R.C. Fischer

FFM

24 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: Bengals 15, Broncos 10

This was a slugfest between two of the better ‘almost’ teams…

Denver is ‘almost’ a playoff-worthy team…they are a step away, their defense is really coming on, but they have a problem on offense/QB (Teddy).

Cincinnati is an ‘almost’ too…almost the best team in the AFC. I will probably say this every month of every year until the Bengals win a Super Bowl: Had they drafted Sewell/Slater instead of Ja’Marr Chase they would be the best team in the AFC right now and poised to be that in 2022+. You don’t want to play Cincinnati in the playoffs as it is. 2021 may not be their time, but watch out in 2022-2023.

This game was two good teams slugging it out and battling with field goals, and then the game changed in the 3rd-quarter. Cincy leading 9-3 and then Teddy Bridgewater took a hit and landed on his head and was taken out of the game for good. Drew Lock entered and the offense suddenly had a spark…Denver took a 10-9 lead. Cincy took it back soon after to go up 15-10. Denver was driving into the Cincy red zone mid-4th-quarter and then a weird play where Lock had the ball just taken from his hands by a pass rusher…no real contact, just reach out…a snatch & grab job and a crucial turnover.

The teams exchanged a few drives in those few final minutes, but their defenses were so tight, no scoring…and Cincy held on for the win.

The Bengals rise to (8-6) and find themselves sudden leaders of the AFC North…and the favorites to capture the title. If Cincy defeats Baltimore this week, then the Bengals should have the inside track at the AFC North (70%+ chance by estimates if CIN wins and CLE-PIT also lose, as expected, this week), but it’s still very much in flux. If there is a football god, the Bengals will win the division – they are the best team in the AFC North by far.

The Broncos fall to (7-7) and need to get to 10 wins to realistically have a shot at the playoffs…thus, they need to ‘win out’. They’re not likely to do that with at LAC Week 17, and v. KC Week 18. Denver is still alive for the playoffs, but it’s a very low probability…they’re essentially dead for the playoffs.

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- This offense just looks better, more dangerous with Drew Lock (6-12 for 88 yards, 1 TD/0 INT). It’s too late now but had Denver just groomed Lock through the entire year with their defense coming on strong – this could have been a dangerous playoff wild card.  Instead, they will likely fall short and probably get Vic Fangio fired…but who really needs to go is O-C Pat Shurmur.  

The offense will not fall off with Lock this week v. LV (how could it get worse?)…he takes more chances, but he also makes more things happen.

Lock helps Albert Okwuegbunam (3-58-0/4) as they are well-documented friends/college teammates. Albert might be a TE1 shot this week, but it really more hurts/drops Noah Fant and rises Okwuegbunam up to the Fant TE1.5 projection level…potentially.

Nothing, not even Lock, can help Courtland Sutton (2-12-0/7)…he looks terrible. Mike Hilton (4 tackles) ate him alive. Also did you know Jerry Jeudy (0-0-0/4) is still in the NFL? Boy, the Henry Ruggs and Jerry Jeudy Alabama WR high pick draft duo really have mattered nicely in the NFL?

Which reminds me…this Bengals defense is really good. They squashed the Broncos most of this game without their best defensive player out with COVID (Awuzie).

 -- The better defense of these two really good defenses…is the Denver Broncos defense. They are really starting to emerge. It’s one thing for Cincy to shutdown this Denver disaster offense led by Teddy and failure O-C Pat Shurmur. It’s another to make Joe Burrow (15-22 for 157 yards, 1 TD/0 INT) struggle.

Tee Higgins (2-23-0/3) caught two passes in the first 7 minutes and then they locked him down the next 53 minutes…no catches. The Denver secondary/coverage unit is finally all healthy and maybe as good as it gets in the NFL right now. Ja’Marr Chase (1-3-0/4) got totally wiped out. Better game coming for the Cincy WRs against BAL. This was a Denver thing, not a self-induced Cincy passing game failure.

 -- I thought Joe Mixon (17-58-0, 1-2-0/1) was in real trouble to play Week 16 with the injury he had late in this game, but (as of this writing) Mixon has practiced in full two days in a row, so he must be good-to-go. Full trust.

 -- Lastly…

I’m so proud of myself for pushing Evan McPherson (3/3 FGs) as a specific Week 15 playoff game monster upside kicking at Denver (the air)…and, well, he hit a 53 and 58 yard FG for the sweet bonus action and then added another 26-yarder to get you an RB2 type of week…winning some people their FF-games Week 15.

It brings me so much joy to watch all these games, to scout all these players, to watch the Senior Bowl practices and watch all the tape college and pro to get a feel for these guys…including kickers, and then months of work can mean the win-loss with such a move as switching kickers to McPherson in a do-or-die week, and it hits for all of us that utilized it.

The little things…

Snap Counts of Interest:

44 = Javonte

31 = Gordon

60 = Fant

30 = Albert O.

31 = Mixon

16 = Perine

53 = Browning

42 = J Griffith (9 tackles, 1 TFL, 2 QB hits…and should start again this week for Kenny Young)

**College Football Metrics 2022…new season signups coming in January 2022**

The new season of CFM will be starting up in January, as always. A little different schedule this year as the NFL extended their season by a week and the Senior Bowl was bumped back a week as well. We should have a Senior Bowl, NFL Combine…it looks like it will be a normal scouting year!

The NFL Draft, Dynasty Rookie Draft, and regular season ahead rookie analysis all gets started through CFM in January with our usual season starter -- the past two years/2020-2021 Mock Rookie Draft re-do, along with in-depth Senior Bowl analysis, and full QB scouting reports and much more as we build towards the NFL Combine and all the other positional scouting reports. Football study never ends…

Thank you for your support of CFM for the past decade now…wow, time flies.

Ross Jacobs

FFM

23 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: Cowboys 21, Giants 6 

This was an ugly affair. The Giants just have nothing going for them on offense right now. Terrible offensive line, no QB, and the skill position players are beyond frustrated. The Cowboys defense just crushed them and that was the game essentially.

At first I was confused about why the Dallas offense looked so poor here. Was this some new issue that they would have to worry about moving forward?

The answer is no, not exactly, although things aren't perfect. The biggest reason why they looked bad is that the Giants defense is just really, really solid. They don't have any star power right now, but if the offense wasn't constantly putting them in bad positions, they could be a top 10 unit. Once they get Blake Martinez back next year this defense might even be a top 5 unit with a couple minor tweaks.

Quincy Roche (who New York plucked from Pittsburgh this preseason) and Azeez Ojulari are looking like an emerging young pair of pass rushers for the Giants in the vein of Carolina's Haason Reddick and Brian Burns. And the scary part is they are both rookies.

The offense is still too bad to help them so you can't start the Giants for fantasy yet, but I'll be looking at them very hard in 2022 as a potential shock defense that you can draft late.

There's a lot of pressure in New York to dump Dave Gettleman, and I have to admit I've never been his biggest fan, but RC is right that Gettleman has really assembled a lot of talent and deserves another year. This team is a QB and some offensive line support away from being a very strong team.

The Cowboys only scored two offensive TD's here, and they both came from short fields after the Giants turned the ball over. I already talked about how sneaky good the Giants defense is, but the Cowboys do have a couple issues of their own.

The biggest thing plaguing them here was the absence of Tyron Smith again. This offense consistently takes a step back whenever he is out. Dak was under constant pressure here, and Zeke had nowhere to run. Smith hasn't practiced so far this week and is considered day-to-day. They need him back to have a shot at a Superbowl.

Dallas is up to 10-4 with three winnable games remaining. None of them are gimmes, but they should be favored against Washington and the Eagles. We'll see if Arizona can bounce back against the Colts this week. If they are collapsing, that just helps Dallas more. If they can win out they have a shot at possibly the #2 seed in the NFC.

If Smith can make it back for the playoffs Dallas has as good a chance as anyone outside of Green Bay to make the championship game. The defense is playing well and the offense is good if not all that explosive anymore. They are playing like a slightly worse version of the Packers right now (no surprise since McCarthy was the coach there for so long), a versatile offense with lots of options to attack with and a stout but not shutdown defense. It's a good recipe for postseason success.

