Alright, some weeks there’s nothing I want to do more on a Monday Night than write this column for you all. Other times… it’s like this week.
For those that don’t know, FFPC holds their league playoffs starting this week, which have their own associated prizes, and are your chance to qualify for the “sprint” - where all the top prize money is - if you didn’t finish top-two in the regular season.
It had been largely a strong high-stakes season for me prior to the last two weeks. Entering Week 12, I was set up with 5 live teams of 10 (4 of 12 make playoffs), and three were in automatic-qualifying position (top 2). While all 5 made playoffs, two of my three Auto-Qualifiers fell out of position in the last week, which meant a lot was riding on these league playoffs… it did not go well.
Both my two highest priority teams were eliminated this week, one which scored quite well but had to face team in which 7 of 9 starters (excluding defense and kicker) scored 20 or more and three (Nico Collins, Tyreek Hill and DK Metcalf) scored above 30. Nothing much you can do…
The other team was the most frustrating and in fact it’s the team I drafted with Liam Murphy and Ron Stewart which I posted a draft analysis of in this substack. We’d been holding the Number 1 seed for almost the entire year, though the team had admittedly been slowing down in recent weeks. After Lamar Jackson came up short for us on Sunday Night with a chance to clinch our A-Q spot, we now had to face down a playoff gauntlet with Jackson, Stefon Diggs and Jordan Addison on bye.
Making matters worse our opponent *didn’t* blow the doors off the week, leaving us a clear window to make it through if we made the right choices. After a week of going back and forth we wound up landing on Bryce Young over Joe Flacco as our replacement QB, and Jalen Guyton (as a leverage play on our opponent’s Keenan Allen and Austin Ekeler) in our last flex over Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Had we made the correct choices I’d be writing this article fresh off watching Travis Etienne Jr. clinch our spot in the finals next week, rather than doing so with a mournful attitude - made even worse by watching one of my favourite players in Trevor Lawrence suffer a late injury that looked potentially severe.
Anyhow I often try to use these intros to sound somewhat insightful. I’m not attempting that today. I’m honestly not sure what I’m doing … I certainly am not looking for pity for catching the wrong side of the variance. I just know a lot of people who read this column likely take fantasy football quite seriously, and are hard on themselves when things don’t go well.
When you consume a lot of fantasy content it’s hard to find examples of people emphasizing the lows. I don’t blame them by the way; we’re in the business of selling our advice, it’s probably not great for business when I tell you about the teams I just had eliminated. Anyhow, there is a lot of season left and plenty of teams in my portfolio that could eventually lead to this being a great season. But this week was definitely a blow and my hope is if you experience some of those this week, or do in the upcoming weeks, maybe you can at least take solace in that other people are experiencing the lows alongside the highs as well.
Anyhow, let’s get into the key points here.
NOTE: utilization data is from Nathan Jahnke of PFF. All qualitative data is from the FantasyPoints Data Suite unless otherwise sourced with exception of the following: Rush Yards over Expected (RYOE) and Percentage of Rushes over Expectation (ROE%) are sourced from NFL Next Gen Stats. PFF Grades and Yards per Route Run are from PFF. BAE Rating and Relative Success Rate (RSR) are from Noah Hills. Juke Rate is from PlayerProfiler.
SEE: “Metrics Legend” at the bottom for an explanation of each stat and its acronym
1. INJURIES AND FALL OUT
Colts
Jonathan Taylor missed the first game of what was reported to be a three-five week absence. For fantasy purposes, you should be treating this as Moss’s backfield at least through the fantasy semi-finals, and more likely for the duration of the fantasy season. It’s a brutal blow for Taylor managers - especially in dynasty - who are now without his services for a second straight playoff run.
Next off-season Taylor will be a trick player to rank. At 25 years old and with limited passing game involvement he’s clearly a step below Breece Hall and - at least in my opinion - Jahmyr Gibbs in dynasty value. Where you stand on him vs. Travis Etienne and De’Von Achane (along with anyone else you’d bring up to this tier) likely comes down to a risk / reward preference. Taylor is a known quantity when he’s on the field. He’s one of the best rushers in the league, who had his best game of the season from an IRL perspective vs. Tampa Bay. But with his receiving profile never quite elevated, he’s more of a 16-18 PPG back in most scenarios than a 20+ PPG option. If you’d rather take the shot elsewhere I don’t blame anyone - especially with the younger Achane who is a superior pass-catcher as well. Just know you’re taking on a more fragile bet.
For leagues with no deadline or a late deadline, I would target Taylor in any league I’m out of the mix, ideally with veterans on further down the age-curve as my base if I still have any left. Though a lower-value and lower-scarcity proposition, see my piece on trading for and away Joe Burrow and Mark Andrews; a lot of the same theory would apply.
