Input Volatility, Week 17
Game-by-game thoughts
Though both Christmas Day games were a bit underwhelming from a competitiveness standpoint, we did open Week 16 with some fun results. Patrick Mahomes gave us the kind of passing day we’d hoped for most of the year, though he was unsurprisingly outdone by Lamar Jackson, who racked up 87 yards and a TD on the ground on just 4 official rushing attempts.
Derrick Henry continued to smash, and Xavier Worthy and Travis Kelce both had 8-catch days with a touchdown, on the other end of Mahomes’ passing production. Nico Collins was among the bigger disappointments, at least for me personally, as I try to take down Michael Leone’s best ball dynasty league where I’ve somehow made the final despite Collins being my only true good WR (I do also have Worthy, plus Mahomes and Mark Andrews, so we’re live). That Baltimore defense has gotten much better as this season has gone along, since looking very beatable for passing games in the season’s first half.
George Pickens, Zay Flowers, and DeAndre Hopkins were among other letdowns, and it’s a reminder that while this is the fantasy championship, it’s also just another week in NFL terms. Sometimes matchups are going to dictate down games, and at this point, it doesn’t really matter how dominant your lineup — or your opponent’s — looks, those player names are going to turn into points as their games are played, and that’s going the determine the title.
Nico Collins had a case to be a first-round pick next year earlier this season, though I think the struggles of C.J. Stroud that have persisted have likely derailed that argument. But whatever you think of him as — say something like WR10-WR15 — he’s still obviously a very exciting player to have with real ceiling. But when his game finishes, it doesn’t matter. For fantasy football, in PPR, all he is fort his week is 8.9 points. If you were playing in a title matchup where your opponent for some reason was starting John Metchie, it doesn’t matter that Collins projected for probably about double — you lost ground, with Metchie becoming 9.8 points.
That’s just the way this game goes. People talk about how some of the fantasy stuff can be dehumanizing to these players, who are real humans, and I’m sympathetic to that, and I realize the last paragraph wasn’t great on those terms. But also, what are we supposed to do? This is a game that was designed to take statistics and turn them into points and then declare a winner, and it’s one of those things where the most novice fantasy player and the most advanced will both understand that the statistics don’t actually always reflect the individual’s contributions, as I literally heard yesterday from family members who only barely play fantasy.
Mark Andrews made some key contributions all throughout yesterday’s game as a lead blocker on run designs that allowed Baltimore to absolutely dominate Houston. When called upon, he had a big catch-and-run, but that was his only reception late in the third quarter, and I knew that wasn’t enough points to really matter in a best ball setting. I was rooting for a TD, and my brother-in-law gave me a high five when I got it, because what it meant was that despite only getting 2 targets all game, Andrews had converted enough statistical output to make this a decent fantasy score.
But if he hadn’t gotten that TD, he wouldn’t have sucked — the Ravens were up 24-2 and didn’t really need to score anymore, frankly. They didn’t even need to be passing. I knew they wouldn’t be in the fourth quarter, which is why I was a bit urgent with my rooting interest in that late-third-quarter opportunity where I knew it was my likely my last chance for something notable.
Anyway, whatever research we’ve done into these players, and their roles, and the ways their teams play — that’s all very separate from the actual impact they may have on their teams. There’s some overlap, sure — yards and touchdowns are good — but we call this fantasy because it’s quite literally not real. (As I’ve said before, this is why the calls against PPR scoring are so ridiculous, because all of it is made up, and none of the stats accurately reflect the value of the contributions, with touchdowns being by far the biggest culprit, because for example Andrews caught that 1-yard TD and definitely did not earn the 6 fantasy points from a receiving perspective on a playcall that was a play-action where he leaked through wide open that was all set up by a dominant run game all night, so the value absolutely belonged to that run game, and much like receptions sometimes feel like a participation trophy because no yards were gained, that touchdown was the ultimate participation trophy of just being on the field for that play, which is not to say anything other than you can’t criticize PPR the way people do in isolation. That’s the counterpoint. Not that the criticisms don’t hold merit, but they are massively selective, and the equivalence about how 6 real-life points should equal 6 fantasy points obviously falls apart when you think about the logic behind it and the whole broader game for five seconds. Rather than making touchdowns more important, I prefer when guys who go 10-for-100 receiving can have a fantasy score that accurately reflects how dominant of a game that is, and how massively valuable having a receiving weapon doing that can be.)
Tangent aside, the whole season boils down to numbers. And if you’ve made it this far, while the guys who have gotten you here are obviously deserving of admiration for their efforts, in most ways it all boils down now to just Week 17 numbers. What will these guys become. It’s just one more week for these teams — and for many of them, they aren’t even trying as hard anymore because things have gone awry — but for us, it’s everything. Here’s to hoping your teams take down their titles.
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.
The three key things you should absolutely care about that you might overlook, if you need tiebreakers:
Weather — This is always important this time of year. Right now, Week 17 is not totally clear, but it doesn’t look horrible. Per Rotogrinders, the spots that look like possibly heavier rain — at this point in the week — are in Buffalo, Cleveland, and Washington. Keep an eye on this through to gametime.
Injury reports — I’m writing this on Thursday because of the weird holiday week, but I typically try to write it after final Sunday injury reports have come out Friday. Certainly, those final injury designations will impact some of the below.
Vegas lines — I talked a bit about the spread and game totals last week, as well as on Stealing Bananas where we went through things, and last week’s analysis on that show was very strong, so make sure to tune in as we run that back tomorrow. For example, I talked about how as 14-point road underdogs, things were tough for New Orleans, and the guy I wanted to be in on. As I wrote in this column last week: “It’s not a great setup for Saints fantasy production, which mutes the Kendre Miller hype I want to feel.” The Saints got shut out and didn’t reach even 200 yard of offense as a team, which had a profoundly negative impact on Miller’s ability to have any meaningful production, despite starting and being the clear lead in the earlier part of the game. The lines aren’t always perfect, but this is the type of stuff you do need to consider that it’s telling you about a range of outcomes.
Alright, let’s get into the games.
Seahawks at Bears
Seahawks are concentrated, and with Kenneth Walker out, Zach Charbonnet should get plenty of work. He’s reportedly healthy, and Seattle should run plenty, but when they do throw, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and D.K. Metcalf can concentrate things.
I wish I could say Rome Odunze had a strong case for a late-season breakout, but his volume has stayed consistent, and it’s Keenan Allen dominating the downfield targets while D.J. Moore racks up similar overall targets thanks to a few WR screens each game. Over the past four weeks, those two vets are each around a 30% target share while Odunze is down around 20%.
Chargers at Patriots
J.K. Dobbins is questionable to return this week, while Gus Edwards has been ruled out with an ankle issue. I assume Dobbins will be in, though he was a DNP on Thursday, after limited practices Tuesday and Wednesday. If Dobbins doesn’t play, we’re talking about Kimani Vidal again, and in a good matchup. Hassan Haskins could also factor in, obviously, and the Chargers are always liable to eschew the run. If Dobbins is back, he’s at least mildly interesting if the reports are positive. I do think the Chargers will be in position to run in this game.
The Chargers don’t necessarily profile as a great matchup for Drake Maye, and the Patriots are home underdogs in a game with a low total, but I don’t dislike this spot as much as the Buffalo one last week, and Maye could be surprisingly fun at home here.