Week 14 Thoughts & Observations
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 10:02 am
Here are some random thoughts and observations about Week 14 as I wonder what the Mahomes-Rodgers Super Bowl is gonna be like.
Remember last week when I narrowed the MVP field down to Pat Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers? Well, it’s Rodgers’ award to win now. Mahomes was uncharacteristically sloppy in Kansas City’s win over Miami while Rodgers was cool as usual in Green Bay’s much more narrow than it should’ve been win over Detroit.
With only three weeks left in the season neither player could afford a misstep if they wanted to win the award. Mahomes just blinked so it’s all lined up for Rodgers to win his third MVP award.
Speaking of the Packers, I did not put much faith, if any, in Robert Tonyan becoming a viable fantasy player this season. But not only is he that but he’s become an elite TE option. Tonyan scored again on Sunday and has become Green Bay’s No. 2 weapon in the passing game behind the continually remarkable Davante Adams. If you bought into Tonyan congrats you got yourself one of the premier non-Kelce/Waller players at a thin position.
For Matt LaFleur’s sake I really hope his master plan is to keep Aaron Jones fresh for the postseason. Because the most prevailing sentiment watching the Packers struggle to put away the hapless Lions on Sunday is that game would never have been in doubt if Jones had been used intelligently.
Watching Allen Robinson run free all day long vs. Houston was yet another reminder of how incredible he would be with simply an above average QB.
Just above average.
That’s it.
Not talking Montana, Favre or Brady. Just Kirk Cousins.
That’s all ARob would need to drop a Top 3-5 WR season.
Enjoy Sunday’s game Mitch Trubisky fans but he still was drafted ahead of Mahomes and DeShaun Watson. That’s never going away.
Andy Dalton was so vintage Andy Dalton on Sunday even A.J. Green looked good again.
Sometimes #RevengeGames work out (see Dalton, Andy) and sometimes they don’t (see Washington, DeAndre).
Patrick Mahomes had one of his uglier games of the season on Sunday and he still dropped 394-2 on a solid Miami defense. Seriously, good luck with that.
Travis Kelce > Tony Gonzalez?
It’s not blasphemy, Chiefs fans and you know it.
On behalf of the entire fantasy industry, I’d like to apologize for the whole Chris Godwin over DeAndre Hopkins in drafts thing. Wow that was a gigantic miss. Gonna take awhile to recover from that one.
Kenyan Drake’s last five games:
10.9 points
16
24.3
13.8
16.
He’s back in the circle of trust all right.
Tom Brady made some good throws on Sunday (TD pass to Scott Miller was one) but he also made some really inexplicable and God-awful misses (he had Godwin for a possible TD but threw it roughly 8,000 miles over his head). It reached a point where even Joe Buck felt compelled to point it out although he did it in the mildest way possible.
It’s really hard to see the Buccaneers making a Super Bowl run with Brady often looking so erratic in the pocket.
A report on Sunday said the Broncos may move on from Drew Lock after the season. Lock responded by throwing 4 TDs in a win over Carolina. Perhaps the Broncos should give Lock more time, especially with a healthy Courtland Sutton next season.
Just a thought.
KJ Hamler may be Denver’s fourth best WR when everyone is healthy. That’s pretty good.
Derrick Henry now has two 200-yard games this season and has topped 100 yards rushing in four of Tennessee’s last five games and five of their past seven with 14 TDs in the last 11 games. Yup, I may have been wrong about him.
I see you Jon Taylor. I see you.
Who had the corpse of T.Y. Hilton rising from the dead and becoming a weekly WR start on their 2020 bingo card?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Bueller?
Turns out if you don’t ask Phil Rivers to do that much at this point in his career, he can do a lot.
Don’t worry Jets’ fans, it’ll all be over soon.
That may have been the easiest 4-TD game Russ Wilson is ever gonna have. Not sure he even broke a sweat.
So, Jalen Hurts, that’ll play.
I said it on Twitter, and I’ll repeat it here – the comp I keep coming back to with Hurts is rookie season Lamar Jackson. The rushing output should be there weekly while the passing numbers are more erratic.
