The Las Vegas Raiders will face the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 13. 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 13 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Aidan O’Connell, QB
We’ve gone through the Aidan O’Connell experience already, and it wasn’t pretty (455 yards and two scores on 82 attempts). He loaded Brock Bowers down with double-digit targets in both of his starts, and that’s proof that he can do the one thing fantasy nation needs him to do (not much different than what Cooper Rush is asked to do in Dallas with CeeDee Lamb).
You’re splitting hairs to some degree, but if I have Jakobi Meyers or Bowers, I prefer O’Connell to be calling the shots than Desmond Ridder.
Gardner Minshew II, QB
Gardner Minshew II suffered a broken collarbone last weekend against the Broncos, and the team wasted no time in ruling him out for the season. His season ends with more interceptions (10) than touchdown passes (nine) despite showing some growth in the completion percentage department (66.3%).
The 28-year-old Minshew has one more season on his deal with the Raiders before becoming an unrestricted free agent.
Alexander Mattison, RB
An ankle injury sidelined Alexander Mattison last week, and given Ameer Abdullah’s success in the passing game, I don’t think there’s a path to him getting even remotely close to my starting tier of Flex options this week against a stingy Chiefs defense.
Or … really against any defense.
Mattison is averaging just 3.3 yards per carry this season and hasn’t had a 15-yard run since September. A plodding back like this needs to carry significant scoring equity to have our attention, and that’s not the case as a part of the 26th-ranked scoring offense.
Ameer Abdullah, RB
Zamir White (quad) and Alexander Mattison (ankle) sat out last week against the Broncos, and Ameer Abdullah took full advantage with 65 yards, five receptions, and a touchdown. The role in the passing game is his path to value, and I think it is reasonably sustainable, but only if the two backs ahead of him are again sidelined.
For his career, Abdullah is averaging 4.0 yards per carry with just seven scores on 453 attempts. His ability to pick up cheap points in the passing game holds value in this spot as a significant underdog, though I question the touch upside if he has any competition for touches.
You’re ignoring Abdullah if this situation doesn’t open up. If it does, he’ll threaten my top 30 at the position and thus be a viable Flex option in PPR formats.
Jakobi Meyers, WR
CeeDee Lamb (11.2), Malik Nabers (11.1), Garrett Wilson (10.1), and Ja’Marr Chase (9.9) — that’s your entire list of players averaging more targets per game since Week 3 than Jakobi Meyers (9.6).
In a tough matchup against the Broncos last weekend, he racked up 15 targets on his way to a 10-catch, 121-yard effort (more than double the yardage total projected by sportsbooks). The sledding doesn’t get any easier this week, and a rotating quarterback situation certainly doesn’t help, but Meyers did haul in six of seven looks for 52 yards and a score in the first meeting with the Chiefs this season.
I’d be surprised if he repeated that success, though the volume keeps him as a viable Flex option. Of the top nine WR performances against Kansas City this season, only five have come from the top option in those respective offenses.
Vegas is projected to score 15 points on Black Friday — I’m looking for excuses to play other options if I can (Xavier Worthy and Cedric Tillman are two names that I have ranked ahead of him this week whom I normally don’t).
Brock Bowers, TE
With a touchdown or 10 targets in six of his past seven games, Brock Bowers is giving you an edge in expected production at the position over every team in your league. The loss of Gardner Minshew II isn’t something that I’m worried about as the game plan should remain in place while the quality of looks can’t really move down.
You’re playing Bowers, and you’re doing it with confidence. Rookie tight ends have historically struggled, and an outlier like Bowers isn’t enough to reverse those trends completely. Tyler Warren of Penn State is a weapon, but I’m going to get ahead of it by nine months — be careful in moving him way up your 2025 rankings. He’s great, but this remains a historically difficult position to transition to the professional game.