Week 12 of the NFL season featured another steady workload and strong performance by Cincinnati’s Joe Mixon, along with standout games by Leonard Fournette and Jaylen Waddle.

How should fantasy football managers react? Matt Bowen and Tristan H. Cockcroft offer their takes.

Joe Mixon adds to his impressive TD streak

Can we lock in Mixon as a Top 5 back heading into Week 13? Yeah, let’s do that. Mixon racked up 32.3 PPR points on Sunday in the Bengals’ 41-10 win over the Steelers, giving him at least 24 PPR points a game in his past four starts. The volume is jumping here too, with Mixon logging 58 carries over the past two weeks. Plus, he’s putting the ball in the end zone for fantasy managers, with at least one score in his past eight games. The numbers tell us a story here; so does the game tape. This guy is rolling behind a Cincy offensive line that is moving people, giving Mixon daylight to attack on downhill and perimeter schemes. With the Chargers’ run defense up next, I’m in on Mixon here. — Bowen

Leonard Fournette carries fantasy managers

A running back was indeed the star of the Buccaneers-Colts game, but it was Fournette, not his counterpart, Jonathan Taylor, who earned that honor on Sunday. Taylor had a fine game after the team began leaning on him late (19.7 PPR fantasy points), but it was Fournette who rose above the tough-on-paper matchup to deliver a 1 p.m. ET games-leading 44.1 PPR fantasy points, which included the game-winning, 28-yard rushing touchdown. He was a force near the goal line, scoring 1- and 4-yard rushing touchdowns while catching a 4-yard score, in addition to his game winner, and his point total set a new personal best. Fournette has now averaged 14.4 rushing attempts and 4.9 receptions in his past eight games, as the Buccaneers have made a firm commitment to him as a high-volume running back. He has a dream matchup ahead in Week 13 against the Falcons, and his fantasy-championship-week matchup against the Jets is even more appealing. — Cockcroft

Another 20-point effort by Jaylen Waddle

The top-scoring wide receiver from Sunday’s 1 p.m. ET games, Waddle scored 28.7 PPR fantasy points in his team’s dominating win over the Panthers, delivering several key catches in the process. Yes, he has seen an increase in workload due to the injuries to the team’s other wide receivers, evidenced by his seeing double-digit targets in four of his past seven games while totaling 66 during that time span, which will almost certainly be a top-five number in the league when the week concludes, but Waddle’s play has also justified and presumably locked in that trend. There’s no reason to expect him to hand back his newfound fantasy WR2 status, and about the only knocks remaining on him going forward are a potential shadow assignment against James Bradberry in Week 13, the bye week’s rest in Week 14 and a showdown with the Patriots in his regular-season finale. At worst, though, he’d be a high-end WR3 for those two matchups. — Cockcroft

What a difference a week makes for Cam Newton

The wheels came off the tracks for Newton and this Panthers offense in the Week 12 loss to the Dolphins. And that’s really the best way to say it. Yeah, Newton did give you the early touchdown run, but he struggled with ball location in this one, throwing two picks and completing just 5-of-21 passing before being pulled from the game in the second half with just 6.8 fantasy points. The lack of Carolina’s offensive rhythm also impacted the production of Christian McCaffrey, who recorded a season-low 3.5 PPR points — and he saw only one target in the pass game. The Panthers head into the bye week before returning in Week 14 against the Falcons. Now, one subpar game isn’t going to change my opinion on Newton. He’ll still be a QB1 in deeper leagues when the Panthers get back on the field. — Bowen

Quick hitters

Saquon Barkley, RB, New York Giants: It’s time to regard him as more of an RB2 than RB1 in fantasy, after Barkley had a significantly disappointing performance facing a mediocre Eagles run defense, totaling only 9.3 PPR fantasy points on his 17 total touches. It’s only the fifth time in his career that he has played at least 50 offensive snaps and scored less than 10 points, and it’s worth noting that game flow was in his favor for the entirety of this contest and he had effectively only one high-level run, that being his 32-yard gain in the second quarter. Barkley has now averaged only 0.31 PPR fantasy points per offensive snap played, and to put that into perspective, he averaged 0.47 as a rookie in 2018 and 0.35 in 2019. — Cockcroft

play

Jordan Raanan suggests it isn’t time for fantasy managers to move on from Saquon Barkley.

Rob Gronkowski, TE, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Gronk’s 19.3 PPR points in the win over the Colts were his highest fantasy totals since Week 2, and he also posted a season-high 123 yards receiving. Yes, this was a good matchup for Gronk, going up against a Colts defense that leans on split-safety coverages. Utilize the tight end position there. Attack the second-level windows. With 13 receptions in his past two games (on 18 targets), it’s pretty clear that Gronk is healthy and back to playing his role in this Tampa Bay pass game. The Bucs get the Falcons’ defense in Week 13, the same unit that gave up two touchdowns to Gronk back in that Week 2 game. He’ll be in the mix for me as a midtier TE1 in that one. — Bowen