We saw shades of rookie Lamar with Hurts on Sunday. Hurts carved up the Saints’ defense on the ground while throwing for minimal yardage and one TD. He should get 10+ carries weekly which raises his floor. That means he doesn’t need to get you much throwing the ball to deliver as was the case on Sunday. Should the rushing and passing both hit on the same day he’ll have elite QB1 upside.
We very well may see that next Sunday vs. the Cardinals.
I don’t know much but I do know that giving the ball to Miles Sanders 15-20 times a game is much smarter than playing Jordan Howard over him.
Seriously, that actually happened last week. I'm not kidding. It really did. That was peak 2020 Doug Pederson. As you were watching Sanders score twice on Sunday, including a beautiful 82-yard score, remember that’s what Pederson considered good coaching vs. Green Bay.
Taysom Hill was all over the place on Sunday. He threw some dimes and he even completed passes to Al Kamara. He also took some bad sacks and made some egregious mistakes. I’ll say this about him, though, he has no quit.
That won’t be enough to beat Mahomes next week but it’s something.
Not sure there was an easier call this week than Austin Ekeler bouncing back and regaining his RB1 form vs. Atlanta. Slam Freakin Dunk.
Russell Gage, Kyler Murray and Kirk Cousins all threw the same number of TD passes on Sunday because of course they did.
This just in: Chase Young is good at football.
Here are the last five games for Brandon Aiyuk:
6-115-0
8-91-1
7-75-1
5-95-1
10-119-0
With Deebo Samuel possibly done for the season with a hamstring injury, Aiyuk is a set it and forget it WR1 the rest of the way. Even if Samuel hadn’t gotten hurt again Aiyuk may have been a WR1 anyway. Kid is all kinds of special. He's not falling past the third round in any draft I'm in next year if I can help it.
Dionte Johnson had two more bad drops early Sunday night and then was benched by Mike Tomlin for the remainder of the first half. As this was going on, the Steelers’ offense predictably suffered and sputtered. Turns out I have some thoughts about that.
RANT COMING UP:
I’m all for holding a player accountable for mistakes but Tomlin’s hardline approach for drops wasn’t applied equally. While Johnson was benched, Eric Ebron (another repeat offender) continued to play and wasn’t being held accountable for his miscue. Once that happened it became clear Tomlin’s decision to only bench Johnson was shortsighted and ignorant. If you're not going to apply the punishment equally and fairly, why do it at all?
Johnson has to catch the ball. That is not in question. However, the Steelers’ offense is much – make that MUCH – better when Johnson is on the field. He is their best WR and top playmaker. At some point there needs to be an emphasis on winning the game and not trying to prove a point. Tomlin was far more worried about the latter and it became problematic for attempting to achieve the former Sunday night.
Pittsburgh may not have won if Johnson’s benching ended far earlier than it did but it’s a virtual certainty the Steelers would have been in a stronger position than they ended up being. Tomlin isn’t responsible for how poorly his defense played or how awful Ben Roethlisberger often looked but he is responsible for limiting his offense by benching Johnson while not holding Ebron to the same accountability.
And just like that, Kansas City’s path to the Super Bowl got a whole lot easier.
Well done, Mike.
Oh, and to all the people wondering why Roethlisberger keeps targeting Johnson have you paid even the slightest bit of attention what happens when Johnson catches the ball? He’s dynamic in the open field and makes defenders miss. This shit ain’t complicated people. It just ain’t.
I’m old enough to remember when Dan Bailey and Jake Elliott were both good at kicking.
I’ve long been a Bailey fan (he is, after all, the only NFL kicker who follows me on Twitter) but I’m legit shocked Mike Zimmer didn’t tell him to buy his own plane ticket home from Tampa yesterday. I'm sorry Dan but damn. Just. Damn.
Show of hands for everyone who aggressively targeted Cam Akers and received nothing from his huge Week 14 performance. Wasn’t just me, right?
And finally, if you started DeShaun Watson, Aaron Jones, Ezekiel Elliott, Adam Thielen, Chris Godwin and Dionte Johnson on Sunday you really have no one to blame but yourself for starting really talented players in Week 14. What the hell is the matter with you? Why didn’t you start Drew Lock, Tony Pollard and K.J. Hamler? It was so obvious.
