Lance's 2022 Week 12 Predictions

Every week I’ll be putting out my predictions, they will include my winner for each game with a brief explanation, and 1 start and 1 sit for each fantasy football position. As usual, I’ll start with my picks:

Overall Record: 82-65-1

Buffalo over Detroit
Buffalo showed last week they don't need a monster game out of Josh Allen to win, though Allen and the backfield could all have monster games this week.

Dallas over NY Giants
The Giants are starting to show their lack of high end talent, while the Cowboys are coming off a dominant win.

Minnesota over New England
The Vikings come out ticked off and ready to blow up.

Denver over Carolina
Darnold is starting for the Panthers, so I'm taking Denver.

Tampa Bay over Cleveland
Tampa is coming off their bye and they need to win to keep hold of/extend their lead over the NFC south.

Baltimore over Jacksonville
After the defensive showing the Ravens displayed last week I think they may finally be ready to show what I expected before the season, that could spell trouble for Lawrence.

Miami over Houston
Miami should dominate this game and I don't think an explanation is needed.

NY Jets over Chicago
The Jets are switching to White, which will hopefully get the offense going, but I'm picking the Jets because of their defense.

Cincinnati over Tennessee
Cincy's offense is clicking and I think they'll put the game out of reach early on.

Washington over Atlanta
I went back and forth, but I gave the edge to Washington because their defense is playing better and they're at home.

LA Chargers over Arizona
Even with Murray back, the Cards are still pretty banged up.

Seattle over Las Vegas
Seattle is playing better all around football than Denver, so don't expect Vegas' defense to keep the Seahawks in line.

Kansas City over LA Rams
Doesn't matter if Stafford plays or not, the Chiefs are going to run the Rams over.

San Francisco over New Orleans
Niners are on fire, especially defensively. I don't see Dalton or Winston helping change that.

Philadelphia over Green Bay
The Eagles haven't been themselves lately, but the Packers haven't been themselves all season. This could be a get right game for Philly.

Indianapolis over Pittsburgh
I see this one being all defense, and I think Pickett will make more mistakes than Ryan.

Fantasy Starts and Sits

Record for QBs, TEs, and Ds is based off if they finished top 12 or not

Record for RBs and WRs is based on if they finished top 24 or not.

QB Record: 14-6

QB Start: Taylor Heinicke vs Atlanta
Despite the wins, Henicke has been all over the place as a fantasy player since he took over as the starter. This is a good matchup though as Atlanta has allowed 18+ points to 7 of 11 QBs they've faced and if you remove P.J. Walker from that equation that number becomes 7 of 9.

QB Sit: Matt Ryan vs Pittsburgh
We're at the point in the season where if you're looking for a QB start it's because you're guys are hurt, or you did a really bad job on draft day and have been streaming the position. Ryan looks to have a favorable matchup, but don't let it trick you. Pitt has allowed five QBs to post over 20 points on them, two were Burrow, one was Hurts, one was Josh Allen and one was Zach Wilson who wouldn't have hit 20 had it not been for a fluke receiving touchdown. Ryan should do alright, but not starter worthy points.

RB Record: 10-10

RB Start: Latavius Murray at Carolina
This may not be a long term answer, for all we know the Broncos will hit the waiver wire and bring in an undrafted rookie to take the league by storm over the final five weeks. But for right now the backfield is Murray's to lose, and this is a great matchup to get things going in.

RB Sit: Alvin Kamara at San Francisco
Kamara has not done very well over the last three weeks, and the Niners have only allowed one back to go for double-digits since week 6 (that was Conner last week because he scored a short touchdown).

WR Record: 8-12

WR Start: Treylon Burks vs Cincinnati
The Bengals offense is cooking which could force the Titans to pass more, similar to last week. Plus, the Bengals have allowed one Receiver to score 12+ fantasy points on them each week since Awuzie's injury, including the week he went down.

WR Sit: Darnell Mooney at NY Jets
He's scored in two out of his last three weeks, but he's only averaged 5.7 targets in that span and the Jets have one of the best Corner duos in the league.

TE Record: 9-11

TE Start: Gerald Everett at Arizona
Prime opportunity for Everett as long as he's healthy enough to play. As a backup just in case Everett can't go, I'd say start McBride who saw a decent number of targets last week and has a great matchup going against the Chargers. Could be a battle of the Tight Ends.

TE Sit: Hayden Hurst at Tennessee
He hasn't really seen many targets over Cincy's last three games and with a potential Chase return that would dampen his value even more. Also, Tennessee is middle of the pack when it comes to allowing points to the position (worse than that cause if you eliminate Kelce's and Alie-Cox's games they allow an average of about 4.5 points to TEs).

Defense Record: 11-9

Defense Start: Miami Dolphins vs Houston
Davis Mills was benched, but Kyle Allen isn't a much better option. The Dolphins have the DBs to take advantage of the change.

Defense Sit: New England Patriots at Minnesota
Belichick likes to pick one player to focus on shutting down to try and force the opponent to beat them with someone else. That works for teams that are one dimensional or that only have one big playmaker, but that's not the case for the Vikings. If he elects to lockdown Jefferson they still have Cook, Hockenson and Thielen. I don't see another 17 point outburst coming from the Pats.