Week 13 waddles through the doorway, gravy-stained, credit cards smoking, bankrolls bruised or swollen. Four games are already graded into your psyche—Packers–Lions, Ravens–Bengals, Cowboys–Chiefs, Bears–Eagles on Black Friday—and every league has that guy sitting at 92 points with three players already done. The rest of us wake up in the wreckage: half a lineup locked, half a lineup guessing, and a shortened Sunday that feels tighter, meaner, more personal than a clean slate ever does. This is the hangover window where edges shrink and roles finally stop lying. Target trees have been pruned by injury; committees have quietly snapped back into hierarchy. Offensive lines are either holding or leaking in ways that won’t suddenly change in December. Defenses have told you exactly which coverages they live in, which routes they can’t survive, which running backs turn their front sevens into cardio drills. The audience is bloated, the window is narrow, and someone in your league is about to chase the wrong name just because they scored on Thursday. With that in mind, here are my Five Lists of Five for Week 13: the must-starts you cannot get cute with, the breakout swings worth embracing, the matchup mirages you need to bench, the WR/CB collisions to exploit, and the running backs who can still flip an already dented week.
The refrain remains the same—All I want is for you to be better than your friends. You’re going to be surrounded by them on Sunday, probably. How sweet would it be if you could be sure you’ve checked every box possible that might guarantee you a resounding victory this week? Some kick-your-feet-up insights? I’ve got some. And I know my audience. The smoke-break audience. The quick-scan-of-the-phone-on-the-way-to-the-fridge audience. The I-ain’t-reading-all-that-but-good-luck folk. I’m a man of the people.
Below: Top five smash starts for fantasy football Week 13. Must-starters based on matchup and sky-high ceilings.
Here are the other offerings from my 2025 Fantasy Football Five Lists of Five: Week 13 edition:
- Top five breakout wide receivers for 2025 fantasy football Week 13
- Top five WR/CB matchups to target for Week 13 fantasy football
- Top five breakout running backs for Week 13 of 2025 fantasy football
- Top five players to stash for the 2025 fantasy football playoffs
Follow my handle @dansby_edits for all of my fantasy football content—as well as plenty of NFL and College Football betting goodies—all season long.
Top five smash starts for Week 13 of 2025 fantasy football
Breece Hall, RB, New York Jets
Breece Hall is the part of this Jets offense that doesn’t blink. They’ve become the most run-heavy team in football by PROE at -5.9%, and this week they walk into a Falcons defense that basically begs you to feed your running back until the clock stops. Atlanta allows the second-highest rushing success rate at 54.8%, the second-highest RB target share at 19.2%, and the third-most schedule-adjusted fantasy points to backs over the last five weeks. That’s not a green light; that’s a runway.
Hall’s profile is exactly what you want when a defense tilts that way. He owns a 15.6% target share and has averaged 14.8 expected fantasy points per game in Tyrod Taylor’s starts, with 75 receiving yards last week alone — essentially matching his previous five games combined through the air. He’s cleared 115 scrimmage yards in three of his last four, and he leads all running backs in explosive play rate at 9.2%. When the Jets actually win, he averages 27.7 DraftKings points per game. That’s not matchup-dependent production; that’s a player who is the offense.
So you take the most run-centric team in the league, drop them onto a defense that bleeds successful runs and RB targets, and then hand the ball to the one back on the slate who combines bell-cow usage with true breakaway juice. I’m treating Breece as a set-and-forget RB1 this week. If he’s on your roster, he’s in your lineup.
TreVeyon Henderson, RB, New England Patriots
TreVeyon Henderson has stamped his name on the Patriots backfield after a much-ballyhooed takeover. Across his last two real starts—the Patriots have had to adjust their offense a bit after the Atlanta and Cleveland games, so it’s important to evaluate Henderson at his NYJ/TB ceiling—he’s piled up 244 scrimmage yards and five touchdowns, the kind of instant production that usually takes a month to build. Even when Rhamondre Stevenson returned, Henderson still played around 65% of the snaps and handled 21 touches. That’s not a change-of-pace role; that’s feature-back usage in an offense that clearly wants him on the field.
Now he gets the Giants, and everything about this matchup screams continuation, not regression. New York is getting gashed for around 5.9 yards per carry and has given up the second-most schedule-adjusted fantasy points to running backs over the last five weeks. That’s exactly the kind of defense where 21 touches turn into chunk gains instead of stalemates. You don’t need Henderson to create something out of nothing here; the Giants are already supplying the something kinetic on every series.