Remember last week when I narrowed the MVP field down to Pat Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers? Well, it’s Rodgers’ award to win now. Mahomes was uncharacteristically sloppy in Kansas City’s win over Miami while Rodgers was cool as usual in Green Bay’s much more narrow than it should’ve been win over Detroit.
With only three weeks left in the season neither player could afford a misstep if they wanted to win the award. Mahomes just blinked so it’s all lined up for Rodgers to win his third MVP award.
Speaking of the Packers, I did not put much faith, if any, in Robert Tonyan becoming a viable fantasy player this season. But not only is he that but he’s become an elite TE option. Tonyan scored again on Sunday and has become Green Bay’s No. 2 weapon in the passing game behind the continually remarkable Davante Adams. If you bought into Tonyan congrats you got yourself one of the premier non-Kelce/Waller players at a thin position.
For Matt LaFleur’s sake I really hope his master plan is to keep Aaron Jones fresh for the postseason. Because the most prevailing sentiment watching the Packers struggle to put away the hapless Lions on Sunday is that game would never have been in doubt if Jones had been used intelligently.
Watching Allen Robinson run free all day long vs. Houston was yet another reminder of how incredible he would be with simply an above average QB.
Just above average.
That’s it.
Not talking Montana, Favre or Brady. Just Kirk Cousins.
That’s all ARob would need to drop a Top 3-5 WR season.
Enjoy Sunday’s game Mitch Trubisky fans but he still was drafted ahead of Mahomes and DeShaun Watson. That’s never going away.
Andy Dalton was so vintage Andy Dalton on Sunday even A.J. Green looked good again.
Sometimes #RevengeGames work out (see Dalton, Andy) and sometimes they don’t (see Washington, DeAndre).
Patrick Mahomes had one of his uglier games of the season on Sunday and he still dropped 394-2 on a solid Miami defense. Seriously, good luck with that.
Travis Kelce > Tony Gonzalez?
It’s not blasphemy, Chiefs fans and you know it.
On behalf of the entire fantasy industry, I’d like to apologize for the whole Chris Godwin over DeAndre Hopkins in drafts thing. Wow that was a gigantic miss. Gonna take awhile to recover from that one.
Kenyan Drake’s last five games:
10.9 points
16
24.3
13.8
16.
He’s back in the circle of trust all right.
Tom Brady made some good throws on Sunday (TD pass to Scott Miller was one) but he also made some really inexplicable and God-awful misses (he had Godwin for a possible TD but threw it roughly 8,000 miles over his head). It reached a point where even Joe Buck felt compelled to point it out although he did it in the mildest way possible.
It’s really hard to see the Buccaneers making a Super Bowl run with Brady often looking so erratic in the pocket.
A report on Sunday said the Broncos may move on from Drew Lock after the season. Lock responded by throwing 4 TDs in a win over Carolina. Perhaps the Broncos should give Lock more time, especially with a healthy Courtland Sutton next season.
Just a thought.
KJ Hamler may be Denver’s fourth best WR when everyone is healthy. That’s pretty good.
Derrick Henry now has two 200-yard games this season and has topped 100 yards rushing in four of Tennessee’s last five games and five of their past seven with 14 TDs in the last 11 games. Yup, I may have been wrong about him.
I see you Jon Taylor. I see you.
Who had the corpse of T.Y. Hilton rising from the dead and becoming a weekly WR start on their 2020 bingo card?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Bueller?
Turns out if you don’t ask Phil Rivers to do that much at this point in his career, he can do a lot.
Don’t worry Jets’ fans, it’ll all be over soon.
That may have been the easiest 4-TD game Russ Wilson is ever gonna have. Not sure he even broke a sweat.
So, Jalen Hurts, that’ll play.
I said it on Twitter, and I’ll repeat it here – the comp I keep coming back to with Hurts is rookie season Lamar Jackson. The rushing output should be there weekly while the passing numbers are more erratic.