As for Zack Moss, despite an inefficient day vs. the pass-funnel Titans, he remains one of the best RB plays weekly for the rest of the year. He played all but four snaps in a game the Colts went over 70. He gets a terrific matchup with the Bengals this week in a likely bounce back spot. If you can still nab him for a Late-2nd, god forbid a 3rd, he might be one of the cheapest “sub-elite” short term options out there. Before it sounds ridiculous.. ask yourself this:
How sure are you of Austin Ekeler’s future beyond this year? Derrick Henry? Alvin Kamara? What about Kyren Williams? Rachaad White?
Outside of a handful of options, every dynasty RB is either quite old or fragile due to draft capital / real-life deficiencies and/or health. Zack Moss as played great ball this year which likely gets him at least an excellent handcuff opportunity in 2024 if not a shot at a timeshare somewhere. But in the meantime he’s your cheapest path to difference-making production I’d suspect comes in at 16-20 PPG rest-of-season.
Dolphins
De’Von Achane returned to the lineup and made up for lost time with over 25 PPR points. However, it wasn’t exactly the same mind-bending performance as we’d seen earlier in the year. He mixed into the game throughout the first half but was out-snapped 19-12 and used primarily in the passing game. He piled on carries in the second-half as it seemed McDaniel wanted to use the chance to get him back in a rhythm as they go into their stretch run.
He had a strong final drive picking up nearly every yard running down the clock and punching in his second TD of the half. As much as you probably lucked out with the outcome this week, there’s no reason to not expect his role to immediately grow from the jump next week. He was leading in snaps prior to his injury and even started his first game back vs. Las Vegas. For now, he’s a volatile but high-upside fringe-RB1.
Seahawks
Ok now we’ll get to the new injuries: Zach Charbonnet had a second straight week as the lead dog and was more successful in this one adding a big play on a screen pass to a one-yard TD. Outside of that he was mostly getting what was blocked, which was rarely much. I’m still a fan of his when running downhill (see the screen pass), but his lateral quickness admittedly leaves a lot to be desired.
Unfortunately he suffered a knee bruise late in the game, though Ken Walker was expected to return this coming week anyhow. Charbonnet is a low-end flex if we winds up returning prior to the end of the fantasy season and after Walker rejoins the lineup. Walker however is now in an excellent spot. At this point, his routes are quite capped by Charbonnet, giving him a major upgrade if the latter is inactive. He saw his two highest snap shares of the year in the games Charbonnet suffered his first injury and the one after which he missed. He’s a mid-range RB1 with the backfield to himself and a high-end RB2 with splash play upside if Charbonnet is in.
Patriots
Rhamondre Stevenson suffered an apparent high-ankle sprain on a hip drop tackle early in this contest. It’s quite unfortunate as he’d come alive in recent weeks with improved play and a growing role. My hope is he showed enough late in the year in order for the team to focus on other positions this off-season despite his horrid start.
He’s bang-on a mid-2nd round value asset this off-season while we see what they do going into the final year of his rookie deal. Meanwhile, Ezekiel Elliott dominated touches in his absence in all situations and there’s no reason to think he won’t going forward.
This offense has scored 4.0 points per game the last month so it’s fair to categorize his ceiling as limited, but he is at least a volume dependent RB2 with plenty of volume incoming.
Commanders
Brian Robinson Jr. went down with a hamstring injury, and hamstrings are typically multi-week absences. It’s hard to gain much from this game because Antonio Gibson would have dominated 2nd-half touches in this game script regardless of Robinson’s status. But the fact they chose to enhance Robinson’s role rather than Chris Rodriguez’s when Gibson missed time, *may* suggest that Gibson will get the same treatment. If he does, he’s a fringe RB1 given his pass-game efficiency and the high-pace Commanders offense. If he splits early down carries substantially with Rodriguez - potentially including goal-line touches - he’s more of a low-end RB2.
My guess is the latter if the game is in doubt based on Gibson effectively playing himself into this role over the past two years to the point they’ve continued adding players explicitly complimentary to his strengths in Robinson and now Rodriguez. But it’s a very slight lean.
We’ll check back after their bye week but Gibson is probably someone worth putting in your lineups given the upside. At worst, you have outs to dump offs in negative script as always.
Titans
Derrick Henry left the game late to be evaluated for a concussion but has apparently not been placed in protocol. As you were.
Eagles
D’Andre Swift was injured on the third-to-last play, though the game was well out-of-reach. Nothing has been reported on this yet which I’d say makes you think it’s not serious but given the Jonathan Taylor situation last week, you can’t be too sure. Hopefully he is ok. I’ll note he had his lowest snap share in this game since Week 1 but that’s more of an inevitable result from extreme negative game script we just hadn’t seen from this team yet. I wouldn’t expect to see it often going forward either.
If Swift misses, Gainwell is clearly the preferred add, but he already failed his early-season audition to be the lead back so it’s not a lock he just walks into a workhorse role now. My guess is he plays every passing situation, and splits evenly with Rashaad Penny, Boston Scott or a combination of both, pending a “hot hand” emerging.
Yes, I’m lighting the Penny candle… very very dimly.. OK?
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