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Every week in this space, I take a look around the league at those topics the football world might be overreacting about, and try to put them into perspective. I want to provide some context and maybe convince you not to drop your star because he had a bad game or two.

However, a few times this season, I have taken a different route, highlighting a handful of strong statements I actually believe in. With just a few weeks before the Fantasy playoffs left, I want to take one more opportunity to do this. Here are my hot takes heading into Week 12 of the NFL season:

Running backs are as replaceable as ever

Week 11 was a stark reminder of how important backups are in NFL backfields. Thomas Rawls, Spencer Ware and Javorius Allen stepped into starring roles after injuries to starters, and look like they could all make a huge impact for Fantasy down the stretch. And they aren't alone on the list of backup running backs who have made a huge Fantasy impact this season. Dion Lewis, Karlos Williams, Giovani Bernard, DeAngelo Williams, Duke Johnson, Alfred Blue, Ronnie Hillman, Charcandrick West, Danny Woodhead, Shane Vereen, Ryan Matthews, Matt Jones, Darren McFadden, James Starks, Jeremy Langford, Devonta Freeman, Charles Sims, Khiry Robinson, David Johnson, Chris Johnson ... At various points in the season, each of those players has made a big impact for Fantasy, and not one entered the season as his team's starter. The "Zero RB" strategy of Fantasy drafting has received plenty of supporting evidence this season, though I still think there is too much risk in going into the season with no reasonable starting options at the position to truly invest in it. After all, it's not like QB, WR or TE have been totally predictable either. You could have gone Zero RB but drafted Peyton Manning, Randall Cobb and Jimmy Graham with three of your first four picks and looked back on the draft criticizing your strategy just as much as any RB-heavy owner did.

Melvin Gordon is looking like a lost cause

If running backs are so replaceable, and so many undrafted and unheralded players take advantage of opportunities to make an impact, what do we do with a disappointing first-round NFL Draft pick like Gordon? On the one hand, you don't want to write him off after just 10 games, running behind one of the league's worst offensive lines. On the other hand, this kind of futility is a very, very bad sign for future productivity. Gordon has carried the ball 129 times for 450 yards, a yards-per-attempt average of just 3.49. Since 2001, 19 rookies have rushed the ball at least 100 times while averaging fewer than 3.7 yards per carry. Only Travis Henry, Le'Veon Bell and LaDanian Tomlinson would go on to rush for at least 1,000 yards in any of their next five seasons among that group. Those three provide the best-case scenarios, and given the mitigating circumstances behind Gordon's struggles, there's a chance he follows their career paths. But history suggests there's a much better chance he is Trent Richardson, Daniel Thomas or Andre Williams.

Tyler Eifert isn't the second-best TE in football

Tight ends are just like real estate: the only thing that really matters is location, location location. Between the 20s Tyler Eifert hasn't exactly been a star. He has fewer receptions than Jimmy Graham and Travis Kelce, and is averaging fewer yards per reception than both as well. However, while Kelce and Graham are two of the biggest disappointments at their position, Eifert is a Fantasy darling thanks to his 11 touchdowns in 10 games -- six more than Graham and Kelce have combined. Eifert has made the most of his 43 receptions by hauling in a touchdown at a rate of every four catches, an insanely high mark. Over the past 10 seasons, only two players with at least 10 touchdowns have seen a higher percentage of their receptions go for touchdowns. Credit to Eifert to making himself such a dynamic red-zone threat while playing in an offense that gets down there constantly, but this kind of pace simply isn't sustainable. He is an easy No. 1 tight end down the stretch, but don't be surprised if he disappoints with a three-catch, 27-yard performance in the playoffs, and if he doesn't get into the end zone that day, it might sink your season.

Calvin Johnson, A.J. Green and Demaryius Thomas are fine

If Eifert is a star because of his insane, unsustainable touchdown production, Johnson, Green and Thomas are busts for exactly the opposite reasons -- they can't get into the end zone. Thomas is on pace for 114 receptions and 1,400 yards. Green is on pace for 1,356 yards on 94 receptions. Calvin Johnson's 94-catch, 1,325-yard pace would be the fifth-best single-season totals of his career. However, Johnson, Green and Thomas have just nine touchdowns between them, or as many as DeAndre Hopkins has on his own, and only two more than James Jones has -- on 30 receptions. Touchdowns aren't totally random, but it shouldn't surprise you that Thomas has been tackled inside the 10-yard line five times this season, including twice on plays that went for 30-plus yards but were stopped short of the end zone. Johnson has been tackled six times inside the 10-yard line, while Green has been tackled just once inside the 10 he has been targeted five other times inside the 10 without scoring. We're talking about pretty small margins between scoring and not, and it is important to remember when trying to project what is likely to happen moving forward.

For what it's worth, here are the players who have been tackled inside the 5-yard line the most this season on receptions:

Six times: Greg Olsen
Four times: Delanie Walker, Heath Miller
Three times: Alshon Jeffery, Antonio Brown, Calvin Johnson, Chris Thompson, Demaryius Thomas, Golden Tate, Eddie Lacy, Julio Jones, T.Y. Hilton, Jordan Matthews, Jeremy Ross, Jeremy Langford, Jarvis Landry, Eddie Royal

Even Tom Brady can't survive all these injuries

It seems like it was forever ago that we were wondering if Tom Brady's days as an elite Fantasy option were done, but it was actually little more than a year ago. Brady posted middling stats over the first four games of the season, with just four touchdowns and 791 yards in that time. He, of course, caught fire from that point on, averaging 8.1 yards per attempt with 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions over his final 11 games, and the key was largely the expansion of Rob Gronkowski's role as he recovered from a knee injury. Brady is an excellent quarterback, but we have seen him struggle when he doesn't have a full complement of weapons. Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola aren't nearly as important as Gronkowski, but between injuries to those two and Dion Lewis' season-ending injury, Brady will like be playing at least Week 12 against the Broncos without the recipients of 48.3 percent of his pass attempts and 53.9 percent of his completions. Because he still has Gronkowski and Brandon LaFell, Brady shouldn't fall off as much as he did early last season, but it is fair to be skeptical about whether he can reach the consistent heights he was hitting early this season.

You should be very worried about Jordan Matthews

Jordan Matthews' issues catching the ball earlier in the season were a bit overblown, but his latest obstacle to Fantasy relevance may not be. We're looking at a very small sample size of barely a game and a half, but Mark Sanchez has hardly looked Matthews' way since taking over for Sam Bradford. Just six of Sanchez's first 64 throws have targeted Matthews, after Matthews was targeted on 23.2 percent of Bradford's attempts. In the nine games Sanchez played last season, Matthews averaged 5.4 pass attempts and 66.6 yards per game with six touchdowns, so it isn't exactly time to panic-drop Matthews. However, Sanchez isn't looking Matthews' way right now, and until he does, you can't possibly count on the second-year wideout.

Carson Palmer has more help than any QB in football

This is going to be taken as a knock on Palmer. It isn't. He has been tremendous and we saw what the Cardinals' backups were able to do with largely the same group of weapons last season, and it wasn't pretty. With a resurgent Larry Fitzgerald moving the chains and John Brown and Michael Floyd stretching the field, Palmer already has what might be the best receiving corps in football. Add in rookie J.J. Nelson, another uber-fast receiver who went off for 142 yards and a touchdown last week, as well as dynamic playmaking receivers out of the backfield in David Johnson and Andre Ellington, and I might be ready to give Palmer favorable odds finishing the season as the No. 1 Fantasy quarterback. Brady has a head start, but it wouldn't surprise me if Palmer was able to close the gap down the stretch. His cache of weapons keeps getting deeper while Brady's suffers attrition.

Jameis Winston > Marcus Mariota

Ten games into their careers -- actually eight for Mariota, due to injuries, but stay with me for the sake of simplicity -- you can break up the careers of Mariota and Winston into any kind of easily digestible chunks you want. Mariota started off stellar and got out to an early lead on Winston, but Winston made a strong push toward closing the gap in Week 11 with his five-touchdown performance. For the season, Mariota has slight leads in touchdown percentage, interception percentage and yards per attempt, but Winston has surprisingly been the more effective runner -- at least near the red zone, where he has five scores on the ground. This duo makes the future of the position look bright, but from a Fantasy perspective I would still give the slightest edge to Winston, who has been slightly more consistently productive, scoring multiple times in six of his 10 games. He might have more help, but from a Fantasy perspective, the context doesn't really matter all that much. The fact Winston gets to grow up throwing to Mike Evans should be a mark in his favor. It is a slight edge, for me, and both look like they have QB1 potential moving forward.