Houston Texans quarterback Brian Hoyer has passed all of the league concussion protocol testing and will be the Week 12 starter, per Coach Bill O’Brien. Before Hoyer was injured, he was averaging very respectful numbers for fantasy football lineups. In the past five games before his concussion, he averaged 269 passing yards and threw for 12 touchdowns with only two interceptions.
There is a more enticing reason to pick up and start Hoyer for Week 12--the Texans are playing the New Orleans Saints, whose defense is making people want to return to calling them “The ‘Aints.” This season the Saints defense is on pace to be one of the worst defenses in National Football League history and is making average quarterbacks look like Joe Montana. Let’s break down the numbers of quarterbacks against the Saints in the past three games:
Week 8: Eli Manning – 350 passing yards, six touchdowns, zero interceptions.
Week 9: Marcus Mariota – 371 passing yards, four touchdowns, zero interceptions.
Week 10: Kirk Cousins – 324 passing yards, four touchdowns, zero interceptions.
These ludicrous numbers speak for themselves. Start Brian Hoyer in your QB1 slot and enjoy a field day against this unbelievably putrid New Orleans Saints defense.
Brian Hoyer’s main target and fantasy football stud Deandre Hopkins should be another beneficiary of this week’s match-up. Regardless of the defense he is up against, Deandre Hopkins has quickly become a top-two wide receiver in all of football. He currently has 76 receptions, 1045 receiving yards, and nine touchdowns through his first 10 games. A date with the Saints porous secondary should only pad those statistics even more. If there was a higher rank than an elite WR1 slot, the advice would be to put Hopkins in it. Expect a monster day from the “double-H” Hoyer/Hopkins connection.