Falcons @ Jets Week 13 Game Preview

Atlanta Falcons @ New York Jets

The big news around the New York Jets this week was the team opening Aaron Rodgers's 21-day practice window, meaning a return this season is still in play. 

Unfortunately for fantasy managers, the Jets will still be starting Tim Boyle at QB in this game so we shouldn’t expect a whole lot of fantasy points. To make matters worse, Atlanta has one of the best rush defenses in the league, ranking second in rush EPA per play allowed. 

This will make it tough to trust Breece Hall this week and to make matters worse, we have to account for this Robert Saleh quote as well as the fact that Hall popped up on the injury report due to a hamstring issue. While none of those are massive issues on their own, they add up to make me somewhat concerned about Breece’s production this week.

Hall still checks in as the RB15 in the Fantasy Life consensus ranks for Week 13, so he is very much startable, but I struggle to see him delivering a ceiling performance, and personally, I’ll be benching him for some players ranked behind him for the week. 

The only other Jet who is fantasy-relevant is Garrett Wilson, who has a whopping 31% target share this season and hasn’t seen less than 25% of the targets in any individual week. Wilson is the WR22 for this week in the Fantasy Life ranks and is always a threat to hit a big play due to his immense talent. With the matchup being more favorable for the Jets passing game, Wilson might get there purely on volume in PPR leagues but he could just as easily put up a dud if Boyle fails to provide catchable targets.

For the Falcons, we saw Bijan Robinson put up his best game of the year last week, and fantasy managers are certainly hoping that is a sign of things to come. Atlanta is firmly in playoff contention after beating the Saints and now has another winnable game to try to keep the momentum going.

The Jets' defense has been really strong this season but has been much more susceptible to giving up points to opposing RBs than any other position, something that plays perfectly into the Falcons' RB-heavy approach. 

Robinson should, of course, be in your lineup, and Tyler Allgeier is even a low-level FLEX play if you’re in a really deep league or have major bye week/injury issues. 

For the passing game, Desmond Ridder has basically only supported one fantasy-relevant WR or TE per week. While Drake London is the most likely player to deliver on a weekly basis, the likes of Kyle Pitts, Jonnu Smith, and Van Jefferson have been involved enough that they could be the ones to pop off when things break right. 

With the difficult matchup this week, you likely have better options than the pass catchers listed above, but London is a low-end WR3 while Pitts is the TE12, so both are borderline startable depending on your depth at those positions.

This matchup has the lowest game total of the week (34 points at the time of writing) and is unlikely to deliver many, if any, big fantasy performances, so it will be understandable if you forget this game is happening on Sunday.