2022 Week 13: Cowboys 54, Colts 19 (Dynasty/Fantasy Analysis Game Report)
I’ve seen a lot of embarrassing games in the NFL this season, mostly involving Denver or the Chargers…but this one may have taken the embarrassment of 2022 cake.
Matt Ryan is not only humiliating himself at this point, but he’s taking everyone else on the Colts down around him. And for Jeff Saturday sticking by him…it has now torpedoed Saturday’s momentum to be the next Colts official head coach. Not bad for a week’s work, while Ryan gets paid a million+ dollars a week for this ruination.
The Colts did lead this game 3-0 to start and did lead 10-7 going into the 2nd-quarter, and then all hell broke loose. No sense in discussing it much further…the final score represented what really happened in the game.
Indy falls to (4-8-1), their season effectively over. The internal debate for Jeff Saturday now is…play guys for the future and take more losses while doing it or stick with the veterans and try to win some games to help change his resume away from being (where it is headed): ‘won debut, lost next/final six in-a-row’.
Dallas cruises to a (9-3) record and looking like the best team in the NFC right now…with a chance at a #1 seed…or being a wild card team. We project Dallas to 12-13 wins with Week 16 hosting Philly probably the deciding factor for the #1 seed/division.
*Note any fractional numbers in parentheses (4/2) or (2/3), etc., are a ‘split’ stat on our definition of a ‘quality start’ (or not) marker on a player -- using 14 PPR points in a game for RB-WR-TE and 21 for a QB…point levels that are good/productive/well above average starts for a Fantasy week. Trying to identify trends, consistency (or not) in players we might not normally realize.
A (3/2), for example, means: 3 times the player hit at/above the mark, and 2 times they did not.
Fantasy Player Notes…
-- I don’t want to talk about how bad Matt Ryan (21-37 for 233 yards, 2 TDs/3 INTs) is anymore. His good result plays look like crap, and are lucky downfield blind throws or screen passes…and all his other plays are a disaster. Jeff Saturday was nice enough to let him stay out there and keep embarrassing himself…because the only thing worse than getting blown out on national television is putting Nick Foles (the game’s #2 QB) in the game and risk Foles doing something positive.
Jeff Saturday asked for this, by sticking with Matt Ryan, and he’s getting what he asked for/what he wanted…align yourself with Matt Ryan 2022, and this is your result.
There should be a QB change during the Week 14 bye week, but none has been announced as of yet.
Saturday has three options, and I’ll list in order of what I think will happen…
1) With the season now ‘over’, the team has every reason to give Sam Ehlinger a four-week trial run to see what he can do/how he grows. He can’t be worse than Matt Ryan 2022. He’s no star and it won’t make the team/Jeff Saturday look good most likely…but it’s the right thing to do within several options. At a minimum, Jim Irsay may step in and demand it…but I’m not sure he’d push Saturday at all because of their relationship dynamic.
2) Matt Ryan returns because Jeff Saturday believes it is his best chance to win a couple games to make a case that he should be the 2023 head coach…but he’ll say he’s playing to win as long as they have playoff life.
If they stick with Ryan, it’s obvious why (Saturday thinks it will help him win/help his coaching hire case)…and it’s embarrassing beyond belief on a number of levels -- but it does give them a shot at better draft pick with more losses, but if Saturday loses out it’s going to be HARD to make the case that he’s the coach of the future, so Saturday likely does not want to lose any game ahead, but his mindset is ‘Ryan gives him the best chance to win’, which lets you know Saturday isn’t some visionary.
3) Change to Nick Foles because of all the reasons listed in point #2. Again, he cannot be worse than Ryan or Ehlinger.
Foles deserves a chance, but with a lost season that shot should go to Ehlinger. But this Colts organization is committed to one management-unifying thing in 2022 -- Nick Foles will not get a chance, period. That…they can all agree on.
-- I can forgive, a little bit, Jeff Saturday sticking by Matt Ryan for his new coaching tenure. I think he should have pivoted off Ryan after that disastrous performance against the Steelers on Monday Night Football a couple weeks ago. Sticking by Ryan is ‘on’ Saturday and is a window into his decision making.
But what Saturday did at tight end this game…it totally lost me off the Jeff Saturday bandwagon.
Saturday watched Jelani Woods (2-28-0/4) be an absolute star the week prior…with the great Kylen Granson (4-19-0/6) out sick…and it seemed like Saturday made a bold decision to push Jelani the first time he had him active (was out hurt for Saturday’s first coaching games prior). And anyone can see there might be something special with Jelani, and the head coach should see it more than any of us between practices and after his breakout game vs. the Steelers the week prior.
Instead of riding Jelani into this game…Saturday starts the sad Granson…then rotates Mo Alie-Cox (1-6-0/1) in, and Jelani is barely in the rotation. This is what I would expect the typical NFL head coach to do…not this supposed radical hire outsider. But Saturday proved he is nothing more than the typical NFL head coach mind. Nice guy. Good leader of men. Typical NFL mindset.
For Fantasy, now we have no idea what Jelani Woods is worth going forward. No way to trust him for a Week 15 start, unless Saturday comes right out and says he’s starting/pushing Jelani…but I doubt he’d say it even if he planned on it happening…but Saturday has shown me he’s not going to do anything radical/logical, he’s gonna do typical NFL thinking. What a wasted opportunity…especially after Jelani helped his terrible QB look decent two games ago!
How could a human being see the Jelani performance the week prior and then push him back down the depth chart and limit his snaps and touches the following week? But we see it ALL THE TIME in the NFL. And it wasn’t that Jelani was hurt, because Woods played some and then played a lot more very late once the game was out of hand. The coaching staff remembered Jelani…once the game was a joke…that’s what they think of him.
-- Parris Campbell (4-43-0/5) was hot with Matt Ryan for a bit but that connection has faded their last two games, as Ryan flops and has no real ‘go to’ guy because he’s so afraid back in the pocket, he’s just playing ‘hot potato’ with his passes…not a real predictable plan. This game Ryan just lofted prayers to Alec Pierce (4-86-1/8) as his big hope…no real connection, just ‘hope’ throws.
With Ryan possibly benched ahead, we don’t know who the Colts’ top target will be…or if any of them will FF-matter. Michael Pittman (2-165-0/4) is always the safest bet…especially if Foles gets in.
-- Not much new to discuss on the Cowboys…they just pounded the Colts with their RBs and CeeDee Lamb (5-71-1/7) running around free…which is their every week plan.
Just two things to note…
1) Dak Prescott (20-30 for 170 yards, 3 TDs/1 INT) is averaging 2.4 TD passes per game his last five games…that’s a hot pace. With a killer run game and good O-Line play…Dak is very comfortable running the show since his return from injury.
2) Michael Gallup (4-23-2/7) kinda had that breakout Ross Jacobs and I were yammering about for weeks…but, honestly, it was kinda boring. Yes, two TDs but just 23 yards on little passes as an aside not any real ‘step up’. He’s just a random starting WR on a good offense, not the desired target by the QB…not the top 2-3 desired target by the QB. A guy who is just ‘there’, and competent. It looks like he’s capable of more, but this offense is not interested in it, it seems…and why should they change off of what’s working now/every week?
Snap Counts of Interest:
67 = Pittman
56 = Parris
51 = Pierce
20 = Dulin
06 = Strachan
