I had a bye this week, but did I quit playing? NO! I pressed on. I talked trash. I got my teeth kicked in by the results. I loved every second of it. It’s easier when the Bucs and Ravens win. It’s easier when the Bucs and Ravens lead their divisions. Investing in football this season is paying off, especially since I’m investing less than ever. I’m watching the same amount as usual, but I’m not looking at stats ever. I couldn’t tell you who leads any stat category in anything unless I see it in a tweet, which is why I know CMC leads the league in rushing and leads all RBs in receiving (which I also haven’t verified and wouldn’t be surprised if it were untrue).
I was disappointed in the results. I wanted Oliver to advance. He got a raw deal last year. Whether he sabotaged himself or not, it would still be cool to see him win a championship. It would be cool to see Oliver, Shelby, Max, Coleman, or Brian win a championship. Maybe next year.
The only remaining satisfactory result for me is my team winning the championship. I would be somewhat okay with Cameron winning. In any sport, if the team I’m rooting for can’t win the championship, then I’m rooting for the team that beat my team. The Giants’ win over the undefeated Patriots was a Bucs’ win because the Giants knocked the Bucs out of the playoffs that year. The Rams’ win over the Bengals was a Bucs win for the same reason. Had the Cowboys won last year… well, I would never root for the Cowboys, or a handful of other teams. Cameron is borderline. Cameron, Sean, and Evan are the unholy trinity of teams I root against every year. They’re too white, right? Like, that’s fair to say? But with Evan and Sean kind of splitting last year’s ship, Cameron winning would be the least dissatisfying, I guess. Sigh.
And despite not playing last week, I’m shook by the results. I outscored all the other playoff teams. I outscored everyone in the league except Max. A bye week is not a great time to peak!
Amid the peak, I had a seriously worrying game from Bijan Robinson, one of many players I paid too much to acquire and am considering not even starting with my season on the line. More on that later.
Let’s pay respects to four teams who are playing for less than they were last week. Well, arguably only two teams are playing for less. Oliver and Kennedy’s 5th Place game, it just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a dent in draft strategy, it doesn’t come with any cash reward (well, except the weekly cash game that continues through the end of the year), and starting a full lineup kind of undercuts your ability to stack keeper options for next season.
Spencer and Brian are playing to avoid last place and also avoid having to pay for shipping the trophy (them’s the rules). Brian can do a niceguy and tank the game then drive to pick up the trophy. Save everybody some money and also take the title of superloser he deserves from last season, take that karma pill and swallow it and start anew next season in his proper place, finally shake the injury demon that’s plagued him either two or three years running.
The saddest thing that happened last week was definitely Jared Goff scoring 40, but Oliver benching Godwin comes close. Max leading the league in points for no reason is up there. Kennedy bombing on the big stage was bad. Brian scoring under 100 is bad but that’s what you get for starting Bryce Young again.
To be honest, I’m fine with people throwing in the towel on a trash team. I hope that you see the bigger picture and continue participating in the game as a whole. Drop a line in the chat, about anything. Steal a free agent from an opponent or from a playoff team. Get your hands dirty. Talk shit. Just play with me. The note doesn’t come from nothing, and the note is boring as hell if all I have to talk about is fucking football. Football is dumb.
And it’s never been dumber than with this infusion of officiating rhetoric. I will die on the hill that sports were better off without reviews, or at least without reviews for ambiguous plays. Just make a call. Move on. Talking about the rules is so incredibly boring. Winning on technicalities is boring. Have some integrity and have some sense of what is fun and entertaining. Something any lawyer will accept is that their job is much less entertaining than the way it is portrayed on TV. And a hardcore football fan probably gets more out of a Friday night high school game than the overproduced garbage we see on Sundays.
This is all to say I understand not caring about the NFL. It’s lost a lot of value in our lifetimes, real value traded for dollar value. I don’t think I’m jaded. I think if we time-traveled a person watching Bert Emmanuel not drop a pass against the Rams to present day and sat them down for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime, they’d fucking love the picture quality but lose their fucking minds over how little football was being incorporated into the production. What’s with the poorly animated cutaways, or the storyless statistics, or the announcers not even pretending to have a dialogue, that is, if they can even track the game between constant ad breaks every time there’s an injury or a change of possession or a review or an “official timeout” (C-suite demand for an ad break).
