Week 12, In Which We Have It Pretty Darn Good
Nearly nine thousand people died.
Over twenty thousand people were injured.
The devastation was enormous. Five months later, bricks still lay heaped in the streets. People across the city were volunteering daily in the clean-up efforts. Entire buildings were held up by wooden beams. Temples were half destroyed. Lives had been changed forever.
This was Nepal, 2015. And my wife and I were staying at an AirBnB in Patan Durbar Square, in Kathmandu Valley, not far from where the epicenter of the earthquake had been.
On our first day in the city, we sat down and chatted for a while with the brothers who owned the building in which we were staying. Before long, the topic of the earthquake came up.
I asked them what things had been like since the earthquake hit. I asked them how much Patan Durbar Square had been affected, and how much had changed.
“We didn’t get hit as bad as we could have,” one of the brothers told us. “We were fortunate. The people in the mountains got hit worse than us.”
“Really?”
“Yes. The countryside was in pieces. It was awful. We’ve been going out to help them clean up and rebuild three or four days each week.”
Later that evening, my wife and I ate dinner at a rooftop cafe that overlooked the square and the sprawling city around it. “Didn’t you say that this area got hit the worst?” I asked her.
“That’s what I read,” she said. “I read that Patan Durbar Square was hit harder than anywhere else. I guess whatever I read must have been wrong.”
A few days later, an old man from the countryside was driving us down a (death-defying) mountain road. When the conversation turned to the earthquake, I asked what things had been like in the mountains since the earthquake hit.
“We didn’t get hit as bad as we could have,” he told us. “We were fortunate. The people in the city got hit worse than us.”
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Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday. The concept is great, sure – and don’t get me wrong, it’s one of my favorite days of the year. But it’s just…The historical scope of the whole thing is strange, right?
The origin was, of course, the Pilgrims feasting with the Native Americans to give thanks for their first harvest in the New World. Without the help of Massasoit – the sachem (chief) of the local Wampanoag tribe – the Pilgrims would probably never have survived.
My parents live in Plymouth, Massachusetts (that’s where the first Thanksgiving occurred, for those of you who failed to pay attention in second grade). Down by the waterfront, there’s a statue of Massasoit, to honor the help he gave to the Pilgrims. History gets a bit complicated after that…
But I guess that’s a story for another day.
For now, I want to talk about a staple of Thanksgiving that seems to be about as permanent as turkey:
“Let’s all go around the table and say what we’re thankful for.”
Yeah. I’ve never been big on this part of the day. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like being told what to do. Or maybe it just seems a bit forced. But last year – as I sat down for Thanksgiving dinner in Plymouth, Massachusetts – I could not stop thinking about those six weeks in Asia.
I thought about the woman in India who was holding a baby and begging for money, and who looked as thin as a skeleton. I thought about the families in Thailand that put a mom, a dad, and three or four children on a single Moped as they cruised around the city. I thought about the rubble in Nepal – the temples half-destroyed, the buildings an aftershock away from crumbling, and the nine thousand people who died. I thought about the brothers in the city who had told us the people in the mountains had gotten hit worse, and the man from the mountains who told us the city had been hit the hardest. I thought about how much I truly had to be thankful for, and how easy it is to take our lives for granted.
We live in a capitalism-driven part of the world. This culture is built on the idea that, “If you have a goal, you can achieve it. If you want something badly enough, you can make it yours.” With this way of thinking, however, also comes a side-effect outlook that goes something like, “Whatever you have, or whatever you have accomplished, is not enough.” If you make $30,000 a year, you look at someone making $50,000 a year and can think, “How can I reach that level?” – and you can then take steps to make that goal your reality. If you make $50,000 a year, you can look at someone who makes $100,000 a year and think the same thing. And if you make $100,000 a year, you can look at someone making $1 million a year, and you can think, “How can I reach that place?”
The crazy thing? – the people who make $1 million each year are also looking at the people who make more than them, and are trying to figure out how to reach that level. And that’s fine, if that’s what drives you; in fact, that’s great, as we should all have something about which we are passionate, something that truly drives us. But with all of this, it’s easy to overlook how fortunate we are.
It’s easy to overlook the fact that by simply having been born in this country – regardless of your social status or your advantages or disadvantages – you are already better off than a massive majority of people living in other parts of the world.
This Sunday, you have the awesome privilege of being able to potentially make money off of fantasy football. You have the awesome privilege of being able to care more about whether or not Tom Brady will throw a third touchdown pass than about where your next meal will come from. This weekend, you live in America or Canada (and if you live in Canada, I apologize for laying things on thick with our American holiday; for what it’s worth, my family has close friends who are Canadian, and we grew up celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving with them – so hopefully you can forgive me for pretending like stories about Pilgrims and turkeys are remotely relevant to you…), and even if you don’t have it “great” – even if you don’t have it “as good as you would like” – you still have it pretty darn good.
