The tables have turned in Indianapolis 👀

Just like Moss growing on the north side of trees, the fantasy stock arrow for Zack Moss is pointing up (I am a coping Jonathan Taylor manager trying to find a silver lining on a Wednesday morning)!

What’s in store:

• Jonathan Taylor is expected to be OUT for the next 2-3 weeks. IN other news: Zack Moss is BACK!

• Justin Jefferson has officially been activated off of IR. Finally. The Vikings really could have used him against the Bears…

• QB and RB Matchups to Target and Avoid in Week 13. Six teams on bye, and lots of backups getting starts this week. It’s a warzone.

• D.J. Moore is THAT guy, pal. At least he is when it’s Justin Fields who’s throwing him his passes.

• Colts RB Jonathan Taylor ruins everyone’s Tuesday by having thumb injury, expected to miss 2-3 weeks

  • Well – that escalated quickly. Fresh on the heels of his 91 yard, two touchdown performance this past weekend against the Buccaneers, Taylor is set to undergo thumb surgery that will sideline him for the most important stretch of fantasy regular season games this year. The hope for the Colts reportedly is to keep Taylor off of IR to avoid having him miss four games as the Colts and fantasy teams alike push for playoff contention, but it would be naive to cling hard and fast to the 2-3 week timeline just days removed from the injury occurring. As for the immediate future of the Colts backfield, the message reads simply: if Zack Moss is on your waiver wire, go and get him now. Moss had four top-10 finishes at the position in his first five games from Week 2-6, scoring at least 17 points in each of those games. He’s slated to step right back into that familiar role after a quiet middle of the season spent behind Jonathan Taylor. Taylor’s fantasy managers should be prepared to have Taylor out until the fantasy playoffs begin in Week 15 at the earliest.

• Vikings WR Justin Jefferson officially activated from injured reserve following Week 12 offensive debacle

  • That ugly game on Monday night provides the perfect backdrop for the return of arguably the best receiver in the game to Minnesota’s offense. Jefferson has missed seven weeks since Week 5, and will technically miss an eight for his fantasy managers with the Vikings heading into their Week 13 bye. The good news is, though, that he’s back and he should be 100% given the way that the Vikings have handled their top offensive weapon with care throughout his recovery process. Jefferson will presumably rank as a WR1 in Week 14 in a matchup against the Raiders, though his managers will have to hope that the Passtronaut’s four interceptions against a very squishy bears defense was just a blip on the radar the rest of the way. With Jefferson back, Jordan Addison is likely to take a substantial hit to his fantasy stock as we hit the final stretch of the fantasy regular season.

DET (-4) @ NO

DET: Allowing the 8th-most fantasy points to quarterbacks on the season - 2nd-most to quarterbacks over the past four weeks. Have allowed QB1 finishes to Justin Herbert, Justin Fields, and Jordan Love in back-to-back-to-back weeks since coming off their bye. It’s almost enough to make you want to start Derek Carr, but he could be short Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed, and Michael Thomas this week. Derek Carr is also incredibly mid as a fantasy QB - so he’s a low-QB2 like usual.

DET: Allowing the 3rd-fewest fantasy points to running backs on the season. Things have fallen apart on the backend for the Lions but their front remains as stout as ever. Given how thin the Lions are at receiver though, I’m still penciling in Alvin Kamara for eight targets and around five catches in what’s probably going to be a game that gets away from New Orleans pretty quickly.

NO: Allowing the 8th-fewest fantasy points to running backs this season. This feels like a David Montgomery game where the Lions go up big and they don’t need to run up the mileage on Jahmyr Gibbs. Gibbs is great, don’t get me wrong – but if you have a sports car and a dually pickup truck in the backfield, which one are you going to let do the tough running for you? I’m not worried about the matchup - the game script shouldn’t get to a point where the running backs are nullified, and David Montgomery has scored a touchdown in every game he’s started this season besides the Buccaneers game.

ATL (-2.5) @ NYJ

ATL: Allowing the 7th-most fantasy points to quarterbacks on the season - not that it matters. If you’re starting Tim Boyle this week for fantasy football, you’re deep in the trenches.

NYJ: Allowing the 7th-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks this season. Does this smell like a Bijan Robinson game to you? Because it reeks of it to me. Just wait till you hear about how the Jets have fared against the run this year – Arthur Smith is salivating just thinking about the run-heavy game script he’s about to call.

ATL: Allowing the 2nd-fewest fantasy points to running backs on the season. Breece Hall has cooled down along with the entire Jets offense, which is frozen solid. But if Tim Boyle is set to dump the ball off 10 times to Breece Hall like he did last week, Breece Hall should have a solid floor for you in this one. The ceiling remains low thanks to the dysfunctional offense, though.

NYJ: Allowing the 4th-most fantasy points to running backs on the season. This includes over the past four weeks as well – the Jets have allowed three top-12 finishes at running back over the past four weeks. We just saw the Falcons give Bijan his work in the receiving game back from earlier this season – if there was a matchup for him to turn the corner and maintain that work in, it’s this one. Desmond Ridder isn’t going to have anything going downfield.

ARI @ PIT (-5.5)

ARI: Allowing the 9th-most fantasy points to quarterbacks on the season. An unstoppable force meets an immovable object as Kenny Pickett clashes with Swiss cheese – he has yet to finish as a top-12 quarterback in any game this season and he’s thrown just one touchdown over the past six weeks since Pittsburgh’s bye. 

PIT: Allowing the 6th-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks on the season. Doesn’t particularly scare me given Kyler Murray’s rushing upside – he’s scored on the ground in three straight games and supplements that production with 200+ yards passing. All of the Steelers’ wins have come in one possession games, and with them favored by 5.5, the game script will call for playmaking all game long from Kyler Murray.

ARI: Allowing the 2nd-most fantasy points to running backs on the season. A true match made in heaven for Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren, both of whom I’m inclined to trust as fantasy RB2s this week. As we’ve discussed many times before, the running backs are the center of what Pittsburgh does on offense – don’t let a down game last week from Warren scare you away from starting him in a plus matchup.

Talk about a complete shit show of a Monday Night football game between the Bears and Vikings this past week. In a game where just 22 total points were scored and the winning team was the one that didn’t find the end zone, the Bears still ran a whopping 67 plays in Week 12 – a development that helped a few of Chicago’s offensive weapons avoid complete disaster performances, including WR D.J. Moore. With Justin Fields under center, Moore has been able to overcome the Bears offense with consistently solid weekly outputs.

Despite Justin Fields posting a prehistoric 3.1 yard average depth of target against Minnesota this past Monday, D.J. Moore was able to capitalize as Fields’ favorite target in the Bears offense. Moore’s 45% target share on 13 targets led the team by far, which he was able to turn into 11 catches for 114 scoreless yards. Despite the wheels falling off the Bears offense in Week 12 and this season overall, Moore has proven that there’s a scoring ceiling to chase with him as long as Fields is there to deliver him targets.

On the year, D.J. Moore is averaging 22 fantasy points per game in games where Justin Fields starts and finishes the game (Weeks 1-5, plus these past two weeks - 11 and 12). That’s come with a 26.4% target share in those games, and Moore averages 105 receiving yards per game this year with Fields under center. With the Bears utilizing the rest of this season as a chance to assess what they have in Justin Fields, the Bears QB is likely to move forward with urgency to get the ball to his top playmaker in D.J. Moore. Chicago has tough matchups on tap these next few weeks following their Week 13 bye against Detroit and Cleveland, but as long as Fields is healthy, it’s going to be hard to keep Moore out of fantasy lineups the rest of the way.