One thing I did this year was start going to church again, which isn’t an ad for Christ as much as it is an ad for NFL+ Premium, with these two things being the trade pieces between Stephanie and me before the season started. So now when I can’t catch the Bucs or Ravens live, I can watch the games commercial-free (but notably NOT ad-free because of all the ad copy foisted upon the play-by-play guys). And what I am reporting is that the commercial breaks don’t break up the flow of the game nearly as much as what I’m assuming is people justifying their paychecks by doing more, the disease of American industry, the sick need to produce something whether that thing sucks or not. I’m assuming television production is a bloated industry. I’m assuming this because even watching the games on mute is disorienting in a way it never used to be. Producers are making choices to sort of break from the mold of classic storytelling, presumably because data has suggested that the classic style is stale and stale content loses eyeballs.
Content is the worst thing to happen to entertainment. Things created for the sake of capturing attention but not worth enough to hold attention. The tiktokening of all our media to the point that we really don’t want your attention long enough for you to think about whether you’re getting anything from it. We just want you inhaling that popcorn and instilling the habit of inhaling popcorn so that when the popcorn is gone you are inclined to get more popcorn, or more precisely be satisfied when more popcorn is provided without your having to go get it at all, to be content with the content provided to the point that whether you want something else or not is immaterial.
If the Bucs and Ravens were bad, I wouldn’t be watching games at all, I don’t think, though I do watch a little bit of every game. I am entertained by the sport itself. Offensive and defensive design have never been better. I’m infatuated with the Dolphins and Lions and Chiefs and 49ers’ offenses. Brian Flores’ defense is exactly what I’ve been doing in Madden for the last five years, and it’s extremely satisfying to watch it succeed in reality. 70% zone, alternating between heavy blitz and heavy coverage, refusing to fence-sit and get picked at by both sides, sprinkling in tendency breakers simply to keep the offense off balance. It’s going to be awesome to see this defense in this form taking on the Lions this week because the Lions also play an offense that would dominate Madden: they either condense everything or spread everything out, and they always have an audible to exploit the gap in the run game (and if somehow there’s no gap in the run game, that’s where Amon-Ra and LaPorta come in). They run their power back from their spread formation and their speed back from their power formation. Every pass attacks all three levels at once and gives Jared Goff an open man so long as the line hold up for three full seconds. If Matt Stafford were running this offense, the Lions would be undefeated. If the Lions can get a smart QB who understands how to adjust the offense between 15 and 5 seconds on the play clock, they can score on every drive (well, assuming the QB throws nearly as well as Goff, which is like ten guys, maybe: Tua, Purdy, Mahomes, Dak, Stroud, Stafford, Cousins, Burrow, end of list? Herbert and Allen lack touch, Lamar lacks accuracy, Lawrence idk maybe but even with Lawrence it’s nine plus Goff and two of them are over 35—oh, Rodgers makes eleven total—point being that the Lions are stuck with Goff unless they can get Tua, Dak, or Cousins OR mystery box Hendon Hooker turns out to be a dude, either way the Lions are losing Ben Johnson this year and it’ll all be moot). That’s how good the line, design, and skill players are. If I were running the Lions, I would pour everything into this offense, into the defensive line, and into one DB who could call the defense, and get cheap players at LB and CB. Basically I would run the Flores defense with Harrison Smith exactly the way Flores and Smith are running it. It’s seriously going to be such an awesome game when its’ Lions’ offense versus Vikings’ defense. The flip-side, Vikings’ offense versus Lions’ defense, will be so fucking disgusting, honestly wouldn’t be surprising if every drive ended in a touchdown, a turnover, or both.
You know I’m going insane when I’m gaga for a defense that just allowed Jake Browning’s Bengals to score three TDs in the fourth quarter.
