Week 16 Thoughts & Observations

[Tom Kessenich]

Here are some random thoughts and observations as I wonder what many of us did to deserve the catastrophic fates we received in Week 16:

One of the most frustrating things in fantasy football is when you make the right call, start the right players for all the right reasons only to see them step onto the field and soil it like a child who just discovered Taco Bell for the first time and had one too many Chalupas.

It's one thing to lose if we make a risky call and start a player hoping they will come through instead of one with the track record to prove they will. But shouldn't the studs be there to calm us when things start to go awry? Aren't they the ones we should always find solace in as we ensure our lineup has the best chance to succeed?

Not so in Week 16 this year. Consider:

Cam Newton - 142 yards passing and 0 TDs vs. a defense he lit up for more than 31 points just two weeks ago.

Ben Roethlisberger - 5.9 points. FIVE POINT NINE points against a horrible pass defense.

Tom Brady - 231 and 1 vs. a defense he historically tears to shreds.

Aaron Rodgers - 151 and 1 and the 25th-ranked QB of the week (before play tonight)

Antonio Brown - 61 yards receiving against one of the worst pass defenses in the NFL

DeSean Jackson - 40 yards receiving against one of the worst pass defenses in the NFL

Antonio Gates - 2 receptions against a defense that is awful vs. TEs on a night when Phil Rivers threw the ball 49 times.

Other than Rodgers, who had a tough matchup but is still Aaron Rodgers, all of those star players had matchups they should've dominated but all soiled the bed, rolled around in it, flung it at the walls and shoveled it down their throats in rather impressive fashion. This isn't how it's supposed to be, my friends. It just isn't.

But it was and for many of us it sucked. It really really really really really really really really really sucked.

Not all of the studs made us queasy this week, though. Just two weeks after people inexplicably benched him vs. the Panthers and he put up 7-88-0, Julio Jones still somehow shockingly wound up on fantasy benches again against Carolina this week. The result? Nine catches for 178 yards and a TD and the WR1 position heading into play tonight.

Why do people want to bench Julio? Why? Why? Why?

Speaking of guys who I would never bench - Todd Gurley. #TheKraken. Faced with a difficult matchup and an offensive game plan that refuses to make full use of his extraordinary gifts, Gurley still came through for the fantasy owners who stuck with him this week. He topped 80 yards rushing in the win over Seattle and made several big runs late, including his fourth-quarter TD. The word special is often overused but when describing Gurley it doesn't seem like an adequate enough description. Please St. Louis, surround this young man with proper offensive talent in the offseason.

The Seahawks lost to St. Louis in Week 1 when their vaunted defense choked away a fourth-quarter lead. On Sunday they lost entirely due to the shoddy play by their offense. Russell Wilson and Co. came into the game on fire but that was a poor showing at home. Yet another top QB who wasn't up to snuff this week although Wilson's fantasy production ended up far more appealing than his actual play on the field.

I'm not sure how something like this would be measured but I think it's entirely possible the Packers are the worst 10-5 team in NFL history.

Mike McCarthy's bizarre love affair with James Starks didn't cost Green Bay the game at Arizona but it certainly didn't help matters anyway. McCarthy's refusal to totally commit to Ed Lacy and, most notably, his refusal to involve him more prominently in the passing game have been two of his biggest failings this season.

Blaine Gabbert threw as many TDs on Sunday as Cam Newton, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers combined.

COMBINED.

So did Brandon Weeden.

Ryan Mallett had nearly four times as many points on Sunday as Ben Roethlisberger.

Can't make this stuff up folks. You can only weep as you watch it all unfold.

It's not often you see two of the greatest quarterbacks in league history look befuddled on the field but that's what we saw from Brady and Rodgers this week. Brady played like a frightened bunny in the pocket and clearly was rattled by the Jets' pressure. Rodgers' season-long disconnect with his receivers continued and he also appeared mentally undone by the Cardinals' heavy dose of blitz packages.

Granted, both players are dealing with issues beyond their control but great players (especially great quarterbacks) need to rise above it and not fall victim to it. Brady and Rodgers both did that in rather embarrassing fashion on Sunday. These are two great players and they rarely are their team's biggest problems, but on Sunday both of them were near the top. Great quarterbacks need to play better - MUCH better - than what both of them displayed.

The Patriots lack of trust in Brady on Sunday was rather shocking. Not only did Bill Belichick quit at the end of the first half with the ball, just under two minutes to go and two timeouts but he wanted no part of Brady touching the ball to start overtime which resulted in his mind-numblingly awful decision to kick off after winning the coin toss. I understand that injuries are an issue but if you can't trust Brady to come through in a huge game with the outcome on the line you've got problems. Big problems.