Fantasy Notes

--Dak Prescott (28-37 for 217 yards, 1 TD/0 INT) hasn't been the same for fantasy in weeks and I see no change on the horizon. He doesn't have to do much right now. The formula has changed. With the emergence of the Dallas defense, the offense can simply play the ball control game and grind out wins. It's the same thing that's held back Rodgers's stats this year. Dak is still capable of those huge weeks where he scores 3-4-5 times, but it's not the norm anymore. And again, the presence of Smith is a huge bump for him. No Smith, don't expect a big game from Dak.

--I still maintain there's nothing (or not much) wrong with Ezekiel Elliott (16-52-1, 3-20-0/4). Maybe he doesn't quite have the same short area burst as he did before the knee injury, but right now I just don't see anywhere for him to run. He was getting hit in the backfield on nearly every carry.

Part of the reason I projected a strong finish for Zeke was the potential for increased carries with Pollard out, but Tony was back this week and looking as good as ever. Because of this development you do have to tone back expectations for Zeke. He's an RB2 for the moment in this split backfield.

--Tony Pollard (12-74-0, 3-13-0/3) was shockingly back in here and looking just fine after it looked like his foot injury could sideline him the rest of the regular season. I guess you can use him how you were using him before. He'll see good touch counts but is still missing out on the scores most weeks. Think of him like Chase Edmonds from early in the season. Solid floor but not much upside.

--With the offensive line struggling, the passing game has become very muted for Dallas. It's still mostly short targets to Dalton Schultz and CeeDee Lamb in the slot, and then Michael Gallup has become the de facto #2 WR ahead of Amari Cooper.

I still have no idea why Gallup has ascended ahead of Cooper, but that's the reality. The only guys you can count on these final weeks are Schultz and Lamb though. Schultz is a ppr top 5 TE and Lamb is a WR1.5 or so. If he would stop dropping passes he'd be a WR1.

--Similar to the Zeke/Pollard issue, the Giants are dealing with much the same with Barkley and Booker. There's nothing wrong with Barkley. He is moving just fine. He's just got nowhere to run. Booker looks great at times because the defense doesn't care about him. When Barkley is in, he's the obvious focus of the defense. You just can't count on him for fantasy right now. He's a RB3.

Also, in both of these RB cases, the two guys averaging better ypc, Pollard and Booker, are being used more on edge runs and sweeps while Zeke and Barkley are just taking straight ahead carries up the middle into bad offensive lines. It's no wonder the edge guys are more efficient and thus look better. They are running into space instead of into a wall of defenders.

--Jake Fromm came in for Mike Glennon late. Glennon didn't play badly at all really. He just has no time to throw. The turnovers weren't even really his fault, just bad luck.

Fromm didn't look awful exactly, but he's every weak-armed, smart, backup QB ever. He can run the offense and make predetermined throws when on time, but rush him and he's going to throw the ball into traffic.

Facing the Eagles this week is problematic. They have a good defensive line that's going to give this bad Giants line fits, and Darius Slay has been a turnover monster lately. There's a high chance of a pick 6 or two happening if Fromm starts.

IDP Notes

--Trevon Diggs (4 tackles, 2 pd, 1 INT) had another INT gift wrapped for him by Glennon. I swear every one of his INTs this year has been thrown right to him. He's a fine corner but not nearly as good as he's being portrayed because of these fluky TO's. To me GB's Rasul Douglas is the better corner right now. Don't fight it for fantasy though.

Snap Counts of Interest

44 = Zeke

29 = Pollard

37 = Saquon Barkley

28 = Devontae Booker

Ross Jacobs

FFM

23 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: Packers 31, Ravens 30 

This game will only be remembered for the failed 2-pt conversion at the end, but that overshadows a fantastic game all around.

Baltimore came into this game banged up worse than any team in the league, multiple guys out due to injuries and covid, their backup QB getting only his second start, going up against arguably the best team in the NFL and they nearly came away with the victory.

Highly impressed with what I saw from the Ravens here, and I've been unimpressed and rooting against them all year. This was easily the best performance I've seen from them.

The Packers hang on for the win, but it's no slight to them. Baltimore just played a great game. GB is still the best team to my eyes. I wasn't a fan early on, but they just keep getting better and better and still haven't got Alexander and Bakhtiari back yet. If they do, there's no team deeper or more dangerous. Both players are likely still out this week against the Browns, but both guys have been practicing and should be ready for the playoffs.

GB is now 11-3 with the inside track to the #1 seed in the NFC after Tampa crapped the bed against the Saints. The Bucs are a great team and offense no doubt, but they do have a tendency to fold sometimes against better, physical defenses. Not so with GB. They are just so consistent. You can only hold Rodgers down for so long. He has too many weapons to work with.

The GB defense is fantastic as well. Probably not the absolute best group but top 5 for sure. They are deep at every unit and led by the best secondary I've seen this year, a secondary that is still missing their best player. Once Alexander comes back there will be no passing on this group, not to WRs anyways. The way to beat GB is going to be running the ball, throwing to the TE, and playing good defense. No worries starting them against the Browns this week no matter who the QB is, although it does get juicier obviously if Mayfield is out.

Baltimore falls to 8-6 with 3 straight losses. Their season is falling apart. The injuries have caught up to them and their good fortune is finally failing. Just note though that all three of those losses came by a combined 4 points. They are still a very solid and dangerous team. I just don't know that it's going to be enough to hold off the Bengals for the division.

The game against Cincy this week is massive for both teams. The Bengals currently have the tiebreak over Baltimore after crushing them early in the season. A Baltimore win would put them up a half game with a split in the heads up matchup. They still have tough games against the Rams and Steelers after that, but this Cincinnati game is a must-win. Lose and they will be lucky to get a wildcard spot.

Fantasy Notes

--The RB trends for GB reversed themselves this week as Aaron Jones outcarried AJ Dillon 13-7. I don't think it's a pattern that will necessarily stick however. Both guys were in early splitting reps essentially 50-50. It just so happened that Jones was more effective than Dillon against a good Baltimore run defense. His speed was allowing him to cut back against aggressive run crashes.

I think we've entered a true 50-50 split with chances for one guy to get hot and take a few extra carries, but most weeks I think it will default to Dillon as the slight lead. GB wants to wear down defenses with his physical running. Most teams aren't going to be able to bottle him up as effectively as the Ravens did, and he'll for sure be the guy grinding out games during blowouts.

--Marques Valdes-Scantling (5-98-1/7) finally had that pop game RC has been calling for. He was more involved than Allen Lazard after it was the opposite last week.

The trouble is, I don't know if there's a way to predict who is going to do better from week to week. Rodgers is distributing the ball to whoever is open. He has a power back, a speed back, a possession receiver in Adams, a deep ball guy in MVS, and an intermediate big body guy in Lazard. It's just too many unique weapons for a defense to stop, and Rodgers works the matchups like a magician.

It's fantastic for real football and makes them tough to stop, but it's maddening for fantasy. Davante Adams (6-44-1/7) is no longer the only option they have to throw to. Now if you clamp down on him the Packers can hit you elsewhere.

If I had to guess, I'd say I like Lazard better than MVS this week against a good Cleveland secondary, but I'd take MVS in the final two games against the weakened Minnesota and Detroit units. It's just a hunch though.

*RC NOTE: MVS is on the COVID list…if he is out for Week 16, then Lazard will be a WR2 projection this week v. CLE. 

--Bravo Tyler Huntley (28-40 for 215 2 TD/0 INT, 13-73-2)! I've been raving about Huntley since this preseason, and I was so glad to see him perform well here. This is what I had to say about him from the Ravens 3rd preseason game:

“Huntley does a damn good Lamar Jackson impression. He's got the same build, a similar throwing motion, and even moves similarly. It's honestly hard to tell them apart at times. He's not quite as fast or explosive/elusive as Lamar, but he moves around well enough to be a threat and is shockingly throwing a really nice ball. Both times I've seen him now he was aggressively attacking downfield, throwing over the middle and in between coverage, showing a powerful arm and really good accuracy. He does have the occasional misfire and sometimes has issues with touch throws on seam routes but that's about it. He looks really good and is the perfect backup for Lamar because the Ravens don't have to change the offense at all.

If Lamar were to go down Huntley might be a shock QB1. That's how impressed I have been with him.”

The mainstream would call me sacrilegious for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyways...Huntley is a better pure QB than Lamar. When I say QB I mean as a passer, knowing where to go with the ball and when, having the accuracy to fit it into tight windows...that kind of thing. And Huntley is absolutely better at those things than Lamar.