All right, we have all 12 teams playing this week, all 32 teams playing, as well, for the first time since Week 8. This is the best week of the year (except maybe the Week 14 melee) for everybody except Kennedy and Oliver, who should probably put a slap-bet on this game (and honestly, maybe it should be a rule that the 5th place game is for a slap every year… some kind of stakes, suggestions welcome)
Pick Ladder
8 Shelby vs 9 Corey
We meet again. This time, the winner advances to the First Pick Game (as yet unnamed). Shelby has the total points advantage, but Corey scored more points last week, and Corey’s Browning-Boyd stack is a certified Thing. Not sure playing @ PIT is good for the brand, and playing without Ja’Marr Chase feels bad for Browning but the Bengals know how to use their personnel, and they still go two-deep at every skill position even without Chase.
Dak is coming off a brutal loss, going against a feisty Miami defense, and the Bills provided the blueprint if Miami wishes to copy it. Essentially, the Bills disguised their coverage pre-snap, but more importantly, the Bills jumped out to a lead. Disguising coverage is much more effective when you know the offense is most likely passing. Miami can jump out to an early lead. Dak can definitely let Shelby down a second time.
Rachaad and Zeke are just a couple of workhorses, predictably dominating the fantasy playoffs. DJ Moore and Jordan Addison have great matchups. Shelby’s got nothing going with that second flex spot, which is super disappointing when you consider she’s had the top waiver priority and she didn’t spend it on either Ty Chandler or Josh Palmer last week. Scoff at those names all you want, those are the types of guys who win fantasy championships when the big names start getting hurt.
Last week, Corey got most of his points from four players. Browning, Waddle, Singletary, and Tremaine each scored 20+ points. The rest of his team did what they’ve done most of the season: not a lot. Assuming those four players lose their werewolf powers between now and this weekend, Corey will be back to his 110-point ways, while Shelby keeps it steady at 125-30.
I’m not in the business of predicting IDP scoring. I’m terrible at it, and it’s volatile by design. But Corey got his splash last week, so I’m fading him this week.
Prediction: Shelby wins 130 – 118
7 Max vs 10 Coleman
QB
Fields vs Purdy
(fwiw I think Max should start Stafford vs. the Saints)
Fields has a great matchup against the Cardinals and Purdy has a supposedly terrible matchup against Baltimore, but we haven’t seen Baltimore play a great offense in that offense’s ideal conditions. Like not at all. Zero even close examples of this happening. I watch Baltimore every week. They are an imperfect defense, but they are experienced, fast, and versatile, and everyone tackles. I badly want the Ravens to break this 49ers’ offense and ascend to the heavens, but more than that, I want them to play it super vanilla and let the 49ers empty their playbook, expecting that they’ll then have the advantage when these teams rematch in the Super Bowl. All this is to say I don’t think it’s a bad matchup. I think the 49ers offense will score at least three TDs, probably all by Brock.
RB 3-packs
Saquon, Kamara, Gus vs. Mostert, Walker, Foreman
Max has the better names (minus the Bus), but Coleman has the matchups (and the league-leader in TDs). Saquon @PHI, Gus @SF, Kamara @LAR are all pretty brutal, especially with Taysom Hill seemingly kept fresh for the Saints’ Thursday game (I’m not wishcasting, you’re wishcasting). Mostert vs.DAL, Foreman vs.AZ, and Walker @TEN are cake.
WR
Metcalf & Pittman vs. OBJ & Rice
Pittman might be out with a concussion, which would force Max to start Diontae, which would be a significant downgrade as Pittman has been smoking hot since the Colts’ bye, but Diontae is probably good for ten. OBJ is a mess, but the Ravens will need him. Rashee Rice is finally getting WR1 treatment from the Chiefs, and he’s exploding. Coleman strikes rookie WR gold again!
TE
LaPorta vs. Ferguson
Hate to see your TE score three TDs on your bye week. There’s just no way he does anything close this week, but he’s an elite TE and never say never etc. Jake Ferguson goes against a Dolphins defense ailing at LB and safety. Should have a great week.
I’m not doing kicker or IDP, but I will say that Rayshawn Jenkins vs. Jason Pinnock is an all-time matchup of bad DBs who put up solid fantasy points.
