The weather here in Southern Ontario, most of Canada and the upper United States has turned and I’m afraid we are in for the long haul.
Sorry, I meant the long haul for fantasy football.
Yes, we will likely get more cold, wet days mixed with rain, sleet, snow and potential heavy winds, which we saw this weekend, but let’s keep our heads up because fantasy football playoffs are just around the corner.
Sunday was a bit of a mess in my neck of the woods and I realized the insane reliance we have as a society on our devices. Power goes out, data service becomes extremely spotty and there was not a TV in sight. I had to endure the final quarter of the Bills-Cardinals game in my driveway listening to it on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. The elation and hammering of the steering wheel after the Stefon Diggs touchdown catch quickly turned to an empty feeling after DeAndre Hopkins’ incredible catch.
The power didn’t come on Sunday night and the cell service remained spotty, so I had to resort to my cousin giving me play-by-play of the Patriots-Ravens matchup to hear if I was going to grab a 2-0 week (yes, we play two matchups per week) in my home league.
Needless to say, I couldn’t celebrate the victories quite like I would like to have, but I can say that I’ll probably never take technology for granted again because that was PAINFUL!
[radioclip id=5009165]
1. The Two-Headed Monster Is Back In Cleveland
It really is amazing how good the Browns backfield is with Nick Chubb back in the fold. There’s not even a question that you can have both ranked in the top-10 running backs conversation in terms of sheer talent and when it comes to fantasy, they’re both in the top-13 in PPR scoring with a minimum of five games played.
The last time we have seen two running backs be viable fantasy options might be back in 2009 when both Jonathan Stewart (1,133 rushing yards, 139 receiving yards and 11 total touchdowns) and DeAngelo Williams (1,117 rushing yards, 252 receiving yards and seven total touchdowns) literally carried the Carolina Panthers offence. Both of those players averaged over five yards per carry and over 78 total yards per game and finished 11th and 14th in standard scoring among running backs.
In Cleveland, Hunt is averaging 4.7 yards per carry and Chubb is averaging 6.1 yards per carry and have combined for 12 of the Browns’ 25 offensive touchdowns.
They are the Cleveland offence.
In their first game back together they both had 19 carries, Chubb had 126 rushing yards and a touchdown and Hunt had 104 rushing yards and 28 receiving yards.
Weather played a huge factor in the game script this past week, but 15 touches per player per week is close to a lock and on a Kevin Stefanski run offence, those are high-value touches.
Expect that both of these players will play a key role in your fantasy playoffs, just hope that you have one or both of them!
2. A Swift and fruitful transition
I will reiterate something that I’ve been saying for months, D’Andre Swift was the 1B to Jonathan Taylor’s 1A for me in pre-draft rankings (and yes, I do believe Taylor will turn it around in Indy).
The fact that it took Matt Patricia until Week 10 to really unleash Swift and give him a full workload over an aged Adrian Peterson and an ineffective Kerryon Johnson was mind-boggling, to say the least. To have a guy with Swift’s skillset and give him between 10-14 touches is just not enough.
All he did was turn 21 touches (16 carries and five catches) into 149 total yards and a touchdown against Washington, who had given up the seventh-fewest fantasy points to opposing running backs.
There has been a stigma surrounding Detroit running backs since Barry Sanders left the organization, but Swift may be the guy to buck that trend.
The second-round pick in this year’s draft has averaged 4.7 yards per carry, 8.9 yards per reception and has six touchdowns in nine games.
In games where he has 16 or more touches, Swift averages 87 rushing yards, 36 receiving yards and one touchdown per game. Those are RB1 type numbers.
Now we have to ask the question – has Matt Patricia seen those numbers?
3. Kyler Murray: the real Cardinals RB1
There were a lot of people that thought Kenyan Drake would be a league winner this season. Heck, I was one of them. He does have the seventh-most rushing yards in the league this year with 612, but the guy behind him is his signal-caller, Kyler Murray with 604.
In standard scoring leagues, Murray would be RB7.
Yes, you read that correctly.
It’s been an incredible year for the 2019 Rookie of the Year, not only through the air but on the ground. His 10 rushing touchdowns put him second to only Dalvin Cook on the league leaders list and he will almost assuredly shatter Steve Grogan’s NFL record of 12 rushing touchdowns.
He has at least 61 rushing yards in all but two games and a rushing touchdown in all but one game. Not only is he electric, but incredibly consistent with his legs. How many running backs can you lock in for at least one touchdown per week? Statistics this season will tell you that there aren’t too many.