We saw shades of rookie Lamar with Hurts on Sunday. Hurts carved up the Saints’ defense on the ground while throwing for minimal yardage and one TD. He should get 10+ carries weekly which raises his floor. That means he doesn’t need to get you much throwing the ball to deliver as was the case on Sunday. Should the rushing and passing both hit on the same day he’ll have elite QB1 upside.
We very well may see that next Sunday vs. the Cardinals.
I don’t know much but I do know that giving the ball to Miles Sanders 15-20 times a game is much smarter than playing Jordan Howard over him.
Seriously, that actually happened last week. I'm not kidding. It really did. That was peak 2020 Doug Pederson. As you were watching Sanders score twice on Sunday, including a beautiful 82-yard score, remember that’s what Pederson considered good coaching vs. Green Bay.
Taysom Hill was all over the place on Sunday. He threw some dimes and he even completed passes to Al Kamara. He also took some bad sacks and made some egregious mistakes. I’ll say this about him, though, he has no quit.
That won’t be enough to beat Mahomes next week but it’s something.
Not sure there was an easier call this week than Austin Ekeler bouncing back and regaining his RB1 form vs. Atlanta. Slam Freakin Dunk.
Russell Gage, Kyler Murray and Kirk Cousins all threw the same number of TD passes on Sunday because of course they did.
This just in: Chase Young is good at football.
Here are the last five games for Brandon Aiyuk:
6-115-0
8-91-1
7-75-1
5-95-1
10-119-0
With Deebo Samuel possibly done for the season with a hamstring injury, Aiyuk is a set it and forget it WR1 the rest of the way. Even if Samuel hadn’t gotten hurt again Aiyuk may have been a WR1 anyway. Kid is all kinds of special. He's not falling past the third round in any draft I'm in next year if I can help it.
Dionte Johnson had two more bad drops early Sunday night and then was benched by Mike Tomlin for the remainder of the first half. As this was going on, the Steelers’ offense predictably suffered and sputtered. Turns out I have some thoughts about that.
RANT COMING UP:
I’m all for holding a player accountable for mistakes but Tomlin’s hardline approach for drops wasn’t applied equally. While Johnson was benched, Eric Ebron (another repeat offender) continued to play and wasn’t being held accountable for his miscue. Once that happened it became clear Tomlin’s decision to only bench Johnson was shortsighted and ignorant. If you're not going to apply the punishment equally and fairly, why do it at all?
Johnson has to catch the ball. That is not in question. However, the Steelers’ offense is much – make that MUCH – better when Johnson is on the field. He is their best WR and top playmaker. At some point there needs to be an emphasis on winning the game and not trying to prove a point. Tomlin was far more worried about the latter and it became problematic for attempting to achieve the former Sunday night.
Pittsburgh may not have won if Johnson’s benching ended far earlier than it did but it’s a virtual certainty the Steelers would have been in a stronger position than they ended up being. Tomlin isn’t responsible for how poorly his defense played or how awful Ben Roethlisberger often looked but he is responsible for limiting his offense by benching Johnson while not holding Ebron to the same accountability.
And just like that, Kansas City’s path to the Super Bowl got a whole lot easier.
Well done, Mike.
Oh, and to all the people wondering why Roethlisberger keeps targeting Johnson have you paid even the slightest bit of attention what happens when Johnson catches the ball? He’s dynamic in the open field and makes defenders miss. This shit ain’t complicated people. It just ain’t.
I’m old enough to remember when Dan Bailey and Jake Elliott were both good at kicking.
I’ve long been a Bailey fan (he is, after all, the only NFL kicker who follows me on Twitter) but I’m legit shocked Mike Zimmer didn’t tell him to buy his own plane ticket home from Tampa yesterday. I'm sorry Dan but damn. Just. Damn.
Show of hands for everyone who aggressively targeted Cam Akers and received nothing from his huge Week 14 performance. Wasn’t just me, right?
And finally, if you started DeShaun Watson, Aaron Jones, Ezekiel Elliott, Adam Thielen, Chris Godwin and Dionte Johnson on Sunday you really have no one to blame but yourself for starting really talented players in Week 14. What the hell is the matter with you? Why didn’t you start Drew Lock, Tony Pollard and K.J. Hamler? It was so obvious.