Tale of the Tape: Peyton Manning and Kerwynn Williams
Sunday of Week 14 in the NFL provided us with several reminders that there is no such thing as a “safe” play in fantasy football. Some of the week’s most obvious plays were total busts, and some of the league’s most consistent players fell short of their usual production by quite a large margin.
Theoretically, we could expected off days from Drew Brees and Jimmy Graham, because the duo have had their fair share of isses so far this season. But no one expected such a poor showing from Peyton Manning, so let’s take a look at what went wrong for the veteran quarterback.
What Went Wrong for Peyton?
Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills was one of the worst in Peyton Manning’s Hall of Fame career, as the Broncos quarterback threw for only 173 yards and no touchdowns with two interceptions. It was one of the 10 worst fantasy point per attempt outputs of his career, which includes games at the end of seasons during his days in Indianapolis, during which he would come out, play a quarter or two, hand the ball off, and leave to prepare for the postseason.
The Broncos have certainly not wrapped up a playoff berth, so there was no reason for Peyton to coast in this game. But some early-game struggles for the 38-year-old quarterback may have changed his confidence in his arm for this particular contest, and led to a more run-heavy approach.
On Manning’s first drive of the game, he overthrew a wide-open Demaryius Thomas streaking down the sideline on third down. It was a tough throw to make, but one that we’ve come to expect from Manning. The Broncos would hit on a deep throw to Wes Welker on the next drive, and then punch the ball in for a score from C.J. Anderson, leaving Manning’s involvement pretty limited through the first quarter.
The Broncos next possession was ended abruptly on the first play from scrimmage, as Manning bit off a bit more than he could chew with this deep throw to Emmanuel Sanders.
Sanders has inside position on Corey Graham, and that means he has a step on his defender to any pass thrown far enough inside or up the field to keep his body between the defender and the final destination for the ball.
But as Sanders gets up the field and looks back for the pass, he’s forced to stop, as the throw comes up short and won’t lead him downfield despite his advantage on the defender.
Graham would snag the interception, and the Bills would take over.
This throw was almost 50 yards in the air, something Manning probably felt confident with a few years ago, but a distance too far for his aging arm and surgically-repaired neck to handle at age 38.
Manning and the offensive coaches for Denver were taken back by the turnover, and it showed on the next drive. The Broncos ran the ball on the first five plays, then had a pass play negated by penalty, ran the ball on the next two plays, threw a pass, and ran twice more for a score. Officially, the drive went in the books as a 10-play drive with nine rushing plays.
Manning would still throw the ball as the game went on, but it wasn’t always pretty. Here’s another throw to Sanders, a bit shorter this time, but still off the mark from Manning.
Sanders gets good inside release on this play, but that’s partially because the corner knows he has safety help behind.
Here’s the first moment when Sanders looks back for the ball, and also likely the first time he sees the safety closing in on him as he cuts toward the post.
Sanders had already been hit quite hard in this game, and for a player dealing with a recent head injury, his natural defensive reaction to situations where he’s likely to get hit hard and possibly concussed will show in the way he plays. Having a quarterback throw a high pass over the middle with a safety closing in isn’t the ideal spot for Manny Sanders at the moment, but that’s where this pass wound up.
Simply put, even if you believe Sanders had any chance at the ball and simply “alligator armed” it (which I don’t believe is the case), it was a poor throw by Manning.
But it wasn’t nearly as bad as this throw to Thomas later in the game.
The Georgia Tech product is going to try to run a double-move to get up the sideline for the same route Manning missed on very early in the game. This is a route Manning and Thomas have connected on quite a few times in the past, so it’s no surprise that they’d go back to this well again.
But the Buffalo defender isn’t fooled by the stutter step, and flips his hips as Thomas accelerates upfield and is in perfect position to defend the sideline throw.
The throw is too deep for Thomas, anyways (similar to Manning’s first throw of this sort in this game), and it winds up as Manning’s second interception.
The Broncos were up 21-3 at the time of this interception, and that was enough for the Denver offense to decide to shut it down for the day and run their way to victory. Manning would throw three more passes on the team’s next drive, and then two in the entire fourth quarter as the Bills held onto the ball in an attempt to come back for the win.