Prediction: Coleman wins 141 – 140, Max crushes his phone in his hand like a movie-prop champagne flute.
Jerry Bowl
11 Spencer vs 12 Brian
I don’t know what Brian is doing. I don’t know why he keeps starting Bryce Young. If he’s trolling, I don’t like it. If he’s saving the league money on shipping the loser’s trophy, okay. I’m on board. It really looks like he’s trying to lose. Bryce Young just can’t score points. Brian is benching Jaylen Warren against one of the worst run defenses, a defense that just let Ty Chandler have his way with them, and Brian is going to give Shaq Leonard another start when there are 40 LBs outscoring him every week. You don’t have to care or even try. You just pick the top guy off the free agent list. You just start Hillsborough’s own Azeez Al-Shaair. Start Jermaine Johnson or Josh Sweat. Or fine, troll me. I feel like it’s trolling, and I get the appeal of getting a rise out of me. But once I’m onto the grift, I feel like you need to move on.
Spencer is starting his Jaggalos, which I’m not mad at. James Cook is Shady McCoy reincarnate, the IDPs are solid, and the Jags play Tampa. I think it’s a great move. I don’t think Javonte Williams against the Patriots is great, especially after he was wet doodoo against the Lions. I don’t like your bench WRs a ton either. I would put your guys’ names in a bowl with Gabe Davis, Rashid Shaheed, and Dontayvion Wicks and start whichever name I picked out first—no, better, whoever the last name was in the bowl. That’s what this matchup calls for. Who’s the forgotten guy who deserves his due. Whatever you do, just have fun with it. Last place sucks. At least enjoy how you got there. It’s a slot machine anyway.
Brian weirdly has the better team. Cooper Kupp and Jonathan Taylor will do that for you. But I can’t pick Brian to win this game unless he starts a different QB.
Prediction: Spencer wins 128 – 109 because Brian is just that contrarian and stubborn.
5th Place Game
5 Kennedy vs 6 Oliver
I’m going to pretend there is a slap on the line so I can care about this matchup.
QB
Flacco vs Mahomes
Kennedy can’t start Russ against the Patriots. And even if Stroud is good to go, you can’t start him against the Browns. Flacco @HOU is the default option here. Everything in free agency is trash. Okay, one exception: whoever the Jets start against the ‘Ders, that guy might be better than Flacco this week. But no, Flacco is chucking it 40 times per game, and that’s always good for fantasy (and because I said that, this is the week it’s not, so maybe do the Jets thing, or just start Russ, but not against Oliver with a slap on the line).
Mahomes vs. Vegas will outscore any of them anyway.
RB 3-packs
Ekeler, Etienne, Montgomery vs. Kyren, Mixon, Pacheco
Kennedy gets back to basics benching Zack Moss regardless of whatever else is happening with these guys. If they’re playing, they’re starting for you. Oliver gets Pacheco back, who probably would have made the difference last week, so it’s going to hurt a lot when he’s a big reason Oliver beats Kennedy by 50 this week. I don’t love Mixon @PIT and would probably start Olave instead. You paid the pick for him. Might as well use him.
WR
Adams & Thielen vs. Aiyuk & Godwin
Again, play the guys you paid for. This would include Ja’Marr Chase for Kennedy, but Chase is likely out this week. I want DeAndre Hopkins in the lineup if I’m Oliver, but with a gimpy Levis, it’s fine leaving him on the bench for this final game.
TE
Kelce vs. Kittle
Sad state of affairs when these two TEs end their season in a game with this little at stake. Four TEs are in range of the top spot in fantasy, and these are #s 2 and 4. LaPorta is 1, Hock is 3. #5 David Njoku is 35 points away from cracking that top four.
As for Ks and IDPs, it’s Bobby Time one last time, and IDP is the edge Kennedy needs to make up for losing the QB and RB matchups.
Prediction: Oliver wins by so fucking many points
Playoffs
2 Doak vs 3 Cameron
I’m not going to predict this game because I believe fear is a healthy constraint, but I will preview the matchup.