Now I'm not trying to bash Lamar here. He's still a very good player and he does a lot of things well. But he can be contained at times if you can get him trailing or keep him bottled up in the pocket. He's a dynamic playmaker when the whole playbook is open to him, but limit his options a little and he can be stopped.

Huntley is much less prone to that because he is a QB first and a runner second. Now he's not the greatest at either one, but the combination makes him dangerous. Should he be a starting QB in the league? Maybe. I think he could. But a team would have to build the offense similarly to Baltimore's. Huntley would have been a perfect QB for Urban Meyer.

So how will Huntley fair this week against the Bengals? The Bengals have a pretty good defense, but it's not so good that they will crush him. I think he's a QB1. He should have somewhere in the neighborhood of 240 yards passing and maybe 50 rushing to go along with 2 TD's. Think a mix of Jalen Hurts and Justin Fields. If you're in need of a good streamer this week, Huntley is likely the best available assuming Lamar can't go.

--Speaking of Lamar, he hasn't practiced so far this week with his ankle injury. The Ravens are calling it day-to-day. My best guess is he'll play if he possibly can. This game against the Bengals is too big. If I was running Baltimore I'd have enough confidence in Huntley to play him and let Lamar rest, but they probably don't view it that way. We'll have to wait for more reports about Lamar's availability. Whether he practices today or not will say a lot.

--Latavius Murray looks healthy again and is back to a full split with Devonta Freeman, although as good as Murray looked he might take a 60-40 lead soon. This was the best I've seen him all year. He's got no agility left but he's got enough burst north and south to still be an effective grinder inside. If you must start a Baltimore RB out of desperation it's Murray you want now not Freeman.

--What happened to Rashod Bateman (1-5-0/2)? Rasul Douglas happened. He shut down Bateman with ease. That forced Huntley to try and attack Eric Stokes with Marquise Brown (10-43-0/14) and you see how that went. Brown caught a ton of short passes, but it didn't add up to much. This is what I mean about GB's secondary. They are already arguably the best group and Alexander is still out. It's going to be a no-fly zone in the playoffs. Bad news for the Rams and Buccaneers.

IDP Notes

--Geno Stone (7 tackles, 1 tfl) had himself a nice game at safety while Chuck Clark was out with COVID. He's your typical solid Baltimore safety, nothing special that I can see, but well trained and athletic enough to play. Unfortunately now he's been added to the COVID list, so we'll see if either he or Clark can get cleared. He's likely headed back to the bench regardless.

Snap Counts of Interest

49 = Lazard

41 = MVS

39 = Aaron Jones

23 = Dillon

39 = Freeman

29 = Murray

R.C. Fischer

FFM

23 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: Colts 27, Patriots 17

This was a perfect opportunity for the Patriots to put a stamp on their sudden rise to AFC dominance…but instead they laid an egg. Indy took a 14-0 lead right away, aided by a blocked punt TD. The Colts were fired up, well-planned, and subdued the Patriots…for about a half, and then they did what Frank Reich typically does – tries to sit on a lead, stops everything that was working previously, and goes into a shell to try and rope-a-dope to a victory.

The Colts shutout the Patriots for 3+ quarters, and then they let the Pats walk back into the game and suddenly the Colts shutout and three-score lead was gone…now, it was Colts only up three points, 20-17, with 2+ minutes left. Jonathan Taylor broke through an over-stacked-to-stop-the-run defense and flew to a 67-yard TD run and put the game away. The Colts were the better team most all game, but they froze up and almost let it get away.

But the Colts did win, which then kicked over some interesting dominoes in the AFC…the Pats were suddenly out of the #1 seed 24 hours later and the Bills were right up their backs for the AFC East again. Indy was on shaky playoff ground going in, but now rises to (8-6)…really looking solid for the wild card and with a shot to win the AFC South. We project a (10-7) finish and a probable wild card.

New England falls to (9-5) and has a huge game Week 16 vs. BUF, where they will lose (we project) and thus throw the AFC East into the air and potentially a Patriots (10-7) finish and a worse wild card seed than Indy, because of this game. NE/BUF (one a division winner, the other the wild card), Indy, LAC are the very probable AFC wild cards.

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- My main scouting attention from this game fell on Mac Jones (26-45 for 299 yards, 2 TDs/2 INTs). My Spidey senses kept saying all game – not that good (from an – is he a high-end QB prospect). Very unimpressive game…when it mattered. He made some throws against the prevent late but prior to that he was all over the place. I keep getting a Taylor Heinicke vibe off of him. Perfectly cromulent NFL QB, but not a ‘put the game on my back’ kinda QB…just a game manager. Which is fine but is this the next Tom Brady? I’m not so sure.

Yes, there is more time for him to develop and he’s just a rookie. He will grow…in theory. But the tools to be great just aren’t obvious/there. You could see ‘it’ in an instant with Joe Burrow or Justin Herbert. Josh Allen had all the tools, but we just never thought he’d put them together…he did. Kyler looked great in an instant, but you wondered if he was too short. With Mac…I see he’s savvy enough, but is going to be good or great or elite? I just don’t see it. He’s OK/fine. I wouldn’t rule out ‘peaked as a rookie’.

I know Belichick is a genius and they are going to hide (rightfully so) behind their run game…but when push comes to shove, in a big game…Mac Jones isn’t ready yet. He’s not going to make terrible decisions, like Zach Wilson is right now…but he’s not going to be a force either, like Wilson has shown flashes of. The Pats big win of 2021 was beating Buffalo in a weather mess game where Jones threw 3 passes. I don’t want to give Jones too much credit for being ‘solid’ where most rookies struggle…or used to. These days they enter the NFL and can be solid/good right away…no more 3-year-plans.  Credit to Mac, he’s done well…but the talent level ceiling is questionable. For FF, I’m not interested long term.

 -- Rhamondre Stevenson (10-36-0) got his crack at the full workload with Damien Harris out, and it was an FF-flop. He looked OK, just Indy was playing at a high level.

When Harris returns, it’s Harris’s backfield 60/40 with Stevenson…rendering both RB2-3 projections.

 -- Hunter Henry (6-77-2/8) had a game. He is definitely becoming Mac Jones’s go-to. Henry doesn’t look fast or special, but he does have the connection with Mac…so, no reason to fight it. Teams are going to start overplaying him near the end zone…if they’re smart…which means, probably not. Kyle Pitts gets double teamed…not Hunter Henry 2021.

 -- Jonathan Taylor (29-170-1) was about to have a 28 carry, 103 yards rushing mild FF-dud before he sprung loose at the end of the game for that 67-yard TD. The Patriots did bottle him up/contain him, in a sense, all game…until the end.

I only mention this for the road ahead – it’s not easy to run on New England, when they want to shut you down. Which may lead to a James Robinson dud Week 17. Week 16…the Bills aren’t a running team so NE won’t play them tight like they would Indy.

 -- Teams have a hard time passing on NE (the #3 pass defense by yards per game), and an especially difficult time for opposing #1 WRs because J.C. Jackson (3 tackles, 3 PDs) has become a top NFL shutdown corner. FYI, he was an undrafted free agent because the NFL is super smart at scouting…I digress…

Week 16 in the cold, possible snow versus J.C. Jackson is not a good place for Stefon Diggs in the key week of the FF playoffs.

Michael Pittman (1-7-0/5) was totally locked down here and got frustrated and then got kicked out of the game for a dust up with Kyle Dugger (5 tackles). Pittman’s season has been diminishing after a great 1st-half…now teams are doubling and tripling him because no one is afraid of Hilton-Pascal-Doyle.

 -- The Colts-DST is running 3rd-best in FF scoring this season…despite not being a classic top/shutdown defense. They’ve been great with the turnovers and D TDs.

Can you trust them in Week 16 at Arizona?

It’s not a play I would count on…in a dome, vs. Arizona coming off a humiliating loss, a top QB to face…it’s not optimal, but you can never count Indy-DST out.

Snap Counts of Interest:

51 = JTaylor

10 = Hines

55 = H Henry

17 = Jonnu

38 = Bolden

31 = Stevenson

**College Football Metrics 2022…new season signups coming in January 2022**

The new season of CFM will be starting up in January, as always. A little different schedule this year as the NFL extended their season by a week and the Senior Bowl was bumped back a week as well. We should have a Senior Bowl, NFL Combine…it looks like it will be a normal scouting year!