That led to a total of 20 attempts for Manning, his lowest output of the season and the second-fewest in his career in a game during which he wasn’t subbed out for a backup.
The Broncos as a team only ran 49 plays, a surprisingly low number for an offense that has thrown 49 or more passes three times this season. The Bills won the time of possession battle, and the focus on the run game from Denver made the game pass by much quicker.
So does this poor game mean we should fade Peyton Manning from here on out? Hardly. Nothing happened over the past two weeks to turn a four-touchdown quarterback at home against Miami into a zero-touchdown quarterback at home against Buffalo.
But when we consider this game, along with Drew Brees’ recent struggles, Aaron Rodgers’ 10-point clunker to start the season, and Andrew Luck’s 15-point letdown against Jacksonville, we see that there’s no such thing as a sure-thing in daily fantasy football at the QB position. We’ve reached a point in the season at which we have all the data and tape we could ask for, but sometimes, things just don’t work out for fantasy players when they pay up for top quarterbacks.
Manning and the Broncos travel to the Chargers next week, giving the veteran quarterback a warmer climate, but pitting him against a defense that played pretty well against Tom Brady in Week 14, and that embarrassed Derek Carr and Shaun Hill in Weeks 11 and 12. He’ll make for a nice contrarian play in a neutral matchup after a horrible Week 14 performance, but don’t invest too heavily in Manning, especially with the Denver running game playing as well as it has.
Quick Thoughts on the Cardinals Quick Running Back, Kerwynn Williams
Stepfan Taylor was named the starting running back for the Cardinals this week after Andre Ellington was ruled out due to injury, while Marion Grice was a name many fantasy players were keeping an eye on after he played well in his short cameo with Ellington out.
But it was Kerwynn Williams who saw the bulk of the work for the Cardinals in a crucial Week 14 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, rushing 19 times for 100 yards in his first work as a running back in his NFL career. Williams was a 2013 seventh-round pick of the Colts, and he only played on special teams for Indianapolis before eventually making his way to the Cardinals this season.
During his college career he was a dual-threat back for Utah State, catching 45 passes during his senior season while also showing nice production as a runner. He’s small, light, and not very strong, but did post a respectable 40-time at the Combine to prove that he’s not slow, but definitely not an elite speedster either.
On Sunday, he showed that he’s quick enough to get around NFL defenders, and more importantly, he showed the vision to run between the tackles for an offense that is going to lean on the run game with a below-average quarterback under center in Drew Stanton.
The Cardinals are running an outside zone run on this play, and Williams reads his blockers perfectly. As I’ve discussed in these columns before, backs are supposed to read the helmets of their linemen to determine their cuts in a zone blocking scheme.
You can see that Williams is right to cut to the inside, as the outside defender for Kansas City has outside leverage on his blocker, and the defensive tackle is also leaning outside, giving Williams a nice lane right up the middle.
He showed great quickness through this opening in the defense and shed a tackle to fall forward for a nice gain.
Williams showed good vision on power blocking scheme runs as well, weaving through blockers and seeing holes before they develop to pick up chunks of yards.
The diminutive back also showed some nice strength on an off-tackle run that reminded me of a much stronger 5-foot-8-inch running back, Bobby Rainey.
Williams put his hand right on the face of Justin Houston, a top-tier edge player for Kansas City, and dropped him to the ground as he ran past.
He would then shake off another tackle to fall forward and pick up a few extra yards at the end of the play, a habit nearly every good running back has. Falling forward can often result in 1-2 extra yards per play, and is a sign of good balance and constant leg drive and effort as a runner.
Fantasy players shouldn’t expect stiff arms and truck-stick-tackle-breaking moves from Williams every week, but his ability between the tackles against a respectable defense does bode well for his future production if he’s given the volume in this backfield of unspectacular options for the Cardinals. We’ll need to wait and see if Williams takes first team reps in practice, or if his coaches clue us in on his role, but he’s certainly worth keeping an eye on despite three tough matchups for the Cardinals to end the season (at St. Louis, home versus Seattle, at San Francisco).