Layer in the bigger-picture context. New England has the easiest remaining RB schedule, and Henderson has already shown he can hold his role even when the depth chart is fully stocked. The Patriots’ passing game is still searching for rhythm, but they already have an answer on the ground. When a back is scoring five times in two weeks, living over 20 touches, and running straight into one of the friendliest RB matchups on the board, you don’t squint. You put TreVeyon Henderson in your lineup and let the volume work.
Ladd McConkey, WR, Los Angeles Chargers
Ladd McConkey is past the cute rookie flex stage. Over the last eight weeks, he’s tied for the twelfth-most fantasy points among all wideouts, quietly living in the same scoring neighborhood as established WR2s while still carrying that maybe label in too many lineups. That’s usage and production converging, and Week 13 hands him exactly the kind of environment where it sticks.
The Raiders are a get-right matchup for wideouts. One set of matchup data has them allowing the sixth-most fantasy points to receivers, another has them fourth-most, which is really just two ways of saying top tier defense to attack. They play Cover 3 at a league-high 46.3% rate, sitting in the very structure the Chargers want to see. Against zone overall, McConkey has run 269 routes and turned them into 36 catches for 347 yards with an 18.2% target rate, 82.7 PPR points and 0.31 fantasy points per route. Versus man, he actually leads the Chargers receiver room in fantasy points per route at 0.46, which tells you the efficiency isn’t a scheme mirage.
Stack that on top of Justin Herbert’s profile. Los Angeles carries a top-seven implied team total and ranks fourth in pass rate over expectation at plus 6.3%. In heavy Cover 3 games, Herbert averages 24.3 DraftKings points, with top-seven fantasy points per dropback and a passer rating over 100. That’s the quarterback you want feeding your emerging volume magnet. With the matchup tilting their way and the passing pie staying large, McConkey isn’t a fringe call. He’s a must-start WR2 you plug in everywhere and don’t touch.
Troy Franklin, WR, Denver Broncos
Troy Franklin is exactly the kind of player you regret leaving on your bench. Denver walks into a Commanders defense that lives in man coverage and breaks in it. Washington is a top-ten man-rate team and sits bottom-five in both yards allowed per coverage snap at 7.34 and first-down-plus-touchdown rate at 52.5% against man. That’s the specific world where Franklin’s profile turns into a problem for them.
Against man, he’s quietly operating like a true alpha. Franklin has 69 routes, 10 catches, and 52 yards in those looks, but the important part is the 30.4 percent target rate and 0.48 fantasy points per route. That’s heavy usage plus strong efficiency on the exact coverage shell he’s about to see the most. Against zone he stays involved, with 272 routes, 36 catches, 457 yards and 0.34 fantasy points per route, so he isn’t disappearing when Washington changes the picture.
Zoom out and the peripherals are screaming. Franklin leads the league in unrealized air yards, sits third in designed targets, and seventh in red-zone looks. The opportunity is already there; the production just hasn’t fully caught up. Now layer in a Washington defense that’s fifth-worst in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed to wideouts over the last five weeks.
Behind all of that is the league’s top-graded offensive line, a Denver front that keeps their quarterback clean and lets these deeper routes develop. So you get man coverage that can’t hold up, a usage monster waiting to pop, and protection that gives him time. That’s not a flex you squint at. That’s a must-start wideout you let run.
Oronde Gadsden, TE, Los Angeles Chargers
Oronde Gadsden isn’t just a fun rookie storyline anymore; the numbers say he’s a real engine piece. Through Week 11 he’s sitting on 37 catches for 507 yards and two touchdowns, a rock–solid 13.7 yards per reception that already has him in the top half of NFL tight ends in raw production. PFF has him at 507 receiving yards, seventh out of 38 qualified tight ends, with a 67.4 overall grade, right in that “legit every-down player” band rather than a manufactured role guy.
The usage matches the box score. PlayerProfiler has him at 49 targets, 37 receptions, 507 yards and 10.9 fantasy points per game, which already puts him in the low-end TE1 range for 2025. He owns a 15.6% target share with a 25% red-zone target share, a 20.6% target rate when he’s in a route, and a 66.3% route participation, plus over 400 air yards.That’s a full-fledged passing-game piece.
The best part: he’s doing it with juice. His Explosive Rating sits at 134.9, No. 1 among tight ends, with seven explosive plays, second at the position. That matches what you see in the film-type notes from your stowed-away Week 13 spectating files—when Herbert pushes downfield, Gadsden isn’t just a checkdown; he’s the seam and boundary tilt that actually flips drives.
So when you mesh the fantasy-usage metrics with the PFF yardage ranks and the raw 37–507–2 line, you’re not looking at a streamer anymore. You’re looking at a weekly TE1 who happens to have rookie shine. For Week 13, Oronde Gadsden stays glued in your lineup.
