3 Fantasy Football Quarterback Streaming Options for Week 12

Happy Thanksgiving! This is one of the best weeks of the year. Wishing you a week full of good food, great company, and quarterback fantasy points.

It's time to look at quarterback streaming options for your season-long lineups.

Quarterback streaming isn't for everyone, but if you're in a standard league -- like a 10- or 12-team league that features just one starting signal caller -- grabbing potentially productive quarterbacks in good matchups off the waiver wire is often doable. For some roster constructions, it can even be optimal.

Sure, you won't have the luxury of setting it and forgetting it with Patrick Mahomes as your quarterback, but when the top-end signal-callers draw a tough matchup, their upside can oftentimes be matched by a waiver-wire option in a more favorable situation.

Throughout the season, this column should, will, and must be your go-to resource for identifying quarterbacks to stream in a pinch. I'll recommend quarterbacks rostered in fewer than roughly 50% of Yahoo leagues who are in solid spots this week.

Week 11 Recap and Situations to Monitor

Week 11 was another positive week for this column. Top streaming recommendation Cam Newton delivered the fourth-best quarterback performance of the week, while Tua Tagovailoa also registered a QB1 performance. Mac Jones didn't get there, as the New England Patriots rode their ground game and defense to an easy win.

Thankfully, there aren't many injury situations to monitor at quarterback this week. Both Jared Goff and Justin Fields are legitimately questionable for Thursday morning's tilt, but we can likely do better anyway.

More notably, we'll be missing fantasy studs Patrick Mahomes and Kyler Murray to byes this week.

Let's aim for more streaming goodness in Week 12!

Cam Newton, Panthers

Roster Percentage: 52%

Okay, I'm breaking my own arbitrary rule here and going slightly above the 50% mark. 'Tis the season of giving, right?

The thing is, this is a tough streaming week. And Cam Newton is head and shoulders above the rest of the options.

Cam smashed as a recommended streamer last week, combining 189 yards and 2 touchdowns through the air with 49 yards and a touchdown on the ground as the week's overall QB4. Newton is now up to 14 rushing touchdowns over his last 17 starts.

In addition to his absurd rushing role (he had 10 carries last week), I'll continue to hammer home the collection of Christian McCaffrey, D.J. Moore and Robby Anderson is possibly the best group of weapons of Cam's career. It shouldn't be surprising that despite only throwing for 2+ touchdowns once in all of 2020, Cam already met that mark in his first start of 2021.

In fact, although the sample is small, Cam is legitimately slinging it so far. On his 32 drop backs, he's tallying .27 Passing Net Expected Points per drop back, which would rank 4th among all starters this season. Matching passing efficiency with rushing volume is what quarterback streaming dreams are made of.

Sure, the matchup was good last week, but this week's isn't much worse; the Miami Dolphins have allowed the seventh-most fantasy points to quarterbacks this season. The Dolphins are also 23rd in schedule-adjusted pass defense, according to numberFire's metrics.

This is likely the last week Cam will come close to qualifying as a streamer. Let's just be thankful while it lasts.

Tyrod Taylor, Texans

Roster Percentage: 6%

Shame on me for not writing up Tyrod Taylor as a stream last week, as his 28 rushing yards and 2 rushing touchdowns vaulted him into a top-12 quarterback score on the week.

While we can't project two rushing touchdowns for Taylor again, we can at least project rushing volume every week. He's up to 3 rushing scores this year across just four games, and he's managed at least 3 carries for 23 yards in each of the three games he's played from start to finish.

While he only managed 107 passing yards on 24 attempts last week, we shouldn't project the Houston Texans to dominate the game script again. They enter the week as 2.5-point home favorites, implying a tight back-and-forth game against the New York Jets. Promisingly, the Texans 23.25 implied team total is likely the highest it will be all season.

Taylor should have no problem slicing and dicing this Jets' pass defense, which ranks dead last according to numberFire's schedule-adjusted metrics and has permitted the 12th-most fantasy points to quarterbacks. He's 13th among our quarterback projections for the week.

Jimmy Garoppolo, 49ers

Roster Percentage: 33%

You'll rarely see me recommending streamers without projectable rushing volume. So if Taylor Heinicke or Tua Tagovailoa are more your speed this week, I certainly won't fight you on it.

But there are some solid indicators working in Jimmy Garoppolo's favor this week. He's playing his best football of the season, accounting for two touchdowns in each of the last four weeks. For what it's worth, despite his lack of rushing, he does have three rushing touchdowns across nine starts this year, too.

I double-checked this, but the San Francisco 49ers enter with the third-highest implied team total of all Week 12 teams (25.75). Their game against the Minnesota Vikings also presents the third-highest implied total of the week, so we could be looking at a shootout.

The Vikings rank a solid 10th in schedule adjusted-pass defense, per numberFire's metrics, but a lot of that production came with star pass rusher Danielle Hunter in the lineup. With Hunter absent the last three weeks, the Vikings have allowed 29.3 points per game to the Baltimore Ravens, Los Angeles Chargers, and Green Bay Packers.

In fact, through Week 8 the Vikings' pass defense was up to third in our rankings. Falling seven spots in just three weeks speaks to the importance of Hunter for this defense. Aaron Rodgers just had his best game of the season in Minnesota's dome; Garoppolo gets this defense as a three-point home favorite.

Even despite playing well earlier this year, to date, the Vikings have permitted the sixth-most fantasy points to quarterbacks. While the Niners have been able to lean on and control the clock the past few weeks, Minnesota's fifth-best schedule-adjusted passing offense (per our metrics) should put up much more of a fight.

The floor is low here, but Garoppolo has legitimate 20-point streaming upside in this potential shootout.