I think this is the greatest weekend of the year for anyone who is a true football fan. It starts with three football games on Thanksgiving Day, although the matchups are a little underwhelming this year. The Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, and Washington Football Team are a combined 13-27 on the season, with none of the four teams having a winning record. At least the nightcap is an exciting game between the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, who both have winning records, talented rosters, and playoff aspirations.

After the holiday, we have a number of great college football games on Friday and Saturday, and then the NFL closes out the weekend with 12 games on Sunday and one more on Monday. If you want to watch five straight days of football and start thinking about how your fantasy team is going to do in the final few weeks, there is no better weekend for you than all of the football that comes with Thanksgiving weekend.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving this year. This will not be our typical Thanksgiving holiday with the surging cases of COVID-19 that are devastating the country. Unfortunately, virtual Thanksgiving is going to be a thing for many people this year, but hopefully, everyone can stay safe, and the NFL will offer a needed distraction from the chaos that the pandemic continues to bring our country this year.

There are some intriguing dilemmas for fantasy roster decisions, especially when it comes to keeping players or cutting players. Here are my recommendations as we head into Thanksgiving — and the home stretch for fantasy football.

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Matt Ryan (QB – ATL)
Rotoworld brings up an excellent dilemma when it comes to Matt Ryan this week. The Falcons have played three games this year where Julio Jones either missed the game or was limited due to injury. Per FantasyPros rankings, Ryan was the QB27, QB25, and QB25 in those three games. This offense has a lot of weapons, but they are very different when Julio Jones is not at full strength, and Ryan has not played well in fantasy without him. A healthy Jones opens up players in this offense, and when he is not at full strength, this offense becomes mediocre at best.

Jones dealt with a hamstring injury earlier this year, and he is dealing with one again. Matt Ryan was not his normal self without a healthy Jones, as he tallied just 7.28 fantasy points against the New Orleans Saints. Ryan has some tough games coming up against the Buccaneers, Saints, and Chiefs defenses. I do not know how stellar he is going to be in the fantasy playoffs, and Jones’ injury lingers, it may make sense for some fantasy owners to look in another direction. Your decision will depend on league size, waiver alternatives, and your playoff prospects. Fantasy managers that need to win now cannot wait on this situation to sort itself out.

Matt Ryan Week 3-5 without a Healthy Julio Jones

Carson Wentz (QB – PHI)
This is a classic case of whether you trust a horrible quarterback to exploit a horrible defense or whether the horrible defense will look great against a horrible quarterback.

It’s hard to defend Wentz at this point. He is completing only 58.3% of his passes in a league where teams routinely complete 65%. He leads the league in both interceptions (14) and sacks (40). He averages only 232.6 passing yards per game. His QBR is only 73.3, while the league average is 94.2.

Sometimes being a bad NFL quarterback does not translate into being a bad fantasy quarterback, but in this case, Wentz is bad at both. Wentz has tallied 10.6, 8.7, and 16.4 fantasy points per game against Dallas, at the New York Giants, and the Cleveland Browns. The Giants are sixth against fantasy quarterbacks, but the Cowboys are 20th, and the Browns are 26th.

The Seahawks are terribly against fantasy quarterbacks, ranking 31st with 30.2 fantasy points per game allowed. But it’s hard to trust Wentz right now, and I would explore all other options before playing him at this point. He is struggling as badly as any player in the NFL right now, and the fact that you can’t confidently start him against the Seahawks defense is telling of how badly he is playing this year.

Joe Mixon (RB – CIN)
Mixon hasn’t played since Week 6, and with him going on IR last week, he is not eligible to return until Week 14 against Dallas. If the Bengals are (2-10-1) at that point, does it make sense to bring back Mixon to play with Ryan Finley or Brandon Allen? Neither of those quarterbacks will produce much, and Mixon was averaging only 3.6 yards per carry playing with Joe Burrow, who was setting rookie passing records before he suffered a season-ending injury. Mixon could be coming back to see 15 carries for 40 yards per game against stacked boxes with Finley and Allen under center.

If he plays well, it will just give the Bengals a lower draft position, and he could get hurt again and jeopardize his availability for the start of next season. I think it makes more sense for the Bengals to shut Mixon down for the rest of the year. They need to hope that Burrow is ready for the season opener in 2021 and that another slate of high draft picks will put them in a position to compete for a playoff spot.

If you have the IR spot and nobody else to put there, it may make sense to stash Mixon. Just keep in mind that if you take out the 39.1 points Mixon had against Jacksonville, he was only averaging only 10 fantasy points per game before the injury. In the absence of an IR spot, it’s not worth it to burn a roster spot for two weeks in the hope that Mixon turns it on at the end of the year with that quarterback situation.

Mark Ingram II (RB – BAL)
Ingram has seven carries for seven yards in his last two games, and now he has COVID-19 and will miss the Thanksgiving showdown with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He does have some nice matchups against Dallas, at Cleveland, and Jacksonville, but he also is in danger of being a healthy scratch once he is taken off the COVID-19 list. It makes no sense to hold onto Ingram at this point. J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards are going to be the lead backs in his offense down the stretch. Dobbins will miss this week due to COVID, but his role expanded last week, and he is still a player to hold. Ingram is a player to cut.