The NFL Draft, Dynasty Rookie Draft, and regular season ahead rookie analysis all gets started through CFM in January with our usual season starter -- the past two years/2020-2021 Mock Rookie Draft re-do, along with in-depth Senior Bowl analysis, and full QB scouting reports and much more as we build towards the NFL Combine and all the other positional scouting reports. Football study never ends…

Thank you for your support of CFM for the past decade now…wow, time flies.

R.C. Fischer

FFM

22 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: Lions 30, Cardinals 12

This was a Detroit-dealt ass-kicking from the opening bell. Even if Arizona had caught some breaks early, it wouldn’t have mattered. In every aspect of this game, on both sides of the ball, Detroit was the better team.

Consider that last statement in the light of many thinking Arizona was the best team in football a week or two or three ago. Sometimes good teams get beat by inferior ones because of early turnovers or ill-timed BS penalties extending drives – not here. Detroit out-played, out-schemed, out-toughed a previously tough, and machine-like Arizona team. It was a sight to behold.

Could it have been ‘one of those weeks?’ sure…but I think it’s more Arizona is fading to the finish (like Buffalo), they may have peaked too soon and lost too many key players along the way (Watt, Hopkins, etc.). But it’s also that Detroit is way better than given credit. Detroit is (2-11-1) now. Think of how many near-miss wins they’ve coughed up last second this season. If I gave Detroit +3 points in every game they played this season, instead of (2-11-1) they would be (6-7-1) and more respected. I’m not saying it’s a great Detroit team but it’s not the joke we all tend to think. When you see ‘Detroit’ you should think of them as in the mediocre range with teams like Pittsburgh, Tennessee (sans Henry), the 49ers, Miami, Cleveland, Philly, Minnesota, etc. – and not with the Jets, Jags, Texans, Falcons crowd.

If I’m right, the Lions are the best bet of Week 16 with points at ATL (if Goff is back).

Arizona is now (10-4) and will be lucky to hold on to win the NFC West. Everything you want to know about the Cardinals will be told to us by their next two games. Facing Indy and Dallas, two of the better teams in the NFL…two of the top 10 teams in the NFL. They could lose both and have a total collapse into the wild card race. They could rally and physically go out and dominate both and reestablish themselves as that top NFL team from a few weeks ago.

My guess/projection – they don’t have the toughness to go beat Indy and Dallas. They might split, but I don’t trust Kingsbury and Kyler in clutch spots yet. It’s too close to call between LAR and Arizona to win the NFC West right now. Let me see how Arizona responds vs. Indy this week…I think they will rally to win that one, and then we’ll see. If they get throttled by Indy this week…Arizona is all but cooked for 2021…they’ll make the playoffs but lose to a mentally tougher team.

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- The MVP of this game, without a doubt, was RB Craig Reynolds (26-112-0, 1-5-0/1). He’s the best RB on either team…so, of course, it makes a ton of sense he’s been on the practice squad most of the season.

Reynolds ran through and around the Cardinals defense like a seasoned pro…like a smart/savvy/talented enough RB, like an Elijah Mitchell. All he needed was a chance. I think with his last performances, Reynolds has moved from ‘cute/capable fill-in’ to – the best all-around back the Lions have, right up there with D’Andre Swift. If Swift is out again, and he probably is, then with Jamaal Williams (DNP) returning…Reynolds will be the top back for Week 16 for Detroit. I initially thought Detroit/Anthony Lynn might push Jamaal, the veteran, right back into the starting role and undercut Reynolds…but I think Dan Campbell has taken over the offense from Lynn (happened a few weeks ago, publicly announced) and he won’t allow that to happen.

If I see Jamaal active this week, no Swift, and Reynolds starting this game full – then I will consider Dan Campbell as a Coach of the Year candidate and the future of the Lions is bright because Campbell is going his own way and not letting NFL players be royalty for the sake of it when there are other guys underneath who are clearly better players. I think Campbell will reward Reynolds Week 16, but not a sure thing…’the way things run around here’ is a gravitational pull for all NFL head coaches. Campbell has hope to be different.

 -- The other MVP of this game…Jared Goff (221-26 for 216 yards, 3 TDs/0 INT). Facing one of the better defenses in the NFL…what was arguably the best defense the 1st-half of the season, Goff tore right through them.

Goff has 9 TDs/2 INTs in his past 4 games. On a turned upside-down Lions team all season, Goff has completed 67.0% of his passes and has thrown for 17 TDs/8 INTs this season…working with pure garbage at WR the 1st-half of the season.

Now, Weeks 13-15, Goff has a more decent WR group, and it shows…

I’m not an Amon-Ra St. Brown (8-90-1/11) fan, as a scout, but he’s a capable slot/good hands WR that’s piling on the targets and numbers.

St. Brown has more space to work since Josh Reynolds (6-68-1/6) has come in and given the Lions a legit downfield WR threat defenses have to account for. Reynolds has 68 or more yards in a game in three of his first 4 games as a Lion. If you take Reynolds 4 games in Detroit time 4 for a projected (old) 16-game season. His pace would be: 64 catches, 1,036 yards, 8 TDs.

 -- I’m not worried about Kyler Murray (23-41 for 257 yards, 1 TD/1 INT, 4-3-0) beyond always worrying about any FF player who hasn’t been great two weeks in a row. I don’t see anything glaringly wrong on tape, but 3 TDs/5 INTs in his last 4 games is worthy of some worry.

He should be fine for Week 16…but if Indy controls the ground and reduces Kyler’s possessions, it could be another ‘meh’ Kyler at the very wrong time.

 -- No DeAndre Hopkins this week, the first time Arizona has played with Hopkins out the rest of the season for sure. So, where did Kyler go to as his best options?

Looks like Christian Kirk (9-94-1/12) is the winner in the Hopkins-gone sweepstakes. Kyler has spent three years with Kirk, and Kirk is really good, so it only makes sense.

A.J. Green (4-64-0/8) still have a weird connection…every other pass they are not on the same page. AJG is more a nice #2, not the alpha #1 here.

Zach Ertz (6-74-0/11) is likely to take more target share too as a reliable over the middle pass Kyler loves to utilize. Maxx Williams was emerging in that before he got hurt, and now Ertz can take it to another level.

Antoine Wesley (3-19-0/8) got good targets here, but he’s a #3 WR…#4 most favored option in the WR-TE mix.

Rondale Moore (3-9-0/3) is fading into the background…another promising, small-speedy WR weapon gone to waste under Kingsbury. Rondale is being ‘Isabella’d’.

 -- James Conner (8-39-0, 2-31-0/2) didn’t look hurt. He just looked ineffective running the ball in key spots, as is his norm…and then the game script got away, and the run game was ditched. It’s a risk every week, but the Cardinals are so into Conner you just FF-play him every week without question.

 -- Well, we waited weeks to use Arizona-DST vs. Detroit, and we got smacked in the face for it. It seems to be the way of the DST world…everything is going along as planned, and then a big underdog rises up and plants 30+ on the previously dominant favorite.

I don’t know how we can trust Arizona-DST vs. Indy in a dome, and vs. Dallas in a dome. Two of the best O-Lines with good QBs. It’s still a good defense but given their recent run and the two opponents ahead…there’s better out there to work with.

 -- Detroit-DST vs. ATL this week is probably as hopeful as ARI-DST v. Indy.

When the Lions have faced weak QBs, they’ve been good…

Week 4 at CHI = allowed 24pts

Week 10 at PIT = allowed 16pts

Week 11 at CLE = allowed 13pts

Week 12 v. CHI = allowed 16pts

Week 14 at DEN = allowed 30pts…not good, but then followed that holding ARI to 12pts.

They’re susceptible to good running teams…that’s not Atlanta Week 16 or Seattle Week 17.

Snap Counts of Interest:

72 = Kirk

64 = Wesley

56 = AJG

20 = Rondale

12 = Isabella

33 = Conner

29 = Edmonds

49 = Brock Wright

29 = Zylstra

42 = Reynolds

12 = Igwebuike

06 = J Jefferson

**College Football Metrics 2022…new season signups coming in January 2022**

The new season of CFM will be starting up in January, as always. A little different schedule this year as the NFL extended their season by a week and the Senior Bowl was bumped back a week as well. We should have a Senior Bowl, NFL Combine…it looks like it will be a normal scouting year!