The Arizona offence can be frustrating at times, but the one constant is that Kyler Murray is going to get it done for your fantasy team one way or another.
4. JuJu is back in the mix
After a very promising start in Week 1 with six catches for 69 yards and two touchdowns after an injury-filled season for JuJu Smith-Schuster in 2019. Following that, his targets, receptions and yards dropped from Week 2 to Week 6, leading many to believe that he was going to be an afterthought in this offence behind Chase Claypool and Diontae Johnson.
But fear not, Smith-Schuster isn’t going anywhere.
In the last four weeks, he has 31 catches for 322 receiving yards and two touchdowns on 42 targets, good enough for WR5 in PPR scoring in that time. In those four weeks, he leads the Steelers wide receivers in yards, receptions and targets.
His target share percentage is only slightly better than Johnson’s but with the talent in that Pittsburgh offence, there was never really going to be an alpha, at least not this season. Smith-Schuster doesn’t really fit the mould of a WR1, primarily because he runs the majority of his routes out of the slot and doesn’t run deep routes (only 6% of his targets over the last four weeks have travelled 20+ yards), but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a great asset.
The only remaining question is what happens to him after this season. With his contract up and the emergence of both Johnson and Claypool, it does make one wonder if he is with the Steelers after this season. In dynasty formats, Smith-Schuster is a player to target for trades because he is just about to turn 24 and could land in a peach of a spot. Wouldn’t he be the perfect complement to Davante Adams?
5. Someone predicted something about Jameis Winston
I’ll take a victory lap here.
In my pre-season 10 Fantasy Thoughts, I predicted that Jameis Winston would be relevant in the fantasy playoffs this season, but in truth, I really didn’t think it was going to be with the team that signed him.
Drew Brees hit the shelf with fractured ribs and a collapsed lung, opening the door for Jameis Winston to make his first start as a member of the Saints this upcoming week against the Falcons. In nine career games against the Falcons, Winston averages 278 passing yards, 2.8 touchdowns and 1 interception. You could absolutely do a lot worse than him this week and going forward.
The typical recovery time for fractured ribs is at minimum four weeks for an athlete and when you couple that with a collapsed lung, it makes for a more uncertain timeline.
Where does that leave us with Winston?
The remaining schedule for the Saints has plenty of positive matchups for the quarterback position, so even with the threat of interceptions, it should be a pretty good stretch. New Orleans will face Atlanta twice, Denver, Philadelphia, Kansas City and Minnesota for the remainder of the fantasy football schedule and for those keeping track at home, four of those teams are giving up over 18 points per game to opposing quarterbacks.
6. The Alex Smith success story
The fact that Alex Smith is walking, let alone playing a football game is absolutely incredible. It’s been a remarkable journey for Smith who nearly died following a broken leg almost two years to the day of his start this past weekend and he made sure to make it a memorable one.
He threw for a career-high 390 yards in the loss to the Lions, but head coach Ron Rivera did offer a potential glimpse into Smith’s future when he commented that he is “back” and has a chance to be the guy beyond this season.
For the rest of this season though, Smith might be in a good spot to be a decent streaming option at quarterback looking at Washington’s schedule. Cincinnati, Dallas, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle and Carolina make up the opponents for Smith & Co. and that’s a pretty great stretch. The Bengals, Cowboys, Seahawks and Panthers all rank in the bottom-17 of points per game to opposing quarterbacks.
Having Terry McLaurin is a huge help for his success, but so has the emergence of JD McKissic as a check-down option out of the backfield makes for a bunch of easy yards.
If you’re hurting at quarterback and miss out on Jameis Winston, can I interest you in some Alex Smith?
[relatedlinks]
7. What happened to the tight end position?
This was going to be the year that we saw a big surge in usage from the tight end position and players were going to blossom. TJ Hockenson, Noah Fant and Hayden Hurst were going to emerge, Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Mark Andrews and Darren Waller were going to continue to dominate and a whole host of others would prove to be viable fantasy tight ends.
Well, some of that turned out to be true, but not nearly enough of it was true.
Kelce was as much of a lock for production as you can get out of the position and Kittle would have been as well if it weren’t for a season-ending injury that he sustained. After that, it’s been a little bit of a mess.
It’s well documented that Andrews has been a bust this season, Waller has been inconsistent since Week 5 and Hurst hasn’t put up the Austin Hooper-esque numbers that we saw in Atlanta a season ago.
How much of a mess is the position?