QB
TBD vs Goff
I traded for Josh Allen to start him this week. Lamar is @SF and at this point he’s going in without Andrews or Zay Flowers, though Harbaugh says Flowers is fine—it’s a Monday game so there’s plenty of time. But the Bills’ new identity is capping Josh Allen’s ceiling. But the Bills are playing the Chargers, who just let AOC hit his career ceiling. BUT the Chargers fired their coach and he was in charge of the defense, and players always play out of this world the week after a bad coach gets fired. I’m feeling a lot of pressure to get this right. Allen feels like the floor play and the ceiling play, but the Bills travel west and play at 5:00 local time on a Saturday, so I’m thinking it will be just weird enough with the other details I mentioned that maybe Allen plays poorly and the Bills lose this game? But the Bills feel like a team of destiny right now. But they kind of suck and don’t deserve it? Then again, the 9/11 hijackers traveled west and they executed their plan of attack, right, Sean McDermott?
Jared Goff makes me so mad. His dumb face. The way his dome stats demolish his outdoor stats, and despite playing on the road the next two weeks, both are in domes, and this sets up Cameron for a championship despite Cameron stumbling into this QB arrangement after a serious of disasters should have cost him his playoff spot a long time ago, but other people dropped the ball even harder than he did (and also Kirk Cousins was good and I guess it was unfortunate that Cameron lost him but that’s not what I’m focusing on). I really don’t want to lose to Jared Goff. Can I lose to Hurts or Tua instead?
RB
CMC, Gibbs, Bijan vs. Pollard, Achane, Jacobs
Cameron has Achane benched right now, but I don’t buy it. The ceiling is too high, and if last week was the floor, it was more floor than you’re getting from DeVonta Smith. I haven’t decided whether I’m starting Bijan. Last week was bad, like really bad. Bijan wasn’t even the starter. Arthur Smith is as much of a jackass as you’d expect an heir to the FedEx fortune to be. If I watched Succession, there would be a Succession joke here, and Brian would love it.
WR
Evans & Diggs vs. STA & Jefferson
Great matchup on paper, but these four combined for like 30 points last week. Chris Godwin has taken over, Diggs is doing his classic December disappearing act, STA is hurt, and Jefferson is catching medicine balls from the Vikings flavor of the week at QB. We have options.
I guess I’m hoping Keenan Allen plays? Or maybe I’m hoping Allen doesn’t play and Josh Palmer vacuums up all the targets. I’m kind of leaning toward Zay Flowers if he plays, just going all-in on that Christmas miracle.
Tee Higgins feels like a must-start if STA is out again. Higgins would definitely get my vote over DeVonta Smith in an absolutely broken Eagles’ offense.
TE
Waller vs. Hockenson
Full-circle, baby. At any other position, I would probably lean on a player who didn’t let me down in every way, but it’s TE. If you don’t have the elite guys, it just doesn’t matter. Might as well put my chips on a guy supposedly in line to lead the team in targets. Another Christmas miracle, please. Here’s hoping Hockenson and Jefferson cannibalize each other. Cameron should go double-TE again and I guess bench Achane as a result.
K
Tucker vs. Aubrey
Elite kicker matchup that will hit anywhere between 10 and 30 points and either decide the whole matchup or be totally meaningless.
IDP
Four All-Pros vs. All the Luck
I am honestly shitting myself.
1 Evan vs 4 Sean
QB
Love vs. Hurts
We are not getting the Hurts-Tua matchup we didn’t get when they were both on bye last time Evan and Sean played each other. We should be getting that matchup. Tua plays a suddenly average Dallas defense, while Jordan Love plays Carolina, who have been “good against QBs” because opposing offenses only need like ten points to win. There’s no point putting anything on tape, no point putting the QB in harm’s way, and the Panthers have a pretty intimidating pass-rush. It’s the only intimidating element of that defense. I think Love is a mistake.
Hurts is good for a couple tush pushes and somewhere around 25 FP. He’s especially good against Evan, who relies on the Eagles’ offense for points at three different positions.
