There were some good teams and players plying their trade on Thanksgiving, so with some of these picks, you can already see if I made good choices, or bad ones. (Personally, it was about the only bad week all season to have Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara while facing Drew Brees.) Of those left to play, well, we can hope.
In this competition, each week's high score (standard scoring) will win a $25 Fantasy Index gift certificate, and the season champ will win an enviable prize package, which may be delivered to your door if you happen to live near me.
How to play: Sign into your Fantasy Index account and click the blue "Your stuff" button in the top right corner. Then look for the link to Fantasy Index Blackout on the right side of the page. Pretty simple.
Here's my Week 12 lineup.
Quarterback: Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston. Ryan didn't play great last night, but the final numbers in defeat were OK. I'll call that a win. With Winston, I'm assuming he won't get benched mid-game, though of course you never know for sure. As long as he plays four quarters, he should be very good against San Francisco's overmatched defense.
Running back: Alvin Kamara and Marlon Mack. Well we already know how the Kamara decision turned out. Funny thing is Kamara looked great last night, with a couple of longer runs that got barely stopped by a lone tackler short of the end zone. But with Brees not throwing him any passes, and him not scoring, you end up with a mediocre fantasy performance. Mack starts against a Dolphins run defense that's been as bad as any other in the league the last month or so.
Wide receiver: Julio Jones, Stefon Diggs and Mike Evans. Jones didn't score, and he lost a costly fumble with Atlanta trying to get within 17-10 right before the half. But he put up one of his typical big catches, big yards, no touchdown games. I won't complain. Diggs has a favorable history against the Packers. Evans because I'm going for the stack with Winston. Looks good to me.
Tight end: George Kittle and Rob Gronkowski. Kittle is tearing up everyone and it's safe to assume that Tampa Bay has about negative chance of covering him at any point during what should be a high-scoring contest. Gronkowski has been so bad this year he's not even blacked out. Hopefully he'll actually be active (no reason not to be, but...) If he's not, I'll pivot to somebody else.
Kicker: Justin Tucker and Adam Vinatieri. Ravens are home against the Raiders and the only concern with Tucker is that he'll kick more extra points than field goals. But it's a risk I'm willing to take. Similar story with Vinatieri against the Dolphins.
Defense/Special Teams: Chicago and Indianapolis. I think I've discussed my feelings about Colts-Dolphins. Colts are going to the playoffs, in my opinion, and this should be a convincing win, and they'll face either a not-completely-healthy Ryan Tannehill or a not-very-good Brock Osweiler. In the daily competitions yesterday, I was mystified as to why Dallas was a more expensive Defense option than Chicago. What do the Bears need to do to ensure they're the No. 1 fantasy defense? I think scoring 6 TDs in 11 games, as they've done after scoring again yesterday, is good enough for me.
Good luck to the rest of you.