What a great week of football. But yet, at the same time, what a bizarre week for fantasy football.
QB – J. Goff
RB – T. Gurley
RB – L. Fournette
WR – A. Brown
WR – K. Golloday
TE – Z. Ertz
FLX – B. CooksThe last lineup you wanted this week.
— Andy Holloway (@andyholloway) December 10, 2018
The players that you have depended on the entire season to get you to the playoffs absolutely disappeared in Week 14. And yet, somehow, guys like Derrick Henry emerge out of nowhere to give you almost 50 points!
If you have managed to survive, congratulations. If you’re awaiting tonight’s matchup to learn your fate, good luck.
It’s time to recap Sunday’s games and the fantasy takeaways.
1. Adrian Peterson Is Done For Fantasy This Year
As an AP owner in my Dynasty league, this really pains me to write.
AP was turning into an extremely reliable starter week in and week out with Alex Smith at the helm. And then every thing that could go wrong went wrong.
Smith broke his leg and will most likely never play in the NFL again, both starting guards on the offensive line went down with injuries, Colt McCoy breaks his leg and Mark Sanchez has to come in and play QB…then to top it all off, Sanchez sucks and Josh Johnson has to come in and play quarterback for the Washington Redskins.
A huge part of what makes a fantasy running back valuable is opportunity and volume. Talent’s great, but if you aren’t getting the work you’re not going to be useful for fantasy (a.k.a Kenyan Drake).
When your offense literally can’t put together a drive that lasts more than 5 plays for the entire first half, you aren’t going to get the opportunity needed to make an impact.
Josh Johnson is not the solution at quarterback for the Redskins. No one is at this point.
The offense is going to struggle to move the ball and Adrian Peterson needs to be officially moved to the bench if you hadn’t done that already. And it’s a shame.
2. Patrick Mahomes Deserves The MVP Award
I was very hesitant to start Patrick Mahomes this week.
Let me be clear, this had nothing to do with his talent. Nothing at all. But it had everything to do with the matchup and who he was going up against.
Somehow, despite being knocked around like a piñata, Mahomes came through with some amazing throws and finished with a solid fantasy day.
RIDICULOUS.
(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/0RWzZI6UjR
— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) December 9, 2018
I’m done doubting. No matter the matchup, no matter who he has playing around him or anything else that I can come up with…Mahomes is an absolute every week starter and deserves to be the NFL MVP at the end of the year.
If you have him in a Dynasty league, congratulations. You’re going to have a QB1 for the next 10+ years.
3. Chris Godwin Had No Chance
After DeSean Jackson was ruled out for a second week in a row due to his thumb injury, Godwin looked like a great play in what was a projected shootout against New Orleans.
Yeah, it didn’t go that way.
Godwin finished with 1 catch for 13 yards.
The most infuriating part? He had 10 targets.
Any time that a WR finishes with 10 targets, it’s usually safe to assume that they had a good fantasy day…but not in Godwin’s case.
Only one of Chris Godwin’s 10 targets were catchable today (he caught it).
— Pat Thorman (@Pat_Thorman) December 10, 2018
The bright side of this is that he’s a focal point of the offense and this is most certainly an outlier. However, for it to come in round 1 of the fantasy playoffs is not what you want to have happen.
If Jackson misses next week again, you should feel confident in rolling Godwin back out there in your starting lineups. Things are bound to turn around at some point.
4. Jared Goff Destroyed Your Team
51% of fantasy football players in Yahoo leagues started Jared Goff. Depending on your scoring format, Goff may have actually lost you points last night.
Goff finished the game against the elite Bears defense with throwing for 180 yards, 0 touchdowns and 4 interceptions.
It has to be one of the worst fantasy playoff performances in recent history. And if you started him, I hope that you were able to have Amari Cooper on your team to counteract the awfulness.
Moving forward though, Goff has some very good matchups to end the season against Philadelphia, Arizona and San Francisco (Week 17). If you survived, you can roll him back out there with confidence. None of those defenses come anywhere close to what he just saw in Chicago.
5. Tyreek Hill Might Miss Some Time
Speaking to Peter King of Football Morning in America, Tyreek Hill said the injury to his heel is bad.
Typically, a player will sugarcoat an injury and say that they plan to play this upcoming week, etc. But when a player comes out after the game and uses that language, it’s typically not good for next week’s outlook.
If you got into the next round of the playoffs on the back of Hill’s dominant performance, you might need to adjust and be ready to have a backup plan in place. The Chiefs play the Chargers on Thursday Night Football, so it’s a quick turnaround.
With a player that’s come out and expressed how bad his injury is and how short of a week this is before their next game, I highly doubt Cheetah will play in Week 15.
(Chris Conley is intriguing if he’s still out there on your waiver wire.)
There’s your five takeaways from yesterday’s games! If you have any fantasy football questions, feel free to ask over on Twitter @KyleYNFL.
