Are You For Real? Jordan Love, Rashee Rice, Tyler Higbee - Fantasy Football Outlooks

Week 12 of the NFL is behind us and it's time to look ahead to next week's action. There were some surprising performances in the 10th week of the season, but were those surprising performances a sign of things to come for players?

Every week, I'll be looking at three to five NFL players whose numbers from the week before were better than expected. I'll be analyzing their games and making sense of what their showings mean in the larger scheme of things.

Below, you'll find an analysis of the biggest fantasy football surprises of Week 12. Are those surprising results a fact, i.e. a sign of good things to come, or a fiction, i.e. an anomalous result?

• Quarterback fantasy football rankings
• Running back fantasy football rankings
• Wide receiver fantasy football rankings
• Tight end fantasy football rankings
• Kicker fantasy football rankings
• FLEX fantasy football rankings
• Defense (D/ST) fantasy football rankings
• Superflex fantasy football rankings
• IDP fantasy football rankings
• Dynasty fantasy football rankings

Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers

Last Week: QB5

After a so-so start to his first season as an NFL starter, Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love has come on strong over the last three games, with 250-plus passing yards and multiple touchdown passes in all three contests.

On Thanksgiving Day, Love led the Packers to a 29-22 win over the Lions, going 22-for-32 for 268 yards and three touchdowns to give the Packers their third win in the past four games. He also tied his season-high in rushing yards with 39.

I was cautious about Love's increased production, but we're now at three games in a row in which the former first-round pick has played this well. Turnovers are still an issue, but he's gone back-to-back games now without throwing an interception.

There are still a lot of other good quarterbacks who rank ahead of him at this point and he has a tough matchup with the Chiefs this week, but I think we can definitely buy that Love's on the upswing,

Verdict: Love's playing some good football lately and while I'm hesitant to call him a fantasy QB1 because of the strength of the position, he's right there on the cusp

Kyren Williams, Los Angeles Rams

Last Week: RB1

Kyren Williams finishing as the overall RB1 wouldn't have been a surprise a month ago, but then he missed four games with an ankle injury. You might have expected a little rust from Williams in his return, right?

Nope. Williams had 16 carries for 143 yards in the 37-14 win over the Cardinals and also added six receptions for 61 yards and two touchdowns. He did all this despite playing a season-low 61% of the Rams' offensive snaps.

Royce Freeman remained a big presence, carrying the ball 13 times for 77 yards and a score, and with how well he's been playing, he's likely going to continue to have a role going forward.

The real question is if Freeman's continued role will have an impact on Williams' upside going forward. It's worth monitoring, but Williams has been the team's best back when healthy all year. He'll get enough work.

Verdict: Kyren Williams is a solid RB1 play going forward, even with the threat of Royce Freeman taking some touches away from him.

Rashee Rice, Kansas City Chiefs

Last Week: WR4

It feels like we've been waiting all year for a game like this from Kansas City Chiefs rookie wide receiver Rashee Rice. When he's been targeted, good things have tended to happen, but the Chiefs just hadn't been feeding him despite some struggles from the rest of the team's wideouts.

On Sunday against the Raiders, Rice was targeted 10 times, catching eight passes for 107 yards and a touchdown. The touchdown had happened before, but the other three things were all career-high marks for Rice.

He also played his second-highest snap rate of the season, with Rice on the field for 67% of the team's offensive snaps. Meanwhile, the non-Rice wide receivers combined for just seven targets. Maybe this is the start of the Chiefs doing what we all thought they should have been doing this whole time—feeding Rice the football.

Verdict: We're talking about the Chiefs, so Rice could go back down to two or three targets next game. Still, he's clearly their best wideout and he should be viewed as a low-end WR2 right now.

Tyler Higbee, Los Angeles Rams

Last Week: TE1

Maybe the biggest surprise of the week was who the overall TE1 was: Tyler Higbee. After a decent start to the year where he had 49 or more receiving yards in three of the team's first four games, his performance cratered, with him not hitting that mark a single time since.

Higbee finally made an impact again this week though, as he grabbed a pair of touchdowns in the Rams' 37-14 victory over the Arizona Cardinals. He was targeted five times, catching all five passes for 29 yards.

Perhaps surprisingly, Higbee did this while playing a season-low 75% of the team's snaps, just the second time this year he's gone below 90%. That's probably just a bit of a fluke there, as we'd usually expect Higbee to be on the field any time the Rams have a tight end out there.

So, should we buy into this at all? Probably not. I can see adding him as depth in a fantasy league where you need help at tight end, but touchdowns tend to be a pretty noisy stat, so I'm still relatively low on Higbee.

Verdict: Fantasy managers shouldn't see much upside in Tyler Higbee at this point. He hasn't really produced all year and one game isn't likely to change that. He's not a young, up-and-coming tight end. He's someone we know plenty about, enough to know not to expect similar performances. He's a low-end TE2 play.

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