Najee Harris, RB, Pittsburgh Steelers: Negative game flow has to be brought into this discussion on the rookie running back with the Bengals completely dictating the tempo of this one on Sunday. However, is there some concern here with Harris? He’s now failed to top the 18-point scoring mark in PPR formats for four straight games. Remember, Harris is a grinder, a volume player. And we aren’t seeing the explosive plays on the ground that create instant fantasy production. Plus, the target volume in the pass game hasn’t jumped here either. With a matchup against the Ravens’ defense in Week 13, Harris will remain a scoring-dependent, low-end RB1 in my ranks. — Bowen

Deebo Samuel, WR, San Francisco 49ers: Samuel left the game in the second half with a reported groin injury. And we’ll have to see how that plays out this week, with Seattle on the schedule next. But before he exited, Kyle Shanahan again utilized Samuel’s unique traits in the run game. Samuel, who now has 18 carries in his past three games, rushed for 66 yards — and two scores — in the Week 12 win over Minnesota. The ball carrier vision, the ability to shift gears, the physicality on the door step on the goal line. All of it. And even with limited work in the pass game (two receptions over the past two weeks), Samuel posted 20.8 PPR points on Sunday. If healthy in Week 13, you can keep Samuel in the WR1 spot. — Bowen

Tee Higgins, WR, Cincinnati Bengals: The 23.4 PPR points in the Week 12 win over the Steelers were a season high for Higgins, so were the 114 yards receiving. And Higgins also saw eight targets, compared to just three for teammate Ja’Marr Chase. While I love the idea of Higgins as the boundary receiver for Joe Burrow in this offense, there’s not going to be much movement here for me in the ranks. The run game has jumped to the top of the call sheet for this Bengals offense, and we know that Chase is going to get his looks as the No. 1. That’s why Higgins will remain as a WR3/Flex for the Week 13 matchup against the Chargers. — Bowen

Elijah Mitchell, RB, San Francisco 49ers: After missing Week 11 with a broken finger and entering Sunday with a questionable listing for a game with a 4:25 p.m. ET scheduled kickoff, Mitchell returned with an exclamation point, scoring a career-best 27.8 PPR fantasy points while handling a personal-most 32 total touches. He played 70.1% of the 49ers’ offensive snaps and handled 27 of 29 team running back carries; and that the team kept him in there for additional work late even after Deebo Samuel’s early exit due to injury speaks well to Mitchell’s health. Mitchell showed good quickness in the effort, and he now gets three consecutive great matchups: the Seahawks, the Bengals and the Falcons. There’s a case to be made for him scoring at a top-10 positional level for at least that stretch of his schedule. — Cockcroft

Kendrick Bourne, WR, New England Patriots: Two of his three best PPR fantasy point totals in his career have now come in the past three weeks, as Bourne scored 23.1 points on Sunday, after having totaled a career-best 24.1 in Week 10. Note, however, that he saw only 14 targets total during that three-game span, making a lot out of limited looks, and much of his production seems to be coming on big plays and defensive misplays. I’d need to see more targets before declaring Bourne more than a matchups-dependent WR3, but that label seems to fit. — Cockcroft

Myles Gaskin, RB, Miami Dolphins: With two touchdown runs on Sunday, Gaskins has now recorded at least 16 carries and 18 PPR points in his past two games. With those numbers, and the Giants up next on the schedule, you can lock in Gaskin as an RB2. — Bowen

Cordarrelle Patterson, RB, Atlanta Falcons: In his return game from an ankle injury — that cost him Week 11 against the Patriots and had him initially questionable for this week’s game — Patterson had another near-career day, setting a personal best with 108 rushing yards and totaling 27.5 PPR fantasy points, the second most he has had in a game behind only the 34.6 he scored in Week 4. The Falcons continue to find creative ways to get him involved, and it seems that in the weeks where he’s not heavily involved as a receiver, his traditional position, he’s getting a large rushing workload to more than make up for it. To that end, Patterson has rushed for 50-plus yards on four occasions and totaled 50-plus receiving yards on five occasions, with only one game in which he achieved both. There’s no reason to expect a change in that philosophy going forward, meaning high-end RB2 status in PPR formats and midrange RB2 appeal in non-PPR seems locked in, with the only scheduling quirk he has remaining the extremely favorable Week 16 he has against the Lions but the tough matchups he has to close the year against the Bills (Week 17) and Saints (Week 18). — Cockcroft

Miami Dolphins defense/special teams: Say hello to the D/ST star of the 1 p.m. ET games, as their 25 fantasy points were one shy of the season-to-date best, the Patriots’ 26 points in Week 11. It was the third time in the past three weeks that the Dolphins scored at least 17 points from their D/ST, as their good-on-paper personnel finally seem to be making plays, evidenced by their seven interceptions and 16 sacks during that four-week span. If I have any long-term worries about this squad, it’s that the Dolphins’ offense doesn’t do the defense a whole lot of favors by keeping it frequently off the field, but in the defense’s favor is a tantalizing rest-of-year schedule: the Giants, then the bye week, then the Jets, Saints, Titans and Patriots, none of whom sports a truly scary offense right now. This defense is available in 56.3% of ESPN leagues, and needs to be universally added and started next week. — Cockcroft