The NFL Draft, Dynasty Rookie Draft, and regular season ahead rookie analysis all gets started through CFM in January with our usual season starter -- the past two years/2020-2021 Mock Rookie Draft re-do, along with in-depth Senior Bowl analysis, and full QB scouting reports and much more as we build towards the NFL Combine and all the other positional scouting reports. Football study never ends…

Thank you for your support of CFM for the past decade now…wow, time flies. 

R.C. Fischer

FFM

22 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: Saints 9, Bucs 0

Wow, NFL head coaches are super important…whatever will the Saints do without the great Sean Payton! Just go and shutout Tom Brady while the Saints were missing their two top offensive linemen…no biggie.

Some teams just have another team’s ‘number’ and the Saints are now (4-0) in the regular season vs. Tom Brady/TB.

Missing head coach for New Orleans, missing key O-Linemen for the Saints too, then a rash of missing weapons for Tampa Bay. It was ‘one of those games’ you cannot foresee as a possible outcome if you computer simulated it a thousand times. The Bucs got all banged up and struggled to match the intensity of the Saints…and this was really never in doubt as New Orleans is one of the toughest/grittiest teams in the NFL.

The Saints save their season with a win that everyone projected as a loss. They climb to (7-7) and tied for the #7 seed wild card spot. The schedule is favorable ahead – MIA, CAR, at ATL. They could run that table, or at least get two of 3 games. The Saints are likely to get to 9 wins but would need help from there since they have no wins over any NFC wild card team, just a loss to Philly if it comes down to anything between those two. If the Saints can get to 10 wins, they’ll likely slide in…9 wins probably has them as the first team ‘out’ of the wild card spots.

As big a win as it was for New Orleans, it was a devastating loss for the Bucs. TB (10-4) should run the table from here (CAR-NYJ-CAR) and get to (13-4) but this loss has opened the door for Green Bay (11-3) to get to 13-14 wins and get the #1 seed. GB holds the tiebreakers of common opponents over TB. If Green Bay is the #1 seed, then very likely Tampa Bay will have to go to Lambeau Field in January to get back to the Super Bowl…not ideal.

My pick for the NFC rep for the Super Bowl: whichever teams gets the #1 seed between TB and GB, and that’s likely GB now.

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- Obviously, the big FF news from this game was the injury wave that hit the Bucs offensive weapons. The biggest/worst one being the one to Chris Godwin (6-49-0/7).

The Bucs (assumingly) shift Tyler Johnson (4-41-0/7) into the Godwin role…which doesn’t mean he’ll equal Godwin’s expected outputs week-to-week, but it does mean that in any given game…he might, which makes him valuable for Week 16-17.

Antonio Brown returns, just in time, to his old role as the outside flanker. I don’t expect a lot of ‘rust’ or slow bring back on AB – I assume he hits the ground running, as he did his very first week with the team. But now he’s been there two seasons, so he’s instantly back to a PPR WR1 threat immediately. If I have to make a call…I bet more on AB heavily involved right away more than brought back slowly. He’s not coming off injury, he’s off suspension…so he should be fresh and ready.

Mike Evans (1-14-0/1) may miss a game too (Wk16), and if he does…I would project Scotty Miller (2-18-0/3) to play a different variation of his role, possibly Breshad Perriman (DNP)…and that not helping Antonio Brown’s upside if Evans is gone for Week 16. You hope with AB that Evans is out there taking heat to free up AB even more. I’d worry, as an Evans owner, that Evans plays this week…but as an 80-90% of normal health decoy more than ‘heavily involved’.

Jaelen Darden (0-0-0/3) is not ready to be in the mix heavily quite yet.

With all these changes, I’m not worried about Tom Brady (26-48 for 214 yards, 0 TD/1 INT). I only worry (slightly) about him against tough/aggressive defenses, cold weather, and if both Godwin and Evans are out. Without Evans Week 16, if it happens, it’s a mild worry but not too scary vs. Carolina. If Evans is back, even as a decoy, it’s all good.

 -- Leonard Fournette (9-34-0, 7-33-0/7) was the other big news injury…now on IR for the rest of the regular season.

Ronald Jones (8-63-0, 2-8-0/2) assumes the Fournette role, but because he has bad hands (as a receiver), he won’t produce the same PPR ability, but he should be fine+ on the ground and for TDs. He’ll be an RB1 threat in non-PPR every week, especially Week 17 v. NYJ.

Gio Bernard is already on IR, so the team was forced to sign LeSean McCoy for depth…not to take over a role from RoJo.

Ke’Shawn Vaughn (3-19-0, 0-0-0/2) will get a little more opportunity, but he has not shown to be trustworthy at all…thus, the Bell signing. If Vaughn shows a spark, he can slice into RoJo’s workload…but I’d bet against it at this stage.

 -- I figured the Bucs would clamp down on Taysom Hill’s (13-27 for 154 yards, 0 TD/0 INT, 11-33-0) running…and they did. They also halted Alvin Kamara (11-18-0, 2-13-0/6) as well. One part = Bucs defense causing this, the other the Saints missing two top OLs.

Both Taysom and AK should be much better Weeks 16-17 vs. MIA and CAR, both home games and might have their OLs back.

 -- Great game for Marquez Callaway (6-112-0/9)…a season-high for catches, targets, yards. Is this a turning point? I don’t think so. I mean, maybe…but by plan the current Saints want to run the ball down your throat and toss passes to the RBs. The WRs are window dressing/props to use every so often. In this game, the Saints couldn’t run the ball because of the opponent…so they did need to throw some and the Callaway connection was working.

Prior to this game, Callaway had the following catch counts in his last 5 games: 2-1-2-1-2. His norm is 1-2 catches for 20-40 yards with a shot at a TD. He’s a WR3.5 with some upside…but if he draws Xavien Howard on MNF Week 16, it won’t help.

 -- The Saints-DST gets the shutout, which is a credit to the mass injuries for TB…but also a masterful coaching job by Dennis Allen. It seems silly to think one game gets some assistant vaulted into the coaching hire rumor mill, to the tops of the lists…but that’s exactly what happened here. Dennis Allen just earned himself another head coaching opportunity, I bet, with this shutout. I know Brady would love for him to leave the division. He’s as good an assistant NFL head coach candidate as there is out there.

The Saints D was getting smoked a few weeks ago during the Trevor Siemian era…but under Taysom Hill the team is now (2-1), and the DST has allowed 12.0 PPG in those three games. They haven’t allowed a TD in two consecutive games.

They might push for an extension of that win and DST streak vs. Tua this week. The Saints are the kind of defense that could give Tua fits…a similar type aggressive defense as Buffalo usually clocks Tua with.

It helps that Marcus Davenport (3 tackles, 1 sack, 2 TFLs) is back. Davenport has 6.5 sacks, 9.0 TFLs, and 11 QB hits in 8 games played this year.  

Snap Counts of Interest:

70 = Tyler Johnson

58 = Scotty Miller

41 = Darden

22 = RoJo

19 = Vaughn

35 = Vannett

35 = Trautman

22 = J Johnson

**College Football Metrics 2022…new season signups coming in January 2022**

The new season of CFM will be starting up in January, as always. A little different schedule this year as the NFL extended their season by a week and the Senior Bowl was bumped back a week as well. We should have a Senior Bowl, NFL Combine…it looks like it will be a normal scouting year!

The NFL Draft, Dynasty Rookie Draft, and regular season ahead rookie analysis all gets started through CFM in January with our usual season starter -- the past two years/2020-2021 Mock Rookie Draft re-do, along with in-depth Senior Bowl analysis, and full QB scouting reports and much more as we build towards the NFL Combine and all the other positional scouting reports. Football study never ends…

Thank you for your support of CFM for the past decade now…wow, time flies.

R.C. Fischer

FFM

21 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: 49ers 31, Falcons 13

The 49ers fumbled the opening kickoff and set up Atlanta in perfect position for an easy score to take the momentum right away…and the Falcons failed to score -- Cordarrelle fell just short. Pitts fell just short. 4th & goal, Ryan threw to a blanketed Pitts incomplete…turnover on downs. It was a microcosm of this game – the Falcons were not going to beat SF no matter how much charity they got. Not because the 49ers are great, but that the Falcons are one of the worst teams in the NFL…poorly coached, dying QB…they are the Pittsburgh Steelers of the South – I have not seen them play one good game this season, and I marvel at the fact that they have won a game at all this year…much less six of them. They’re actually still in the wild card race! You gotta love the NFL.