Sony Michel (RB – NE)
Michel was activated this week, and Bill Belichick was so excited to have him back that he made him a healthy scratch and went with Damien Harris, Rex Burkhead, and James White at running back. That does not say much for Michel’s future fantasy value, and he has only 26 rushing attempts for 173 yards and one touchdown. I would not hold out hope that he takes the starting job back from Harris. The more likely scenario is that Michel gets scratched the rest of the way.

Tee Higgins (WR – CIN)
Higgins was starting to become a fantasy star as the season progressed. From Week 6 to Week 10, he averaged 15.6 fantasy points per game. He ranked as the WR9 over that span. His fantasy value is going to plummet now that Joe Burrow is hurt. We had a preview of that when Ryan Finley completed just three passes in 10 attempts for 30 yards and no touchdowns in relief of Burrow. Sometimes defenses struggle playing against a backup that they did not game plan for, but that was not the case with Finley.

Granted, his offense’s starting quarterback had been hurt for the year in a gruesome leg injury that deflated the Bengals. Time to process Burrow’s injury should take care of that issue. The problem is threefold: the Bengals have one of the worst offensive lines in the league, Joe Mixon is gone for at least the next two games, and neither Finley nor Allen seem like compelling backups.

Clearly, keeper league and dynasty league managers need to hang on to Higgins because he could be a WR1 next year. Redraft league managers have some decisions to make. Tyler Boyd still has fantasy value in the short passing game, but Higgins won’t succeed in the vertical passing game without Burrow. Higgins needs to be benched until we can see his value going forward, and for teams that were relying on him and need to win in the next few weeks, it’s time to at least explore the waiver wire and see if there are some options with more reliable quarterback play.

Travis Fulgham (WR – PHI)
He has bottomed out fast with the Eagles offense struggling, and I don’t know if fantasy managers can wait for him to figure it out. The targets are not the entire story; he has 12 of them over the last two weeks. The problem is that those have generated two receptions for 16 yards and no touchdowns. Seattle is a great matchup this week, but Fulgham has gone from being the WR2 from Week 4 to Week 7 to the WR109 over the last two.

I think with that type of floor, he needs to be benched, and if you can’t trust him against Seattle, you have to question whether it is worth holding onto him at this point. Fantasy managers that need to win out to make the playoffs cannot start people with a floor of 1.8 fantasy points per game, and dead roster spots at this time of year are costly, even with the bye weeks wrapping up next week.

T.Y. Hilton (WR – IND)
He is still hovering around the 45% mark in fantasy leagues, which is shocking to me when you consider he is the WR89. When you consider that Marvin Hall is owned in 2.5% of leagues and has only 0.2 fewer fantasy points on the season, it puts into focus how much of Hilton’s rostership is tied to his name.

I have written about him several times this year, but keep in mind that Michael Pittman Jr. is the WR10 receiver over the last two weeks, while Hilton is the WR61 over that period. Pittman Jr. is rostered in 41.9% of ESPN leagues, but all of that is spurred by a 36.9% increase over the last seven days. Pittman Jr. is the Colts wideout who is trending upward, and Hilton needs to be cut in all formats at this point. There is just is not any upside to owing a declining veteran that sees five receptions or less and never finds the end zone.

Austin Hooper (TE – CLE)
I am almost tempted not to write about tight ends — the position is so bad that anybody can be fantasy-relevant if they just find the end zone. Jonnu Smith hasn’t even topped 20 yards from scrimmage the last two weeks, and he is the TE7 through that time span because he scored a touchdown each game. There are only seven fantasy tight ends averaging over 9.0 fantasy points per game that have played 10 games on the season. Tight end is becoming like the fullback position, except for a handful of players that put up respectable fantasy numbers.

Hooper played his typical underwhelming game in a good matchup against the Eagles. He posted five targets, three receptions, 33 yards, and no touchdowns. He could bounce back with a big game for a tight end because the Jaguars have one of the worst defenses in the NFL. The issue is that Baker Mayfield isn’t producing anything right now. Since throwing five touchdown passes against the Cincinnati Bengals, Mayfield has not found the end zone, and he has posted 122, 132, and 204 yards. It is hard to trust anyone in that passing game when the quarterback has numbers that bad. I would probably stay clear of Cleveland’s pass-catchers. The only Browns that matter are those who run the ball.

Mike Gesicki (TE – MIA)
He has been pretty consistent the last three weeks, as he’s posted 4.2, 4.0, and 4.3 fantasy points. That is an uptick from his 0.8 fantasy points in Week 6 and Week 8. The Jets could be an attractive play, but they were just as attractive of a play in Week 6, and Gesicki failed to record a catch on two targets.

Gesicki cannot find the end zone, and 40 yards receiving with no touchdowns is not enough to be fantasy relevant. He has double the receiving yards that Jonnu Smith has the last two weeks, but because Smith finds the end zone and Gesicki does not, Smith is the TE7 in that time span while Gesicki is the TE18. It’s hard to trust Gesicki even against the Jets, especially when he didn’t even record a catch against them the last time they played.

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Derek Lofland is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Derek, check out his archive and follow him @DerekLofland.