So if you play in a 17-week league it looks like you might not lose Brady after all. Given his lackluster play of late, I'm struggling to decide if that's a good thing or not.

Drew Brees on one foot is pretty darn good.

It took awhile but Brandin Cooks has delivered on all the preseason hype. He's become a legit WR1 and will be a Top 15-20 pick in drafts again next year. Impressive talent.

After Sunday it sure looks like the Cardinals are the best team in the NFC. The best team in the AFC? Ummm .... Is there one? What a mess that conference has become.

Like Alex Smith, Ted Bridgewater needs more than an A+ matchup to deliver for fantasy owners. He needs the opposition to put points on the board and force the Vikings to throw more than they want. If that doesn't happen it'll be A LOT of running and little passing. That's why matchups aren't always the best predictor of fantasy success. The team's offensive approach is often the most critical.

Sam Bradford has taken a lot of heat this season (a lot of it justified) but he's been playing some darn good football to close out the season. Other than a poor disconnect on an easy TD pass to Zach Ertz he played very well on Saturday night. Were it not for nearly a dozen truly terrible drops by his receivers and several fumbles he would've easily topped 400 yards passing with multiple TDs. The Eagles have a lot of problems but Bradford isn't near the top of the list. They would be wise to sign him to a reasonable short-team contract and see if he can continue to improve in this offense.

Assuming Chip's still around.

I agree with John Hansen's point about Bradford, though - even when he's really dialed in it's like pulling teeth to get multiple TDs out of that guy.

Is there anyone on the planet not named Tom Coughlin who can explain why Andre Williams gets snaps for the Giants? What a complete waste of play calls, especially since it also means taking touches away from Rashad Jennings who's the team's second-best offensive weapon behind Odell Beckham Jr. right now.

Not sure there's anybody who loves Garbage Time more than Blake Bortles and Jordan Matthews. Nobody comes through with their teams down 40 with 5 seconds left like those guys.

Nobody.

More than 20 wide receivers were taken in drafts this year before Brandon Marshall, Jarvis Landry and Allen Robinson went off the board. Not sure there's more than two or three I'd take ahead of Marshall or Robinson right now.

Wait on running backs? How about waiting on wide receivers too? That's been a pretty darn profitable approach this year.

So if you're waiting on running backs and wide receivers next year who do we take in the first round?

Steve Gostkowski.

Make it happen people. Make it happen.

I didn't have a chance to look at Live Scoring on Fanduel so can someone tell me how my DFS tourney lineup led by Tom Brady, Martavis Bryant, Ted Ginn, Antonio Andrews and Jason Myers did? I was feeling pretty good about that one when I set it Sunday morning. Thanks in advance.

When your defense is the biggest bright spot in your lineup it probably wasn't a very good week. But thanks Vikings' D. That was an impressive performance until Garbage Time.

I'll say again I have no idea how good of an NFL quarterback John Manzeil can be but he's got a lot of fight in him and I love to see that. He never quit on Sunday despite being roughed up by an aggressive Kansas City defense. That's the kind of thing players rally around.

In Seattle, Tyler Lockett caught a pass, took three steps with the ball secured, was hit and had the ball jarred loose. The call on the field? Incomplete pass confirmed by replay.

I have no f'n idea what a catch is and neither does anybody else. The NFL continuing to think this isn't an enormous problem is ... well ... an enormous problem.

But hey, on the bright side thank God that Extra Point crisis was fixed that was threatening to tear apart the fabric of the game and was causing neighborhood unrest and global pillaging.

There's nothing more exciting than seeing lots and lots of missed extra points each week.

I LOVE IT.

MORE MISSED EXTRA POINTS. I WANT MORE.

Heading into tonight's game here are your Top 5 RBs for Week 16:

DeAngelo Williams

Tim Hightower

Jerrick McKinnon

Frank Gore

Latavius Murray

Yup.

Of the Top 20 scoring RBs this week, 11 of them weren't starters when Week 1 began and two of them (Tim Hightower and Pierre Thomas) weren't even in the league. If you include DeAngelo Williams, 60 percent of them weren't projected starters for their teams this season.

Sometimes I wonder why I spend so much time in the offseason prepping for this game.

And finally if you started Ben Roethlisberger, Charcandrick West, Cameron Artis-Payne, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, Ted Ginn and Antonio Gates how cool did that lineup look last Wednesday night?

