Darnell Washington start or sit: Week 12 fantasy football advice

The 6-4 Pittsburgh Steelers go on the road this week to take on the 7-3 Chicago Bears as 2.5-point road dogs on Sunday. They still sit in first place on the AFC North, but the Ravens are overwhelming favorites to pass them up by the end of the season. If they want to make it to the playoffs, they’ll need to win games like this one against a middling Bears team with multiple defensive injuries.

Jaylen Warren and DK Metcalf look like the only sure starts for the Steelers this week. Right now, Aaron Rodgers is questionable with his left hand injury, but seems more likely to play than not. If he can’t, then Mason Rudolph would get the call.

Below, we’ll go over Darnell Washington’s outlook in fantasy football for Week 12.

Washington weighs 311 pounds and can absolutely run with most of the tight ends in the league, while being nearly impossible to tackle. You can tell Rodgers likes getting him the ball and targeting him near the end zone, but we’ve yet to see a breakout game from the big man. His trouble is that the Steelers have too many tight ends and they spread the ball around plenty.

Last week Washington saw an uptick in snap percentage, as he was in the game for 71% of the snaps, while catching 4-of-5 targets for 67 yards. Amazingly, that landed him as TE9 in PPR leagues for the week. The Bears will be without two of their starting linebackers as well as multiple defensive backs. The Bears also rank 10th worst in adjusted fantasy points allowed to tight ends this season.

I prefer Rodgers to Rudolph for Washington to have a strong day, but in the end I do worry that Washington will again lose snaps and targets to the host of other Steelers tight ends. Personally, I am starting him in a deeper league this week, but I also had Tucker Kraft go down with an injury and I’ve been streaming tight ends since. But, in most leagues, I’d probably look for a more consistent option.

Sit.

Sit.