high 20% target share (White’s 3.3%), but most of those came before Tucker’s benching. I’ll know exactly how excited to get at the possibility of Irving overtaking White as a pass-catcher going forward once I see our official route participation data.
Stat #3: Aaron Jones Is So Back As A Bellcow
Last week, I was very down on Aaron Jones’ rest-of-season outlook. In short, he’d just posted near-season lows across most usage categories the week after a major injury scare. I — and most of the industry, judging by all of the Week 12 projections I saw for him — interpreted that to mean the Vikings would continue mixing in Cam Akers out of a responsible (if frustrating) desire to save Jones for the playoffs, much like the Packers had previously done.
Instead, the Vikings fed Jones an 88% carry share in Week 12, his highest in any game since Akers joined the team. He led all RBs (pre-SNF) on the week with 25.3 weighted opportunities. His 11.4% target share tied for his best since Week 4. I strongly suspect his snap rates will be dramatically improved from the previous two weeks as well. So what changed?
The simplest explanation is that Jones has been listed on the injury report since his false-alarm carting. He was limited on the Wednesday and Thursday ahead of Week 11 but got in full practices on all three days heading into Week 12. In hindsight, he likely did sustain a minor rib injury, which caused the team to limit his reps for one game, before unleashing him back to his normal workload after he demonstrated he could handle a full week of practice.
I still believe what I said last week about the team trusting Akers more than they ever did Ty Chandler, so I still wouldn’t expect Jones to go back to consistently posting fringe top-5 usage like he was earlier in the season. But I believe it’s again reasonable to expect him to return something approximating top-12 production for the rest of the season.
Stat #4: Josh Jacobs is Derrick Henry-Lite
Josh Jacobs averages 18.3 FPG in games the Packers have won this season. That’s approximately 48.8% more than he’s averaged in games the team loses. Much like Derrick Henry (though, obviously, lacking Henry’s per-touch explosiveness), Jacobs is capable of going off when the game script favors him, but due to his pedestrian 8.8% target share (RB32), he hasn’t exceeded 12.8 fantasy points in any loss.
I take a particular interest in Jacobs due to how his usage has dramatically improved over the past two weeks since rookie Marshawn Lloyd had to go on the non-football illness list. I remarked last week that I’d wait to see whether Jacobs’ season-high snap share (79.1%), carry share (90%), and target share (29.4%) in Week 11 was just a product of the team getting caught off-guard from a gameplan perspective after Lloyd suddenly took ill on Friday.
Jacobs did not see anything close to that target volume again, but if we exclude the final two drives when the Packers led by 28 points, Jacobs again hit virtually the same sky-high carry share (89.7%). He received all five of the team’s carries inside the five-yard line despite missing a drive due to cramping between his second and third scores.
The Packers are favored in four of their next five games (though none by as much as the 6.5 points they were in Week 12). If Lloyd’s misfortune has indeed caused the team to give up on the idea of giving serious, non-garbage time usage to a second RB, then Jacobs is in a solid spot to turn in at least one or two more nuclear fantasy performances this season. I’d have trouble ranking him very far outside the top-12 RBs in any of his remaining games, aside from his Week 14 contest against the Lions.
Stat #5: Has Bo Nix Revived Courtland Sutton’s Career?
Courtland Sutton is on pace for his first 1,000-yard season since 2019. And that dramatically undersells how well he’s been playing; over his past five games, he's averaging a 27.0% target (9.6 targets/game), 93.4 receiving YPG, and 21.0 FPG. Among WRs over the full season, those marks would rank 6th-best, (5th-best), 3rd-best, and 2nd-best.
And he’s done all of this despite some incredibly difficult matchups; entering the week, the Raiders and the Chiefs had allowed the 2nd-fewest and 3rd-fewest schedule-adjusted FPG to opposing outside receivers. Sutton’s 19.0 fantasy points against the Chiefs were the most any individual WR has scored against them all season. The Raiders had allowed only one WR since Week 4 to exceed 15.0 fantasy points — that is, until Sutton dropped a season-high 29.7 on them Sunday.
I want to watch some tape (and talk to some film grinders who have a better idea of what they’re looking at than I do) before I make any declarations about the extent to which Bo Nix is responsible for Sutton’s career revival. But for what it’s worth, Nix averages 20.8 FPG (~QB6) despite just 9.0 rushing YPG since Week 8, including a top-5 passer rating (109.8) over that span. And for redraft purposes, it’s likely a moot point; whoever is responsible, Sutton is going to project as a top-18 WR (at worst) every week for the rest of the season. As for dynasty, I’d pose this question; if I’d told you last May that Sutton would amass 1,000 receiving yards in 2024, how high would you have taken Nix in Superflex rookie drafts?
