Fantasy football start/sit advice, Week 12: Buccaneers vs. Lions
The Buccaneers enter Sunday’s game on a two-game winning streak, while the Lions are coming off a disappointing loss. One team is leaving Sunday with sadness.
After averaging 15.5 points a game through their first eight games, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have upped their production to 31.5 in their last two games, their first two wins of the season. Meanwhile, after surging to first place in the NFC North, the Detroit Lions celebrated with a momentum-killing loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday. Two teams going in marginally different directions face off in a 1 p.m. ET game Sunday in Detroit, with fantasy stakes in the mix:
Buccaneers
Start in every league: Vincent Jackson
Start if you're desperate: Mike Glennon, Bobby Rainey
Bench: Tim Wright, Rian Lindell, Defense/special teams
No top fantasy player is more boom-or-bust than Jackson. He hasn’t scored in the teens since Week 1, but has six single-digit outings and three of 20-plus points. But that is exactly what his fantasy owners were buying into when they drafted him, so you don’t stop now; you keep running him out there.
Glennon has been a pleasant surprise, with 15-18 points in five of his six starts since the team’s bye. The Lions tend to allow points to quarterbacks, so desperate owners could find some value there. ... Rainey had a career game Sunday, with 34 fantasy points and three touchdowns. Now that opposing teams know he has that potential, they’ll be focusing more of their attention on him, and the Lions’ run defense was already relatively stingy against running backs.
Wright looked like he had some up-and-comer potential a few weeks ago, when he had a touchdown and double-digit fantasy points in back-to-back games, but has followed that up with two catches and 32 yards total in the last two weeks. That sleeper potential is fading. ... Lindell has been the fourth-lowest scoring fantasy kicker. ... The Buccaneers’ defense has been mediocre at best, and the Lions give up the third-fewest points to opposing defenses, so that’s not promising.
Lions
Start in every league: Matthew Stafford, Reggie Bush, Calvin Johnson
Start if you're desperate: Joique Bell
Bench: Nate Burleson, Kris Durham, Brandon Pettigrew, David Akers, Defense/special teams
There really shouldn’t be many (any?) questions about Stafford, Bush, or Johnson. Maybe you are worried about Bush in light of his mini-benching a week ago, but it’s hard to picture a team in contention going significantly away from its top rushing option.
If it does turn out that Bush has fallen out of Detroit’s good graces, Bell stands to see his value increase. He has scored double-digit fantasy points twice in three games, but in general, he needs Bush to lose touches for him to have value.
Even if Burleson returns from injury Sunday, using him for his first game in nine weeks seems foolhardy. ... Meanwhile, Durham and Pettigrew have been subpar all season, and there’s no reason to expect that to change now. ... Akers ranks 21st among kickers in fantasy points, with the team scoring more touchdowns and settling for fewer field goals. ... Only four fantasy defenses have scored fewer fantasy points than the Lions’ defense, so even facing a once-struggling Bucs’ offense shouldn’t be much of a salve.
• Week 12 fantasy football position rankings: QB | RB | WR | TE | D/ST