In PPR scoring, the gap between Kelce (TE1) and Hockenson (TE3) is the same gap between Hockenson and Anthony Firkser (TE23).
There’s no doubt that Kelce is an absolute monster in both real-life football and this thing we call fantasy, and no doubt that Hockenson has seen great improvement from a year ago, but it does kind of feel like there are two tight ends in the same class (Kelce and Kittle) and then a whole host of others who can be interchangeable from week to week.
I, for one, thought that it was going to be a position that provided great value but sadly we are going to have to wait another year for this theory to potentially come to fruition.
8. The Vikings receivers get it done
I was very down on both Vikings receivers heading into this past week against the vaunted Bears secondary and for good reason. Chicago’s pass defence has been incredibly good all season and hasn’t allowed opposing offences to muster up much of an attack through the air.
It’s easy to write off Minnesota’s offence if Dalvin Cook isn’t moving the ball at an incredible rate on the ground and with Kirk Cousins not being worth nearly as much as the Vikings are paying him.
And yet, both of the team’s top two receivers, Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson have put together very good seasons that have landed them in the top-18 in PPR scoring thus far. Thielen sits at WR10 and Jefferson at WR18 and have provided some stability to fantasy lineups.
Thielen has been the more consistent of the two, while Jefferson has had a bit more boom-or-bust to his game, but his booms are loud enough to be heard across North America.
Both are gifted route runners that should allow Minnesota to throw the ball more than they do because they just have a knack for getting open and making throws a lot easier for Cousins.
This was evidenced this week by Thielen’s two touchdowns (one an insane one-handed grab behind a defender) to go along with 43 yards on four catches and Jefferson’s scorching 135 yards on eight catches, giving them both WR1 weeks.
Jefferson isn’t Stefon Diggs at this point in his career, but he’s pretty darn close to putting up that type of production and Thielen is as consistent as they come.
Now only if they could somehow find an even better quarterback and not have to rely on Dalvin Cook carrying the ball 30 times to ensure victory…
9. Someone on the Giants is fantasy relevant?
It’s incredible to say this, but Saquon Barkley has been really great since recovering from that torn ACL over the past four weeks. I mean, to recover that quickly and be that good?
*Checks notes*
Sorry, Wayne Gallman has been really great over the past four weeks.
Wait, that can’t be right, can it?
Yup, it’s correct.
The only two running backs to score more fantasy points than Wayne Gallman over the past four weeks are Dalvin Cook and Alvin Kamara. End of list. Yes, I’m just as stunned as you are.
But let’s give credit where credit is due. It hasn’t been overly pretty but it has been effective. His 3.69 yards per carry is horrible, but he’s averaging over 15 touches per game and is getting himself into the endzone at a 1.3 touchdown per game clip in those four weeks.
Not pretty, but effective, and in fantasy football, effective is all that matters.
With Devonta Freeman on the IR and Dion Lewis and Alfred Morris being shadows of their former selves, this is Gallman’s backfield likely for the rest of the season and if the Giants can somehow stay relevant in games, he’s going to continue to get the workload that warrants RB2/Flex plays every single week.
I can’t believe I just wrote a section on Wayne Gallman, but it’s 2020 and we should expect nothing less.
10. The Weekly “Mike Tolbert Vulture Awards”
Last week we saw some familiar names hit paydirt and put themselves into the conversation that we all love to hate to have (if that makes sense) and this week was no different.
• Jacoby Brissett saw the field for only one snap, but he made it count with a two-yard push into the endzone on a drawn up QB sneak. It was literally the perfect performance.
• Pharaoh Brown has five catches all season, but this past week made one of his two catches for 21 yards count for six in a mess of a game between the Browns and Texans. Come to think of it, a Pharaoh Brown touchdown was pretty fitting for that game.
• Corey Clement makes the list when no one thought it was possible, scampering five yards on his only carry to hit the endzone. His other 18 carries this season had not resulted in a touchdown, even when Miles Sanders and Boston Scott had been hurt.
• Colin Thompson of the Carolina Panthers has one catch in nine games this season and it happened to be this week for a touchdown against the Bucs. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of him before.
• Durham Smythe had a great line this week of nine catches for 85 yards and two touchdowns. Actually, that’s his line for the season. This week’s line was two catches for nine yards and a touchdown and it’s the second time this season that the Notre Dame product has reached the endzone.
Don’t forget to check out Matt’s “Love ‘Em, Leave ‘Em” picks for the weekend games on Twitter @MattSN590 every Friday.
2:21