Input Volatility, Week 15
Game-by-game thoughts
Last night’s game was legitimately one of the worst fantasy games of the season. Whenever I think something superlative like this, it always feels like recency bias, but in terms of trying to define “worst fantasy game,” you’d need to consider whether anyone was actually playing the players in the game, which was overwhelmingly true here. I personally have exposure to Kyren Williams, George Kittle, Brock Purdy, and Cooper Kupp just across my few advancing FFPC Main Event teams.
It’s hard to imagine a lot of people were playing Deebo Samuel, but Puka Nacua and Jauan Jennings were also obviously in play, Matthew Stafford was I’m sure an option for some, and then Isaac Guerendo had to be for anyone who had him as well. Starting him was probably the right call after the 49ers deactivated Izzy Abanikanda and signaled Guerendo might be pretty healthy. The lack of Patrick Taylor involvement furthers the idea that Guerendo was a sound play.
That’s like eight players that were pretty fantasy-relevant in this game, and hell even guys like Demarcus Robinson and Ricky Pearsall factored into some best ball situations. Blake Corum is rostered in all those, as well.
The other thing you’d need to consider in terms of this potentially being the worst fantasy game of the year is impact. It’s the first week of the fantasy playoffs. People needed stuff from this game in a big way.
Instead, we got basically nothing. Nacua had a decent 8-7-97 line, but I’d suggest the game environment held him back as the fantasy “hit” of the night. Kyren ran for 108 yards on 29 carries, then caught 2 passes for 4 more, so you got 13.2 PPR points. Guerendo got to 11.5 in PPR but largely due to 4 receptions so was worse in other formats. Kittle had 10.1 in PPR.
Those were the good outcomes. Kupp had a donut. Jennings had 2 catches. The QBs threw for 160 and 142 yards. No touchdowns were scored.
Those of you who didn’t have exposure to this game — or had the kickers! — are feeling finewith how things went, but I have to admit to feeling pretty bummed out after it. It’s been a whirlwind week since the Monday night miracle I wrote about last you heard from me, but I ran out a Purdy-Kittle stack in the home league where I’m playing the defending champ, and my three best FFPC teams that I thought had a real chance to win the overall were all hit by this game (the Monday night miracle team only had Kyren so far, so it’s far from dead, but another Main Event squad had a Purdy-Kittle-Kupp combo that already feels pretty hard to overcome).
To that point, one note for those of you in these shootout formats is because players and fantasy teams are so healthy this year, I think we’re going to get a high-scoring final. I’m expecting the top teams who win the biggest prizes to be better rosters this year, because while in past years a bunch of NFL teams were falling apart like the Jaguars this year — I just saw Evan Engram is out for the year as of a few minutes ago — this year we have a whole lot of NFL teams where the players who were expected to score points still are, so we’ve had a way deeper available player pool for the best fantasy teams to come together. So basically what I mean is in past fantasy years, a lot of advancing teams actually would have had some pretty big holes and fatal flaws, and really couldn’t win the overall, but this year I’d expect a deeper pool of good teams and probably the very best teams are better as well.
Anyway, here’s to hoping Sunday and Monday bring us a lot more of the stuff we want to see. Let’s get to the games. As always, I offer these considerations solely because you guys have asked, and because I might have a thought about a different part of a range of outcomes in some cases, relative to what you’re seeing elsewhere. I don’t offer these thoughts because I think they will be explicitly great predictions, and it’s basically just me going game-by-game and throwing out what hits me.
In the playoffs, you should absolutely do more research than what I’m about to write, and you should absolutely trust your research more than my casual thoughts. You should also dig into the injury reports, and get a feel for what the various workloads could look like.
Cowboys at Panthers
Rico Dowdle’s workload is peaking at just the right time. Chuba Hubbard’s is, too, with Jonathon Brooks out for the season.
Jalen Coker is expected back, and I wouldn’t necessarily expect it to have a massive impact in his first game back, but he was playing a lot of slot snaps so I’d be at least mildly concerned about whether Adam Thielen might give up some reps. Thielen looked pretty gassed at times last week.
Chiefs at Browns
Xavier Worthy remains the name to watch for some type of late-season boom in Kansas City. It might be more likely to come in the NFL playoffs than the fantasy playoffs, though.
Apparently Cedric Tillman was still unable to clear concussion protocol, and it also sounds like David Njoku might miss. Jerry Jeudy is on a heater with Jameis Winston, and especially since the bye. Elijah Moore is probably viable as a streamer. Jordan Akins would be a thin but plausible desperation TE.
Dolphins at Texans
I’m super curious about last week’s shift back to the WRs, and Jonnu Smith not catching the ball until overtime. I did call that Noise this week, but the heavy concentration of the offense can work both ways, meaning it can lead to a low floor in certain gameplans. If that doesn’t happen to Jonnu, then it can also happen to Jaylen Waddle, as we’ve seen.
Jets at Jaguars
Breece Hall is reportedly looking good for this game, which would take Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis off the map, although I wouldn’t be surprised if both play more than they usually would have in a Breece Hall game given Breece missed practice time all week.
It felt like last week Garrett Wilson became a little more of the No. 1, though Davante Adams probably has the bigger red zone role still, so it may be a wash.
With Evan Engram out, Brian Thomas is the only show in town, and could see a mountain of targets. Brenton Strange is in streamer consideration at TE, as the Jags have used him downfield and his athleticism has looked good.