Top 3 Fantasy Football Storylines of Week 12 (2025)

A rebuilding team is making a quarterback change this week, but can that lift anyone in their revamped pass-catching corps into fantasy football viability? One of the teams with the best record is coming out of their bye as a road underdog, and it will be interesting to see how they look. Finally, a rookie wideout played an expanded role in Week 11, but one of the week’s most intriguing storylines will be if the enhanced usage sticks.

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Fantasy Football Storylines

Can the Jets Have a Semi-Competent Passing Attack With a New Starting QB?

Tyrod Taylor will reportedly replace Justin Fields as the starting quarterback for the Jets. According to Pro-Football-Reference, Gang Green has three games with fewer than 55 net passing yards this season, and three others with 168, 139 and 105 yards. Taylor doesn’t have a high bar to clear to provide Gang Green’s pass-catchers with more receiving yardage opportunities than Fields did.

Will Taylor do enough to make any of the club’s remaining healthy receiving options fantasy viable? The most likely candidates to emerge as useful, albeit likely only in deeper leagues, are Mason Taylor, John Metchie and Adonai Mitchell.

The rookie tight end has the lowest bar to clear to help fantasy teams. Gamers who lost Tucker Kraft for the year, those without Sam LaPorta while he’s on injured reserve (IR) or those likely without Dalton Kincaid this week, might be scrambling for someone. Taylor has produced showings of 13.2 half-PPR points and 11.9 points in Week 5 and Week 8, respectively. Unfortunately for the rookie tight end, the Ravens are tough on tight ends.

Additionally, according to the Fantasy Points data suite, Taylor had only a 54.5% route participation rate last week. Nevertheless, Taylor could emerge from this week as a useful fantasy option if the change at quarterback breathes any life into the team’s passing attack.

Metchie had the second-highest route participation rate (69.7%) for the Jets in Week 11. His 15.9% air yards share and 11.1% target share were unimpressive. Yet, Metchie had three receptions, 45 receiving yards and a touchdown.

Mitchell had a 60.6% route participation rate, 17.3-yard average depth of target (aDOT), 53.3% air yards share, 22.2% target share, 0.30 targets per route run (TPRR) and a 40.0% first-read rate. Sadly, it was a typical head-scratching performance from the underachieving second-year pro. Mitchell had an unfathomable three drops on six targets and tallied only one 10-yard reception.

Touting Mitchell has rarely worked out for anyone who’s done so. However, according to the Fantasy Points data suite, the Ravens have played man coverage at the fifth-highest rate (35%) and single-high coverage at the third-highest rate (60%) this year.

Meanwhile, Mitchell has 0.50 TPRR and 2.89 yards per route run (YPRR) on 18 routes against man coverage and 0.34 TPRR and 3.34 Y/RR on 38 routes against single-high coverage this year. Last season, Mitchell had 0.44 TPRR and 2.60 YPRR on 57 routes against man coverage and 0.35 TPRR and 3.19 YPRR on 89 routes against single-high coverage.

Obviously, Mitchell could continue to drop the ball and flub opportunities. At the same time, desperate gamers in deeper leagues could do worse than casting a dart in Mitchell’s direction, given his numbers against man and single-high coverage.

What Will the Post-Bye Colts Look Like if They’re Pushed?

The 8-2 Colts are 3-point underdogs in Kansas City against the 5-5 Chiefs. Indianapolis’ offense has been a wagon this year, but it showed chinks in its armor in a Week 9 loss to the Steelers. The Colts bounced back with an overtime victory against the Falcons in Week 10.

Daniel Jones is having a career year in Shane Steichen’s offense. Nevertheless, according to Pro Football Focus (PFF), Jones had four interceptions and nine turnover-worthy plays in his last two games. Jones’ 8.7% turnover-worthy play rate in those games was putrid. Spencer Rattler‘s 5.4% turnover-worthy play rate this year is the highest among 31 quarterbacks with at least 200 dropbacks this year.

Jones also took a combined 12 sacks against the Steelers and Falcons after absorbing only nine in his first eight games. Can Danny Dimes recapture his early-season form if he’s operating in a negative game script his week? How he performs this week will be a critical data point for assessing how trustworthy Indy’s pass-catching options are, namely Tyler Warren, Alec Pierce, Michael Pittman and Josh Downs, whenever the Colts are underdogs the rest of the season.

Will a Week 11 Change in Chicago’s Passing-Game Hierarchy Stick?

Luther Burden‘s five targets, three receptions and 27 scoreless receiving yards against the Vikings in Week 11 don’t jump off the page. However, Burden’s 61.1% route participation rate against Minnesota was the fourth-highest on the team and the third-highest among wide receivers. He trailed DJ Moore‘s 80.6% and Rome Odunze‘s 69.4%, but comfortably cleared Olamide Zaccheaus‘s 13.9%. Burden had only a 27.1% route participation rate in his first eight games; Zaccheaus had a 58.4% route participation rate before last week.

A one-week data point is probably too small to trust Burden as a fantasy starter in most leagues in Week 12. Yet, it’s enough to make Burden an enticing speculative addition this week to get ahead of the role change sticking and Burden erupting against the Steelers. Pittsburgh is a drool-inducing fantasy matchup for wide receivers. Burden could be the waiver wire prize after this week, but gamers with a bench spot to work with can get ahead of the rookie exploding this week.

Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.