RB
Conner & Henry vs. Swift & Breece
Conner @CHI is interesting. The Bears have held most of their opponents under 100 yards rushing. They’ve forced a shit-ton of turnovers lately (14 in four weeks!), but aside from two games against Detroit, they’ve faced pretty terrible running teams, which Arizona is not. The Cardinals rushed for over 200 yards against the 49ers last week, they will probably run all over the Bears, and James Conner will lead them in carries.
Derrick Henry has scored under 10 FP as often as he’s scored over 20. He’s been terrible two weeks in a row, but now he faces a terrible Seahawks run defense. So… over 20?
Swift vs. NYG is a bad matchup. The Giants load the box and blitz. The Eagles’ offense is broken. Swift gets vultured by the tush push whenever there’s one yard to go. He’s scored 10-15 FP most weeks, which is fine, but for a championship run, it’s pretty underwhelming.
Breece vs. WAS is a good matchup, but the Jets’ offense is real bad. They can’t run the ball, Breece is getting all his FP as a receiver, but against Miami last week, even that didn’t happen. The Jets are eliminated from the playoffs and probably shutting it down. Breece will probably start, but after playing all year at like 75%, does he really need to prove anything? Does he need reps? The Jets would be wise to hand over the reins to their backups and tank for a draft pick.
WR
Puka, Deebo, Cooper vs. CD, AJB, ARSB
Sean is starting Sutton but please. The Browns are throwing the ball 40 times per game. Start their best receiver already. Sutton has been more consistent, for sure, but he’s playing New England. Whatever, I don’t want to be responsible if you lose.
Puka and Deebo have been insane. These are two of just a handful of WRs that can go toes with Evan’s murderer’s row.
If I told you Lamb, AJ Brown, and Sun God were WRs 2, 3, and 4 this season, you’d believe me, wouldn’t you? Well, they are 2, 3, and 7, but that 7 will probably jump to 4 after this week. It’s very scary, but it’s undercut this week by AJ Brown needing Jalen Hurts to throw him passes. Brown gets more points for the yardage, but the TDs cancel out. Since the Eagles’ bye, Brown has been pretty average, zero games above 16 FP and just one game with a TD. He feels like the kind of guy who would ruin Christmas for his enemies, though. I’m anticipating 100 yards and two TDs, which will flip the script on Sean and negate most of Hurts’ points.
CeeDee Lamb is out of fucking control, but he’s facing Jalen Ramsey and Xavien Howard this week. I think he’ll hit double digits, but nothing crazy. And that Miami weather could kill the Cowboys altogether. Sean can relax a little.
I hate Jared Goff, and so by extension I hate Amon-Ra. There has been one game all year where Amon-Ra was actually kept from making an impact, and it was in Chicago in the cold and rain. In a dome, he’s good for 20. Sean should clench again.
TE
McBride vs. Engram
McBride has been an elite TE since Zach Ertz went down. Fire ‘im up.
Evan needs to do better at TE. Engram had a good couple weeks, but it’s over now. It’s Freiermuth time.
Ks and IDPs are what they are. Evan has better names, Sean has more points, but Sean is flailing, rudderless, about to be thrashed against rocks shaped like Josh Metellus and Robert Spillane (two real people!). Sean, I beg, I plead: replace Spillane with Ernest Jones. Or don’t. I really don’t want the responsibility. Forget I said anything. I’d rather face Evan in the championship anyway.
Prediction: not my problem
Despite writing all of this and planning on publishing as is, I don’t feel good about my assumptions leading into the weekend. I really can’t figure out who to start between Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, and it’s put everything else on a rotten foundation. I don’t care if I win or lose. That’s not something I have control over. But I would like to feel like I have some sort of grip on reality, like is it not obvious that the Bills’ offense should look better against the Chargers than the Ravens’ offense will in San Francisco? How fucked is it that one team plays on Saturday and the other plays on Christmas, and both are flying west to do so? It’s actually more reasonable that I have no grip. It doesn’t resemble the 14 prior weeks where I was making lineup decisions. AND IT’S TEARING ME APART!
I blame Cameron.
