The Week 12 matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks features two teams in the middle of battling for playoff spots with the season hitting the stretch drive. We’ve got the fantasy projections courtesy of numberFire.
Fantasy football projections, Week 12: Steelers-Seahawks featuring Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Thomas Rawls
We break down the Week 12 matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger wasn’t supposed to play in Week 10 against the Cleveland Browns, but when teammate Landry Jones went down with an injury, Big Ben had no choice. The fact he didn’t start the game means fantasy owners likely missed out on his big-time statistics. Roethlisberger finished the game with 379 passing yards and three touchdown passes. Now that he’s coming off a bye week, there’s no reason for Roethlisberger not to be in top shape against the Seattle Seahawks.
That’s good news for fantasy owners of any Steelers players, especially those who were lucky enough to draft wide receiver Antonio Brown at the start of the season. He now has 27 catches over the last two weeks combined for a total of 423 yards, two touchdowns and a two-point conversion. Those numbers are astronomical. Even with Michael Vick and Landry Jones at quarterback for stretches this year, Brown still has an outside shot at topping 1,600 receiving yards. Safe to say he will be in starting lineups even in a tough matchup against the Seahawks secondary unit.
Seattle Seahawks
It remains to be seen whether the Seahawks have enough to make the playoffs this year and successfully defend their NFC championship title. One of the reasons for the uncertainty in Seattle is that it just hadn’t been a very good year for quarterback Russell Wilson. The good news is he did have his best game of the season last week against the San Francisco 49ers. Wilson threw a season-high three touchdowns in the game and avoided throwing an interception for the first time since Week 6. Playing just as well against the Pittsburgh Steelers isn’t going to be easy, but if the Seahawks want to stay in the playoff race then their best player has to be their best player.
Depending on who you ask, however, their best player just may be running back Thomas Rawls. Rawls isn’t the name we’re used to hearing in the Seahawks’ backfield, but he’s outplayed Marshawn Lynch when given the chance and just may be the team’s starting running back going into 2016. A career-high 30 carries for 209 yards and a touchdown last week against the 49ers combined with an injury to Lynch made Rawls one of the top pickups on the waiver wire this past week. He won’t top 200 yards against Pittsburgh, but he should be a top performer in Week 12 no matter how you split it.