The Falcons have a winnable game Week 16 vs. DET, but the Lions are so much better than the Falcons right now. I’ll take the Falcons all day long in that one (assuming Goff plays). Likely, the Falcons lose out and finish (6-11).

The 49ers are now (8-6) and rolling. They’re a solid, somewhat overrated ‘good team’. Critical game at Tennessee on SNF…if they win that game, they should definitely go on to be an NFC wild card, considering they play Houston Week 17. SF will finish with 9-10 wins and be good for a wild card, especially having wins over PHI, MIN, LAR already booked for tiebreaker purposes.

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- Jeff Wilson (21-110-1, 2-2-0/2) finally cashed in on being the starting RB for SF in 2021. It made no sense to me why he was struggling to put up any numbers in his other Mitchell-is-out starts. He’s looked fine on tape. The SF O-Line wants to spit out 100+ yard rushers every week…but Wilson was failing in his last two starts. Well, he hit here…nothing special, just the guy getting 20+ carries against a weak defense.

Wilson is a threat for 100+ rushing yards in Week 16 if Elijah Mitchell is out again (and he probably will be, but it’s up in the air), but it won’t be so easy against a vastly improved Titans run defense.

If Mitchell is OK/practices in full…then he will see the 15-20+ touches and have a shot at 100+ yards rushing, and Wilson will be a 3-5 touch side note. This is Mitchell’s backfield when he is ready.

 -- Really, it’s Deebo Samuel’s (6-29-1, 4-60-0/5) backfield…just Mitchell or Wilson run the ball between the 20s and then Deebo comes in and paralyzes the defense for a rushing TD on his 6-8 carries. It’s the craziest thing…Deebo rushes for an untouched 5-15 yards TD every week and did it again here. But the bonus was, Deebo came off his one catch a game (the prior three games) ways and caught 4 passes.

Deebo is too good to bench, to worry that THIS is the week he DOESN’T rush for a TD and leaves you with a ‘meh’ FF effort otherwise. I’m not questioning it; I’ll just keep riding it.

 -- Brandon Aiyuk (1-36-0/2) is the scarier FF entity. There is a concerted effort to get Deebo the ball, through ground and air, and he even threw a pass (to the end zone) in this game (0-for-1). Meanwhile, the great Brandon Aiyuk had two targets and one catch. Aiyuk is a random event WR2-3…and if matchup mattered, he would have had a nice game here. He didn’t. He’s just a random event WR3…more WR2 weeks than WR4 weeks lately, but the WR4 returned this game.

Jauan Jennings (3-28-1/6) was more important to Jimmy G. than Aiyuk here…but JJ is just a week-to-week random event as well. This is Deebo's (and George Kittle’s) world for FF and Aiyuk-Jennings are just on the periphery.

 -- Cordarrelle Patterson (11-1-0, 2-5-0/2) has started to flop to the finish as the ‘lead back’ for the Falcons. He’s gone from uniquely used half-RB/half-WR to mostly all RB…all-dull RB.

Patterson has taken 10 or more carries in a game six times this season, his rushing tallies in those games: 54-60-108-78-58-18.

He’s gone from catching 5+ passes a game to 1-3 catches in a game the past five games.

He’s still too good to bench, in most instances…and facing DET Week 16 should be an opportunity. At Buffalo Week 17 might be an issue.

 -- Kyle Pitts (4-77-0/7) has one TD this season, which is absolutely unconscionable and should be the cause for firings among the coaching staff…but it won’t be.

Every catch Pitts makes is a miracle of ‘up for grabs’ tightly covered. I remember like only one time he was fully open this year (many weeks ago)…and Ryan hit him on the double move bomb, and Pitts dropped it in stride…probably from cardiac shock that he was open and also that Ryan actually found him in stride.

For the first time I can recall, Atlanta actually did that play that you see run a thousand times a week where the TE (after the snap) just drags (behind the line) from one side of the line to the other, running parallel to the line of scrimmage, losing coverage in the wash of the action, and the TE is wide-open for basically a screen type pass – Pitts ran this route from 5-yards away from the end zone, caught the simple pass, headed to the goal line, and was tackled 6 inches short. They never ran this play (that would work 99% of the time it’s tried) again. It’s the story of Pitts’s 2021 – no imagination, no even simple logic…just 1970s sit-down routes and deep decoy work.

It doesn’t help that Pitts is double covered almost every play, which is why he should be in the MVP discussion. Cooper Kupp doesn’t get doubled, but Pitts does.  

 -- All the attention on Cordarrelle and Pitts by the defenses has opened up Russell Gage (8-91-1/11) for WR1-2 work of late.

In his last five games, Gage has averaged 6.8 rec. (8.8 targets), 79.2 yards, 0.40 TDs per game. He’s getting WR1 PPR results/outputs and has a decent matchup with DET Week 16 for the party to continue.

Snap Counts of Interest:

56 = Aiyuk

46 = Deebo

25 = J Jennings

05 = Sherfield

50 = J Wilson

03 = Hasty

37 = CPatt

27 = Mk Davis

03 = Ollison

**College Football Metrics 2022…new season signups coming in January 2022**

The new season of CFM will be starting up in January, as always. A little different schedule this year as the NFL extended their season by a week and the Senior Bowl was bumped back a week as well. We should have a Senior Bowl, NFL Combine…it looks like it will be a normal scouting year!

The NFL Draft, Dynasty Rookie Draft, and regular season ahead rookie analysis all gets started through CFM in January with our usual season starter -- the past two years/2020-2021 Mock Rookie Draft re-do, along with in-depth Senior Bowl analysis, and full QB scouting reports and much more as we build towards the NFL Combine and all the other positional scouting reports. Football study never ends…

Thank you for your support of CFM for the past decade now…wow, time flies.

R.C. Fischer

FFM

21 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: Chiefs 34, Chargers 28

When I think of this game, what I’ll remember the most is…heading into the 4th-quarter it was 14-13 LAC leading, an offensive slog with Mahomes without a TD and the Chargers having failed about 100 times in goal-to-go situations – it all seemed FF-lost for the heavily-invested-in-KC/LAC-things FFM cult. What was I going to need to write going into the weekend to keep all our FF-spirits up?

There’s nothing worse, in my world, then a KC dud on TNF for everyone to bemoan for 72 hours until the next kickoff…using the hours to re-do their entire Fantasy Football plan from the August 2021 draft to their future business plan created for 2022, a plan to never include any Chiefs ever again because they all have been figured out or misused or whatever is thought in frustration watching the KC dullness happen with you own two eyes on a spotlight night game.

That’s Fantasy Football…we love all ‘the possibilities’ in our planning and the perfect storm re-do redrafts we imagine in our minds, but then watching the live action of our plans play out like we’re being taken to go in front of a firing squad. I wish we could more enjoy the beauty of the everchanging game we get to participate in…for ‘fun’. Maybe the fun is the torture of it all? It kinda seems to be that way, actually :)

We didn’t have to wait long for the beauty to arrive to save us from our torture rack, for those with the KC guys, as the final 10 minutes of regulation got us an offensive/FF explosion and the extra blessing of overtime/more football to add more to the tallies. Three quarters of a defensive struggle with 27 total points scored between the two teams and fullback Michael Burton as KC’s FF star of the night…to suddenly a twist to 35 points scored in about a quarter+ of play to the finish with the KC guys having some of their best game outputs of the season.

You have to love Fantasy Football when it goes like this on a Thursday night…love it at least for 72 hours, then you can go back to complaining about all the letdowns from the Sunday guys not being as good as your KC guys. It’s the nature of this FF-game…

What looked like LAC getting ready to take over the AFC West for now, and forever…slipped right through their hands and sent them reeling to the wild card chase. I absolutely 100% agree with every Brandon Staley call to go for TDs and not field goals throughout that game, when faced with the decision. You play for TDs when you face a team like KC for the very reason of what happened…KC can look stupid for three quarters and then blow your doors off in a 10-minute span.

To the media, or fans, who love to shout ‘analytics’ every time a team goes for a TD/1st-down on 4th-down instead of a field goal…please stop. You have no idea what you are talking about. You shouldn’t need a Harvard grad student with a MacBook Air to tell you that you need to score TDs not FGs against Patrick Mahomes (or any other elite offenses). It should be a given, but the media (and fans) are so conditioned to playing the game in an antiquated way we were raised…that they cannot handle such simple logic/strategy. And the fans are worse, because they live to watch their favorite team lose games and complain about how they would have done everything different in all the 50-50 choices…just like us FF owners do week-to-week.