[Rog]

Just a brutal week
I had some tough choices in my cutline this week
djax or willie snead
crosby or janikowski
g tate or aiken
steelers or arizona d
olsen or asjenkins
yep got all 5 wrong but atleast I had antonio brown bail me out
15 weeks of hard work destroyed on ANY GIVEN SUNDAY
I need to now go back to my baseball draft and apologize to the other 14 people who had to listen to my rant yesterday:)
Congrats to eveyone who had everything work in their favor yesterday

[chriseibl]

Just a brutal week
I had some tough choices in my cutline this week
djax or willie snead
crosby or janikowski
g tate or aiken
steelers or arizona d
olsen or asjenkins
yep got all 5 wrong but atleast I had antonio brown bail me out
15 weeks of hard work destroyed on ANY GIVEN SUNDAY
I need to now go back to my baseball draft and apologize to the other 14 people who had to listen to my rant yesterday:)
Congrats to eveyone who had everything work in their favor yesterday

Jackson, Tate, Steelers, and Olsen all would have been really easy choices for me. Yeah, they didn't work out but I can't imagine picking their alternatives going into this week... not that that makes you feel any better.

[Tom Kessenich]

Just a brutal week
I had some tough choices in my cutline this week
djax or willie snead
crosby or janikowski
g tate or aiken
steelers or arizona d
olsen or asjenkins
yep got all 5 wrong but atleast I had antonio brown bail me out
15 weeks of hard work destroyed on ANY GIVEN SUNDAY
I need to now go back to my baseball draft and apologize to the other 14 people who had to listen to my rant yesterday:)
Congrats to eveyone who had everything work in their favor yesterday

Jackson, Tate, Steelers, and Olsen all would have been really easy choices for me. Yeah, they didn't work out but I can't imagine picking their alternatives going into this week... not that that makes you feel any better.

Yup, I would've made the same picks. Jackson, Tate and Olsen all had A to A+ matchups. Steelers' D was looking much better than usual on paper. I might've gone Janikowski over Crosby due to the matchups but I could've seen the Packers moving the ball and stalling in Arizona territory for FG opportunities.

I really think this was an unprecedented week of productive players choking on cake matchups. There was a large number of players who were expected to be dominant who stunk it up, many really badly.

[Rog]

Which sparks my interest
I had a primtime team that stayed in the top 10 all year (injuries hurt it at the end) I think I have a chance to finish around 45th overall.
How many teams that finished in the top 10 of the regular season or even top 20 in overall points in the overall championships are there now?

[Greg Ambrosius]

One of the more frustrating things about this stupid extra point rule is that it was meant to add more excitement to the game by almost forcing head coaches to try for more 2-point conversions. Now THAT would add excitement, Goodell thought. Instead, all its done is added more missed extra points, which is stupid.

A few weeks ago New England made an extra point and there was a penalty on the defense, which meant that they could have moved the ball to the 1-yard line and go for two. Belichick just said nah, we'll take the point. Now if teams aren't going for 2 points from the FREAKING 1-YARD LINE, how are they ever going to try it from the 2? Only Pittsburgh has done this regularly and I'm not sure it's been much of a net gain. Older coaches won't try it, that's been proven.

I know there's no turning back on this stupid rule, but again it's not working the way they had envisioned. It's dumb. Almost as dumb as the kickoff from the 35-yard line when almost every kicker can kick it out of the end zone. Dumb & Dumber.

[JETS SB]

How bad are the Giants without Odell Beckham? That was probably the worst offensive effort from Eli Manning in a decade. Yes, they had nothing to play for, but that loss is the nail in the Cofflin.

Blair Walsh!!!! If you had him last night, you are loving him. If you played against him, you want kickers eliminated from fantasy.

[chriseibl]

How bad are the Giants without Odell Beckham? That was probably the worst offensive effort from Eli Manning in a decade. Yes, they had nothing to play for, but that loss is the nail in the Cofflin.

Blair Walsh!!!! If you had him last night, you are loving him. If you played against him, you want kickers eliminated from fantasy.

Reuben Randle and Hakeem Nicks sounded jealous of Beckham in the couple of weeks leading up to the game... and then aside from one play, went ahead and proved why the Giants draw up all of their plays for one player.

[Tom Kessenich]

How bad are the Giants without Odell Beckham? That was probably the worst offensive effort from Eli Manning in a decade. Yes, they had nothing to play for, but that loss is the nail in the Cofflin.

Blair Walsh!!!! If you had him last night, you are loving him. If you played against him, you want kickers eliminated from fantasy.

Reuben Randle and Hakeem Nicks sounded jealous of Beckham in the couple of weeks leading up to the game... and then aside from one play, went ahead and proved why the Giants draw up all of their plays for one player.

Randle was absolutely worthless outside of one play. That one play? A 72-yard TD so if you started him it all worked out better than if you started someone like Antonio Brown.

Sometimes, this game just ain't fair at all.