The Las Vegas Raiders will face the Denver Broncos in Week 12. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Raiders skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 12 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Gardner Minshew II, QB
Gardner Minshew II has more games with zero touchdown passes than with multiple touchdown strikes, making him a tough sell against anyone, let alone the fourth-best yards-per-attempt pass defense in the sport.
There simply aren’t enough weapons on this Vegas roster to elevate the status of an ordinary QB, and that’s not going to change coming down the stretch of this season.
Alexander Mattison, RB
Alexander Mattison left Week 11’s loss to the Dolphins with an ankle injury, something that could end up saving you from yourself.
Since 2021, 52 running backs have at least 300 carries, and Mattison ranks 49th in boom/bust rate (the percentage difference in carries gaining at least 10 yards and that failed to gain yardage).
I’d argue that chasing the lead role in Vegas is a fool’s errand to begin with, and considering that we’ve already seen Mattison struggle in this spot (15 carries for 38 yards against Denver in Week 5), I’m not backing off of that now.
The Broncos allow the fourth-fewest yards per carry and touchdowns at the fifth-lowest rate to opposing backs. There is no clear path to Mattison mattering at full strength, let alone a compromised version of himself.
Jakobi Meyers, WR
Things are going sideways in Vegas, and Jakobi Meyers’ high-end volume is becoming less appealing by the week. This team hasn’t cleared 20 points in six of their past seven games, and if you want the granular breakdown, Meyers posted a ninth-percentile yards per route run last week.
That’s just not going to cut it.
Not all weeks are going to be that bad, but the fact that such a performance is within the range of outcomes is concerning. Meyers’ 8.7 targets per game over his last six still hold value, just not in the elevated floor way that we were hoping following the Davante Adams trade.
Meyers is a fringe top-30 receiver for me this week. He gave PPR managers 13.2 points in the Week 5 meeting with the Broncos, earning a 25% target share in a game that saw both Gardner Minshew II and Aidan O’Connell throw north of 15 passes.
Brock Bowers, TE
On Sunday, Brock Bowers recorded his second game with at least eight catches, 95 yards, and a touchdown. He joins Mike Ditka (1961) and Robert Awalt (1987) as the only rookie tight ends to have multiple such games.
The first such game this season? The Week 5 loss to these Broncos, a game in which Bowers saw one-third of the targets directed his way.
The Raiders are as limited as anyone on the offensive end, but at least they are self-aware about the situation. Jakobi Meyers led the team in rushing over the weekend while he and Bowers saw 56.4% of passes directed their way.
Gardner Minshew II is capable of identifying mismatches, something that we saw last week on Bowers’ 23-yard touchdown as the coverage was made obvious via motion. That’s enough to keep him as a Tier 1 option the rest of the way.
Do I expect Vegas to score a bunch of points? Of course not, but they are averaging just 18.7 points per game this season, and that hasn’t stopped Bowers from pacing for a rookie-record 119 receptions.