Week 12 Byes: Buffalo Bills (EJ Manuel), Cincinnati Bengals (Andy Dalton), Philadelphia Eagles (Nick Foles), and Seattle Seahawks (Russell Wilson)
We spend a lot of time looking at and digesting the numbers when it comes to fantasy football decision making, but one number you might not be completely aware of has to do with the number of quarterbacks who have played a snap of meaningful football this year.
This year we have seen 48 different quarterbacks take the field. 48. There are only 32 NFL franchises.
With the number of quarterbacks we’ve seen hit the field this year, it’s no wonder the likes of Case Keenum, Matt McGloin, and Scott Tolzien have become fantasy relevant in 2-QB fantasy football leagues.
Keep that in mind if you’re every trying to convert a fellow fantasy player to the dark side of 2-QB fantasy football.
Before we dig into this week’s QB2 streaming candidates, a brief rundown of last week’s results are in order.
Outside of Nick Foles, who finished the week as QB6, but could have finished higher if a couple of his passes had made it past the opposition’s one yard line, it was an up and down QB2 streaming recommendation week.
In addition to Foles, who at this point is a cheat to include every week as a QB2 streamer, as he’s genuinely cemented himself in the QB1 territory, I touted Mike Glennon, Josh McCown, and Scott Tolzien as QB2 streaming options.
Glennon delivered on his promise, scoring 17.64 standard fantasy points, on his way to finishing the week as QB12.
McCown, even in a tornado warning game, still managed to finish as a low-end QB2, and if Tolzien was able to throw one less interception, he would have finished as QB24, instead of QB26, where he was outside of the QB3 range.
With that out of the way, it’s time to focus on this week’s QB2 streaming options.
Week 12 QB2 Streaming Circle of Trust
Case Keenum
You might find it difficult to trust Case Keenum this week, after he was pulled from last week’s game by Houston Texans Head Coach Gary Kubiak, and while that’s fair, Keenum had no reason to be pulled.
Inserting Keenum back into your 2-QB starting line-up might give you nightmares, a date with the Jacksonville Jaguars this week shouldn’t keep you from leaving Keenum on your bench.
The Jaguars have been consistently bad this year, and opposing quarterbacks have scored plenty of fantasy points against them this year. 214 to be exact, which is the third most total fantasy points scored by quarterbacks against one team this year.
Take away Terrelle Pryor’s Week 2 stat line, which was impacted due to game flow, and the worst weekly fantasy quarterback finish by a quarterback facing the Jaguars this year was Peyton Manning’s QB20.
Oh, and who could forget that the Jaguars allowed two different quarterbacks to finish in the Top-24 of weekly fantasy quarterback finishes in the same week.
Back in Week 3, Russell Wilson was QB8, while a garbage time Tarvaris Jackson cameo resulted in him finishing the week as QB16.
Below is each weekly quarterback finish versus the Jaguars this year:
Week 1: Alex Smith – QB16
Week 2: Terrelle Pryor – QB28
Week 3: Russell Wilson – QB8/ Tarvaris Jackson – QB16
Week 4: Andrew Luck – QB10
Week 5: Sam Bradford – QB6
Week 6: Peyton Manning – QB20
Week 7: Philip Rivers – QB14
Week 8: Colin Kaepernick – QB3
Week 9: Bye
Week 10: Ryan Fitzpatrick- QB4
Week 11: Carson Palmer – QB3
With a weekly average finish of QB12, if you include Pryor, and QB10, if you exclude Pryor, Keenum has a good chance of putting up QB1 type fantasy numbers this week. As long as Kubiak doesn’t mettle with the natural world of all things Keenum, that is.
Mike Glennon
Five times this season Glennon has put up at least 15 fantasy points or more, and three times this year Glennon has finished in the QB1 tier of weekly fantasy scoring quarterbacks.
His opponent this week, the Detroit Lions, have had trouble stopping the pass, going all the way back to Week 4.
In the Lions’ last five games, opposing quarterbacks have put up QB1 numbers versus them, if you combine the points total scored by Jay Cutler and Josh McCown in Week 10.
In those five games, the Lions have given up an average of 309.8 passing yards, while sporting a 14:3 passing touchdown to interception ratio.
Ben Roethlisberger and Calvin Johnson torched the Lions secondary in Week 11, and while Glennon-to-Vincent Jackson isn’t the same combination, it’s still one with potential to wreak havoc this week, and lead both Glennon and VJax owners to fantasy glory.
Scott Tolzien
A third string quarterback who threw three interceptions last week might not seem like a smart QB2 streaming recommendation the following week, but other than those three picks Tolzien threw, he had a pretty decent day.
Against the New York Giants in Week 11, in addition to his three passing turnovers, Tolzien also threw for 339 yards, while completing 70.6 percent of his passes.
Going up against a Minnesota Vikings defense this week that allows an average of 293.4 passing yards per game, and that gives up the most passing touchdowns per game, at a clip of 2.2 passing touchdowns allowed per game, I’m willing to take the risk and plug Tolzien in as a QB2 this week.
The Vikings have given up at least one passing touchdown in each of their games this year, and the worst quarterback performance against the Vikings this year was Eli Manning’s 200 passing yards, and one passing touchdown day. That “floor” was still good for 12.50 standard fantasy points.
Aside from Eli, not a single one of the other nine quarterbacks that faced the Vikings this year has scored under 16 fantasy points in their match-up.
Stats used in this article from FantasyData.com, and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports
