WINNERS
QB Drew Brees 37/48 for 389 yards, 4 TDs
When this guy isn’t totally screwing you, he’s winning you fantasy games. Here are Brees’ last 4 fantasy games: 32, 7, 4, 29. When Brees is at his best (or even in that general ballpark), he’s a point machine. When he’s not, it’s real easy to forget how great he was the week before. Even our guru The Wolf questioned whether Brees was even good anymore last week on the show, and I (lacking the confidence in Brees to call him on it) let it go.
Well, Brees was on this week. Remember when the Cardinals were supposed to be good and their defense was something that might give you pause? Well, in this battle of teams with essentially nothing to play for, the Saints hung 48 on the Cards. The Saints’ defense allowed 41, which is probably not all that much more than they usually allow in a typical game. Brees, at least from a fantasy perspective, would seem to be a huge beneficiary of this terrible defense.
Moving forward into fantasy championship week, Brees draws Tampa Bay at home. Does this mean Brees owners can start celebrating early?
Not exactly.
You only have to look 2 weeks back to see the last time the Saints and the Bucs played. Brees had 0 TDs and 3 INTs in that game. Also, if Brees is your fantasy quarterback, you almost certainly got bounced after his abysmal week 14 performance.
“But this one is at home,” you say. “Brees is money at home!”
Not exactly.
The last game the Saints played at home was against the Lions, who have a terrible defense—especially their passing defense. In that game Brees had… you guessed it—0 TDs and 3 INTs.
I’m done trying to predict what this guy will do. It’s an exercise in futility and it makes my head hurt. But if you’re keeping track, Brees’s performance this week was his 18th career game throwing for 300 yards and at least 4 TDs. This is 4 more of these games than any other QB in NFL history… and he’s still going strong. Sometimes.
RB Devonta Freeman 20 rushes for 139 yards, 3 TDs
I’ve used the fact that an RB went against the 49ers (which Freeman did) as a reason not to name him Winner of the Week in the past, but I’m making an exception this week. Why, you ask? Well, I would generally go down to the next guy on the list—but that guy is Lesean McCoy (who helped propel me into the finals of the RSJ league this week)—who went against the Browns. OK, OK, who is the next guy on the scoring list? Ty Montgomery? What? Wow, that’s intriguing; sign me up! Who did he face? The Bears? OK, back to the drawing board. That’s right—the top 3 scoring RBs this week faced teams with a combined record of… 4-38. And that, my friends, is not a coincidence.
With all that said, it makes sense to go back to the top and recognize Freeman, who was my Loser of the Week a game ago. I think he had 6 rushes for 6 yards last week. This week he AVERAGED 7 a carry. That… is what the 49ers rushing defense is all about. Whoever is rushing against San Francisco next week is a lock for your league’s fantasy title, right? No. It’s the Rams. Just to give you some context, the last time the 49ers and the Rams shared the field, the Rams were shut out and the 49ers walked away 1-0. That… is how bad the Rams are.
But anyway, great game from Freeman. Next up for Freeman and his fantasy owners? Carolina. A year ago that would’ve been terrifying. Now? Not so much. Good luck.
WR Brandin Cooks 7 catches for 186 yards, 2 TDs
Man, it seems like Cooks owners have been waiting all year for this validation. It seems like it’s been a kind of quiet year for Cooks, right? Well, looks can be deceiving. He was 11th amongst all WRs in fantasy scoring heading into this game—and this monster of a performance can only rocket him up the rankings. Honestly, I would’ve thought it was a lot lower.
I’ve always been scared to own players like Cooks—guys who are supposedly the best WR in an “explosive offense” that spreads the ball around. Brees completed passes to 9 different guys on Sunday. That’s tough to defend. It’s also tough to guarantee fantasy results knowing he spreads it out like that. For those of you with more of a backbone than me, congratulations.
Is Cooks going to carry you to your league’s fantasy title next week? Well, you heard me talk about Brees a little while ago. The last time the Sanits faxed the Bucs was just a couple weeks ago. Cooks had 5 catches for 61 yards—not numbers that are going to catapult anyone to the promised land. This year, Cooks has had 3 great fantasy games, 3 good ones, and 6-8 OK to bad ones. So flip a coin. Seriously. It’s not a terrible strategy.
TE Nobody of consequence
OK, how can I declare nobody a Winner of the Week? It’s unheard of. Unprecedented. Let me defend myself.
- No tight ends had particularly great fantasy games. I know Jason Witten caught a lot of balls, and I know Cameron Brate and Kyle Rudolph did OK. Charles Clay even made an appearance for the Bills against the hapless Browns. None of them (with the possible exception of Clay) inspired much excitement in me.
- The top scoring guy was… Dion Sims.
You could make the argument that a guy that writes for a fantasy football site should know every player in the league—at least by name. I hear you. And I could lie to you good people and act like I had an awareness of Dion Sims. Maybe I wasn’t totally familiar with him, but sure, I knew who he was. I knew his name. I knew what team he played on. Those would all be lies. I had never, before the Saturday night NFL game between the Jets and the Dolphins, heard of Dion Sims.
And don’t bullshit. Neither had any of you. Dion Sims was 0.3% owned in ESPN leagues. Not 0.3% started. 0.3% OWNED. That means for every 330 teams or so, 1 guy owned Dion Sims. Let’s charitably assume that maybe 2 out of 3 of those guys have him because the computer picked him in their drafts and they never checked their team even once. Then of the remaining guys who own him, let’s figure maybe 90% of them thought he was Charles Sims or even 1980’s Giants QB Phil Simms—who is currently the stupidest man broadcasting NFL games. Then, of the teams remaining who had Dion Sims on purpose, let’s assume maybe 1 out of 20 of them made the conscious decision that he was their best option at TE and started him. So by my calculations, you’d have about a 1 in 200,000 shot of having Dion Sims on your team on purpose and then starting him. If you eliminate the Sims family, themselves, the odds get substantially worse. So no one really wins under those conditions.
Roll out Dion Sims for your Week 16 matchups. Go ahead, I dare you.
LOSERS
QB Blake Bortles 12/28 for 92 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT
Bortles is unspeakably awful. With the benching of Brock Osweiler (a move that really should have catapulted Houston fans into the Winners column), Bortles may be the next guy we should all be screaming about. He has 21 TDs to go along with 21 turnovers (17 INTs, 4 fumbles) this season, and his team is 2-12. Anyone who thought Bortles was going to be good (even fantasy good) this year should be ashamed of himself.
The only thing that kept the Jags in contention in this game was the fact that Brock Osweiler was on the other side of the field providing points to the Jaguars like early Xmas presents. Once he got pulled (finally), Chris Savage (yes, that is a real NFL QB) rallied the Texans, scored 15 straight points, and won the game. Bortles was responsible for zero (0) Jaguars scores. I would never own Blake Bortles on my fantasy team. Ever. Ever.
Here’s a fun side note: Gus Bradley, the esteemed coach of the Jags, lost his job after the game. Why would you fire a guy like him, you ask? Well, there’s lots of reasons—mostly politics, probably. Oh, and the fact that he has the lowest winning percentage in the history of the NFL. For a little perspective, if Bill Belichick went 0-16 for the next 42 years in a row, he would still have a better winning percentage than Gus Bradley did.
Bortles + Bradley = one huge pile of shit.
RB Adrian Peterson 6 carries for 22 yards, 1 fumble
All you people who saw that AP was going to play and started him expecting a vintage AP performance are morons. The guy I was playing in the RSJ semifinals had him stashed on his IR bench spot, and I was hoping beyond hope that he’d roll him out. Sadly, that opponent was too sharp for that, so I had to take pleasure in AP’s struggles from afar.
Seriously, what did you expect? The guy hasn’t played in months and is coming off a serious injury. It’s not a video game. He’s over 30. He’s rusty. His team is 2-7 in their last 9. (Remember when the Vikings were 5-0?) What AP did is about what you would expect him to do.
Remember when the Wolf got a ton of hell for ranking Lamar Miller above AP on his preseason big board? And to be sure, Miller has been lousy this year. But AP has put up very similar numbers to any of you reading at home. So you all owe the Wolf an apology. And on my end, I still don’t want any part of AP next year.
WR Allen Robinson 2 catches for 15 yards
All of you who are busy apologizing to the Wolf for thinking he was an idiot on the AP thing can take your apology notes, rip them up, and cram them up his ass. Why? Because he loved Allen Robinson. And Allen Robinson (going into this epic shit fest of a game) was ranked 32nd in fantasy points amongst all WRs.
Is Bortles the problem? Was Gus Bradley the issue? Is it all the London games?
Who the hell cares? I said at the beginning of the year that you could not ever believe in anyone on the Browns or the Jaguars. Now, I made a load of stupid predictions this year:
- Brock Osweiler would be “OK”.
- David Johnson would be a minor disappointment.
- The Carolina Panthers would go 12-4 AT WORST this year.
The list goes on, too. But I will hang my hat on my Jaguars predictions. And here’s a spoiler for you—they’ll suck next year too.
TE Coby Fleener 2 catches for 10 yards
Let me get this straight: Drew Brees threw for 389 yards and 4 TDs, and Coby Fleener got 3 targets that amounted to 10 yards… total? Everyone who thought this pickup was going to be like bringing back Jimmy Graham a few years ago have to be sorely disappointed. This is the exact type of guy I was talking about when I was saying how I am scared to own guys like Brandin Cooks. Sure, it works out on occasion. But then you get the other side of the coin—guys like Fleener.
By my count, Fleener has had 2 great fantasy games this year—just enough to whet your appetite and peak your interest. He has had 3 games that I would call “good”. Which leaves 9 games I would call “bad”. That means if you start Fleener, you have a 64% chance of being disappointed. Which means you have a 22% to be OK, and a 14% chance of being happy or pleased.
We have a word for those sort of odds—bad.