You either play to win or you play not to lose…in the NFL…in Fantasy…in life. I like playing to win, knowing I might lose. I’m not putting my lifesavings on one hand of blackjack…I’m not saying we all be stupid risk takers – but I’m more thinking in the sense that (back in my heyday) I wanted the basketball in my hands down one with 5 seconds left in the game. Missing the game winning shot and then rehashing my entire reason for ever playing the game for the next 24 hours/week/month/year is not productive and doesn’t solve anything. I should be counting down the days until I get my next chance to do so again. We have to make those 50-50 calls for sit-starts every week with our Fantasy teams...we take our best shot and if we miss, we comeback next week on the attack again. Brandon Staley went for the kill, and he missed…the offense didn’t convert many golden opportunities. They will learn from this…they will build up scar tissue from this for the next time.

I assume there will be a next time. Staley’s young coaching career is at a crossroads from all the second-guessing this week he’s faced – will he chicken out the next time he’s in the same position, or will he establish that he will go for wins despite the media and fans crying? FYI, nothing you can do as an NFL head coach will stop the media and fans from complaining. As soon as you win a Super Bowl, the media and fans are already creating a top five list the next day on reasons why you won’t repeat.

The Chargers fall to (8-6) and are in a good spot still for the wild card. 10 wins should be an easy ticket to the playoffs, and LAC should get there…as LAC faces Houston this week (although after watching Week 15 kings Arizona and Tampa Bay go down to inferior teams…who knows?) and likely gets to wins…and then they need to win one of their last two hosting DEN or at LV. They can sweep the rest of the season, they’ll be favored to, but at a minimum they should get to 10 wins and the wild card.

The Chiefs won at just the right time, they are now (10-4)…the only 10 win team in the AFC, with their nearest competitors all losing this week (NE and TEN). KC is set to win at least 12 games and take the #1 seed.  

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- First off, I have to say ‘thank you’ to Patrick Mahomes (31-47 for 410 yards, 3 TDs/1 INT, 3-32-0) and Tyreek Hill (12-148-1/13) for helping get FFMers, many of whom have one or both, off to a great start for the FF week.

2021 has been the most erratic run with this duo in the years of having them together. Mahomes had fallen out of the top 5 PPG Fantasy scoring QBs this season with a real rough stretch for the last several weeks, and Tyreek was mostly with him in those FF-doldrums. But one of the reasons we push for those two guys for FF every year we can – they have more of ‘these’ types of games than any FF QB-WR duo over the past few years…weeks where they almost single handedly get an entire FF team over.

For three quarters, it didn’t look that way. For most of the last 5-6 games worth of ‘quarters’ it hasn’t looked very good. Something is still wrong here with the KC offense…I know it is because I’ve been so heavily vested in/observing it the past few years. But, with these guys you just shove the chips in and hope they kick into gear at this stage of the FF season. They did in the 4th-quarter here. Still not totally in the clear ahead, but there’s always hope that there is…and that’s all you can ask.

My apologies to…

a) The FF teams where I thought Kyler v. DET was more logical than Mahomes here. Some Dynasty teams have this duo/option and given the choice everything seemed obvious for Kyler…until Week 15 showed nothing in football is obvious.

if you thought Kyler was bad...check out Tom Brady's week.

b) Travis Kelce (10-191-2/13), of whom I told Ross Jacobs in-game that Kelce keeps looking old to me and he was really dying in this game, so I made fun of him (and Ross has him on a key FF team of his) but then the 4th-quarter magic hit, and Kelce took a swig from the fountain of youth and suddenly is out-running every player on the field. Glad I could reverse jinx him into 41+ PPR points.

…still, Kelce does look like age is catching up to him. Everything about Mahomes-Tyreek looks normal (physically) this year, just not connecting as well. But Kelce looks like he is slowing down…and that might be a part of Mahomes issue the past two months. But that old magic was there late this game…maybe it carries over the next few weeks.

 -- Justin Herbert (22-38 for 236 yards, 2 TDs/1 INT, 5-16-1) looked better than Mahomes most of this game, and he looks like the QB of the future between the two. If Jared Cook could catch, this game might have been a whole lot different on the perception we walk away with.

I think Herbert’s main issue is his offensive coordinator – he’s the one who has pushed Jared Cook (3-32-0/7) when Donald Parham (0-0-0/1) is a much better, more dangerous mismatch weapon in the passing game. The O-C’s the one who keeps calling for useless end zone fades and stupid goal line quick passes in traffic to Mike Williams that come in so hot he never catches them, then gets blown up by the defender going into the soup when he does, and the ball pops off his hands and into the air risking turnover…I’ve seen them run that play near the goal line probably 7-8 times this year, and I cannot recall one time it hitting for a TD…but they keep running it.

My vast football opinion: If they simply put Joshua Palmer (1-15-0/1) in the starting rotation with Keenan-Big Mike and then more Parham than Cook…this offense would be loaded with unique weapons. The Chargers are being suppressed from within…by the O-C. You wonder why LAC could fail so many times near the goal line…it’s not because Herbert isn’t an elite weapon. If anything cost LAC this game, this season…it’s the O-C Joe Lombardi. It’s so cool that he’s related to Vince Lombardi…who is probably rolling over in his grave at the dreadfulness of this offensive plan/attack.

You have to do some pretty good coaching to make a Justin Herbert-led offense stumble around so much and not get better as they go. *See, also: Eric Bieniemy, Kansas City (2020-2021).

 -- Speaking of Big Mike Williams (3-49-0/9)… In most cases, you just have to stick with him. He’s too good to bench. Flyers on like a Courtland Sutton type Flex shot are true long shot bets that the previously great WR can have a moment again…but it’s been so bad, and his QB so down that it’s a real uphill battle. Big Mike with Herbert playing indoors a lot in December…it could hit big at any moment, and they’ve had some huge ‘highs’ this season together…which makes the mediocre games feel more frustrating. We know what they’re capable of.

Jaylen Guyton (2-10-1/2) has a string of three weeks in-a-row with a TD but look at the targets during that stretch: 4-3-2. One of the games with Keenan Allen out with COVID, and he mustered 3 targets. It’s FF-something that he exists with Herbert, but Joshua Palmer is coming on fast to share in those limited targets. Guyton is a risky play, but hopeful a TD falls his way…especially hopeful at HOU this week.  

 -- Justin Jackson (13-86-0, 1-13-0/1) was the best RB on the field in this game. In many key spots in this game, Jackson was in and not Austin Ekeler (12-59-1, 4-23-0/4)…which Ekeler was hurt going in, but he was playing and working fine, but I think JJax got so hot that they stuck with him in spots.

Ekeler starts Week 16 with COVID, but with the new rules he’ll likely be clear by Sunday. If he is not, Jackson will be an RB1 this week.

Outside of the COVID situation, Jackson has at least established that he is the proper handcuff for those with Ekeler…but you might not get to him now with Ekeler having COVID – everyone will be coming after JJax, where he is still available.

 -- Jackson sure looked better than Clyde Edwards-Helaire (9-32-0, 2-18-0/4)…talk about a perpetual dud.

Here’s how bad this was: The Chargers are notorious for their issues stopping the run, and while the KC passing game floundered for three quarters, the Chiefs could not get CEH going…nor did they seem that interested in doing so, one or the other. All kinds of RBs have mowed over the LAC run defense…but not CEH in the most critical of moments for him to do so.

CEH has played 9 games this season…

-In seven of the 9 games he has rushed for 63 or fewer yards.

-In five of the 9 games he has rushed for less than 50 yards.

-The supposed master pass catcher out of the backfield has caught no more than 3 passes in a game all season and never eclipsed 30 yards receiving this season in any game. Darrel Williams has 30 or more yards receiving in a game five times this season.

I will maintain my stance that the Chiefs are better off with Darrel Williams (5-12-0, 0-0-0/1)…and he’s not all that great either. In games where Williams has taken 10 or more carries in a game, the Chiefs are (5-0)…and (5-4) in all the other games – which is just a quirky stat, I don’t believe Williams is the end-all-be-all.

 -- Credit the Chargers-DST for flustering KC’s offense for about the first 53 minutes of this game. This LAC defense has some potential. They squashed NYG the prior week, but then gave up garbage late/the last 4 minutes of the blowout. This defense is trying to peek through…

Week 16 at HOU and Week 17 v. DEN are hopeful DST options, as I’ve been pushing for a month+. It’s not perfect, but it’s something.

