It has been a rough stretch for the two best quarterbacks in the AFC West recently. Patrick Mahomes has only topped 21 Fantasy points once in his last five games. Justin Herbert has scored just 23.4 Fantasy points in his last two starts. But I'm starting both without hesitance in Week 14. That's partially because injuries have completely decimated the ability to stream anything better than 18 FPPG at quarterback this season. It's also because I still believe that Mahomes and Herbert have too much upside to bench.
Between the two of them, Mahomes and Herbert have five 30-point games this season, but only one in the last month. Herbert has lost multiple starting receivers to injury and Austin Ekeler hasn't looked like himself. Mahomes' has dealt with some brutal touchdown and drop luck and Travis Kelce may look just a little bit older.
If you still need a little convincing that this could be the week for Mahomes, just look at his history against the Bills. He has played five career games against Buffalo. He's averaged 307 yards passing and 38 yards rushing per game. He's thrown multiple touchdowns in every game against the Bills. Herbert hasn't been quite as impressive against Denver, but he has averaged 20.4 FPPG in his first six starts against them.
I'm not just saying that I'm starting Mahomes and Herbert because the replacement options are so bad, although that is part of it. I'm also considering one of them as a contrarian play in DFS this weekend. See below for more on that.
127.6 -- Justin Fields is averaging more than 125 rushing yards in his last three games against the Lions.
9.6 -- Jake Browning averaged 9.6 yards per attempt in Week 13, the same number that Brock Purdy has averaged for the season.
34 -- Dak Prescott has scored 34 or more Fantasy points in five of his last six games.
21.8% -- Tua Tagovailoa has been pressured on just 21.8% of his drop backs, by far the lowest mark in the league.
20.5% -- More than a fifth of Will Levis' throws have traveled at least 20 yards. No other QB is above 15%. That makes Levis and his receivers a boom/bust proposition.
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Minshew finally delivered last week with 312 yards and two touchdowns against the Titans. Now he faces a Bengals defense that has allowed four of the last five QBs they've faced to score at least 20 Fantasy points. I would expect Minshew to be right in that range this week.
Browning actually came out higher than Minshew in the first run of my projections, but his floor is much lower. Still, when you have Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd the job isn't as difficult as it is in some places.
Two things the Lions have struggled with on defense this season are defending the pass and defending rushing QBs. Fields should be able to take advantage of both. He's only $7,900 on FanDuel which gives you some roster flexibility and he still has QB1 overall upside every single week.
The Broncos have been very good against the pass as of late, but Herbert is too talented to be as low priced and low rostered as he's going to be in this game. Stack him up with Keenan Allen and Austin Ekeler, bring it back with Courtland Sutton, and you can go chalk everywhere else.
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Heath's projections
My full set of Week 14 Fantasy Football projections for every position are now available on SportsLine. Find out which of my favorite plays are projected to score higher than consensus rankings and which don't live up to their draft hype, at least in Week 14. Projected stats for all starting quarterbacks are available, so be sure to check out the full set of projections at SportsLine.