 -- The KC defense came up big on those goal line stands and facing LAC’s offense isn’t a favorable matchup because Herbert can make lemonade out of the O-C’s playbook. You can use the KC-DST with confidence against PIT Week 16 and with some confidence Week 17 at CIN.

Nick Bolton (14 tackles, 3 PDs) was a machine in this game for KC, a difference maker…which he was to start the season but then they benched him for struggles in pass coverage – they found out that he has other gifts to bring to a defense that they should utilize in this game. I don’t think he’ll be benched any more, but with KC/NFL coaches in general…you never know what’s going through their minds. They love things that don’t work and hate unplanned things that do work.

Snap Counts of Interest:

65 = Mike Williams

62 = Kennan Allen

33 = Palmer

28 = Guyton

43 = J Jackson

27 = Ekeler

13 = J Kelley

60 = Tyreek

49 = D Robinson

46 = Pringle

31 = Hardman (this puppy is about over)

51 = CEH

21 = D Williams

**College Football Metrics 2022…new season signups coming in January 2022**

The new season of CFM will be starting up in January, as always. A little different schedule this year as the NFL extended their season by a week and the Senior Bowl was bumped back a week as well. We should have a Senior Bowl, NFL Combine…it looks like it will be a normal scouting year!

The NFL Draft, Dynasty Rookie Draft, and regular season ahead rookie analysis all gets started through CFM in January with our usual season starter -- the past two years/2020-2021 Mock Rookie Draft re-do, along with in-depth Senior Bowl analysis, and full QB scouting reports and much more as we build towards the NFL Combine and all the other positional scouting reports. Football study never ends…

Thank you for your support of CFM for the past decade now…wow, time flies.

R.C. Fischer

FFM

21 December 2021

2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 15: Steelers 19, Titans 13

Two OK fading teams with weak QBs played a game, and somehow the one with the better run game and defense lost. I’m not sure that I’ve seen one Steelers win this year that made any sense to me…just how is it possible they won the game? I don’t think the Steelers have outplayed any opponent in their wins…and they definitely didn’t in their losses. How they have a winning record is why football is great (unpredictable) and maddening (unpredictable).

Tennessee had nearly double the yards as the Steelers and 4x the 3rd-down conversions, but they fumbled 5 times and lost 3 of them, and had 4 turnovers total. The Titans had twice the time of possession…and still lost, somehow. It was a fluke…at just the wrong time.

Tennessee falls to (9-5) and the dream of the #1 seed in the AFC is slipping away since they lost Derrick Henry. The AFC South title is now in jeopardy as well…Indy is just a game behind them now, however the Titans have beaten them twice this season, so it’s really a two-game lead with 4 games left. 10 wins is likely for Tennessee, 11 wins possible…but it’s going to be a limp and stagger to the finish. One more win SHOULD lock up the AFC South, and they have Houston Week 18. We project the Titans will finish with 11 wins and sneak away with the AFC South title.

The Steelers are now (7-6-1)…they’re lucky not to be a 2-3 win team. We see an (8-8-1) finish at best, and no playoffs. However, they do have some hope of winning Weeks 17-18 (CLE-BAL) and winning the AFC North, we just don’t see them doing it…not at all. But…the Steelers have shown anything is possible. 

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- We were pushing D’Onta Foreman (22-108-0, 2-27-0/3) as the big upside RB of the week, among those flex type/untrusted type names at RB this week. Everything made sense – the flow of the offense starting to go his way the past few games, and especially the opposing defense created a good matchup…the Steelers are dying trying to stop the run. We got what we wanted here for a touch count with pretty good production…except we didn’t get a TD to send it over the top.

What I don’t like here is that Mike Vrabel keeps pushing Dontrell Hilliard (9-49-0, 4-10-0/6) at first, but then quickly goes to Foreman and ends up sticking with Foreman. I’m not sure what he thinks he owes Hilliard, but this offense is so much better with Foreman. Vrabel figured that out here…too late. He should’ve given Foreman 30+ carries pounding away at Pittsburgh up the middle…instead, he got cute with student body pitch sweeps to the outside with Foreman and rare few straight up the middle runs…like what Minnesota did to PIT a week ago. Foreman is an interior pounder, not a sweep guy so much.

However, that it starts for Tennessee, Foreman ends up taking the most touches and is by far their best back by the end…but that’s happening on a suddenly pretty bad offense, so the FF upside is always in question week-to-week – it’s a low scoring offense with too much RBBC ‘sharing’. Foreman is a stable-ish RB2 every week and Hilliard, and Jeremy McNichols (6-26-0, 3-25-0/3) are random PPR Flex/RB3-4 options.

 -- Big Ben (16-25 for 148 yards, 0 TDs/0 INTs) was nothing this week. The only credit I’ll give him is that when the Steelers got the ball, Ben didn’t mess it up. They barely had the ball in the game (just 20 min. time of possession). So, the WR output in this game was garbage…because they didn’t really have much of a chance at that ‘Big Ben is down by 2-3 scores, so now let’s start throwing every play’ type activity to boost targets/catches – thus, the Diontae Johnson’s (5-38-0/5) weak game.

 -- The Najee Harris (12-18-0, 2-8-0/5) mess is not unusual…it’s the norm. Low everything…low yards, low ypc, low yards per catch, low catch count. Facing KC-CLE-BAL to the finish won’t help him boost output.

He’s not in the same class of talent as fellow rookie Javonte Williams, but I guarantee you Najee will be a #1-2-3 overall pick in redrafts and Javonte will be back-end 1st-round or 2nd-round.

 -- Ben and the passing game squashed. Najee had his worst game yet. Blame the oncoming Tennessee Titans defense. They are an inconsistent but rising unit…and the first sign of the oncoming growth is – whacking weaker opponents. They squashed the Steelers here, just their offense gave up 5 turnovers and put them in bad spots too often.

The Titans-DST has potential against SF and MIA the next two weeks but it’s not a sure thing.

 -- Chase Claypool (1-7-0, 0-12-0/2) was key to the Steelers comeback last week, so did he follow that up this week? Nope. No catches on 2 targets. He plays 60%+ of the snaps now…he sees 2-3 flutter ball bombs, completely covered, with him trying to outleap the defender to a typically underthrown ball.

Claypool is a WR3-4 in a world with a ton of random WR3 names you could roll with who work with much better offenses/QBs and play in better weather than what Claypool is stuck with right now.

 -- A couple of Titans IDPs to hit on…

Zach Cunningham (6 tackles) actually started (cut by HOU, picked up two weeks ago) and played 67% of the snaps here. I’m not sure if Cunningham starts when David Long is eligible to return…but it’s not out of the question…he has a relationship with Vrabel back to their HOU days.

DT Naquan Jones (4 tackles, 1 sack, 2 TFLs) has 2.5 sacks in his last five games…4.0 TFLs in that span as well. He’s earning more and more playing time and is perking up for IDP purposes.

Kristian Fulton (3 tackles) is allowing just 47.8% Comp. Pct. on passes thrown against him, with a QB rating of 67.7 allowed this season. He’s getting better and better for this defense – part of the reason for the rise of this entire unit.

Snap Counts of Interest:

48 = Diontae

33 = McCloud

31 = Claypool

17 = Washington

71 = Westbrook-Ikhine

56 = Hollister

28 = Rogers

31 = Foreman

29 = Hilliard

23 = McNichols

**College Football Metrics 2022…new season signups coming in January 2022**

The new season of CFM will be starting up in January, as always. A little different schedule this year as the NFL extended their season by a week and the Senior Bowl was bumped back a week as well. We should have a Senior Bowl, NFL Combine…it looks like it will be a normal scouting year!

The NFL Draft, Dynasty Rookie Draft, and regular season ahead rookie analysis all gets started through CFM in January with our usual season starter -- the past two years/2020-2021 Mock Rookie Draft re-do, along with in-depth Senior Bowl analysis, and full QB scouting reports and much more as we build towards the NFL Combine and all the other positional scouting reports. Football study never ends…

Thank you for your support of CFM for the past decade now…wow, time flies. 

R.C. Fischer

Total Football Advisor

20 December 2021

A look back at the Chargers 2021 season via RC's weekly game recaps/analysis with 2022 notes/comments added to this review...