Hopefully you had an awesome Thanksgiving day. Hopefully you are keeping your life in perspective, and are aware of just how crazy-much you have to be thankful for.
And hopefully, you have a bit more to be thankful for when this weekend is all said and done.
On that note, let’s dive into some of the guys who are standing out to me on this week’s slate!
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QUARTERBACK
Lately, in this article, I have tied myself into the idea that I have to mention a certain number of players. But hey, I set the rules in this space of mine – so why should I lock myself into mentioning players I do not truly love?
As such, there are only two quarterbacks I am really excited about this week – and those are the only two guys I will spend time talking about.
The first quarterback is the man with the handsome face and the beautiful wife and the four Super Bowl rings: Mr. Tom Brady. Most people probably do not realize at this point in the season that the Patriots rank 30th in passing play percentage (as in: only two teams in the league pass the ball less frequently than the Pats) – and before you point out that Brady missed four games, I’ll mention that this approach has continued even since Brady returned. But the Patriots under Josh McDaniels have a long history of attacking in whatever manner makes the most sense in the matchup at hand. And the “way that makes the most sense” against the Jets is through the air. While the Jets are the number two run defense in the NFL (by both Football Outsiders’ DVOA and yards allowed per carry), they rank 30th in DVOA against the pass and 22nd in yards allowed per pass attempt. With this in mind, I expect Brady to be called on to throw, and throw, and throw some more. We should easily see 45 or more attempts from Brady in this game – and at that kind of usage, he can absolutely beast.
The other guy who is standing out to me quite a bit at the moment is Russell Wilson, who finally looks like the healthy version of himself that we have all been missing through the first couple months of the season. This is less about the matchup than it is about the simple fact that “healthy Russ” is a great play just about any time you can grab him – but the matchup here is pretty darn good as well. Tampa Bay ranks 18th in pass defense DVOA and 31st in yards allowed per pass attempt, making this a strong spot for Russ to post yet another big game. Helping his case is the fact that the Bucs run an up-tempo offense, and while they are one of the few teams in the NFL that actually manages to turn an up-tempo offense into what it’s meant to be (more plays for them, while still preventing opponents from running a ton of plays), the Bucs should have a tougher time than normal sustaining drives this week, given their matchup against the Seahawks’ D, which should lead to a few more plays than normal for the Seahawks’ offense.
Because of travel and time spent with family, I am a bit behind at this point in the week on my roster construction, so there is a slim chance I will find myself on a different quarterback on Sunday (the other guys standing out to me, in particular, are Derek Carr and Marcus Mariota), but at this point, I fully expect myself to land on one of the two guys explored above, and to ride them to a “thankful weekend.”
RUNNING BACKS
In the NFL Edge this week, I strongly encouraged readers to find a way to fit both Le’Veon Bell and Ezekiel Elliott on their Thursday-only rosters. With both of those guys cleared out of the way, however, there is only one guy remaining on the Sunday slate who lines up as a similarly “lock-level” play. That guy is David Johnson.
The Falcons’ pass defense gets a lot of attention in the fantasy community, as teams are able to rack up yards and touchdowns through the air against Atlanta. Most people do not pause to evaluate the overall situation against Atlanta, however, to recognize that the real reason Atlanta’s pass defense numbers look so poor from a fantasy perspective is because most teams are forced to pass to keep up. I’m not trying to argue that the Falcons are an elite pass defense (they’re absolutely not!), but they do rank 22nd in pass defense DVOA and 14th in yards allowed per pass attempt. In truth, the best way to attack the Falcons is on the ground, as this not only keeps the Falcons’ offense off the field, but this defense ranks 28th in run defense DVOA and 19th in yards allowed per carry. Having said all that, it is also worth noting that Bruce Arians is extraordinarily hard-headed, and he will run his pass-heavy scheme regardless (which cost Arians his job back in Pittsburgh, and nearly cost the Cardinals a game against the 49ers, as David Johnson is awesome and Carson Palmer can no longer be labeled the same way, yet Arians chose to pass, and pass, and pass). So I don’t expect DJ to get the excessive ground work he should this week, but he should have no problem racking up yards when he does receive carries, and he’ll be heavily involved in the pass game once more from this older, weaker-armed version of Carson Palmer. Johnson has the highest ceiling of any running back on this slate, and I expect him to come close to that ceiling when it’s all said and done.
While there are some other high-end guys I also like (DeMarco Murray in a game the Titans should control against Matt Barkley and the Bears, Jay Ajayi against the putrid 49ers run defense, Melvin Gordon racking up tons of touches against a beatable Houston run defense…etc.), I want to use the rest of this space to focus on three guys who are bunched together in price on both DraftKings and FanDuel:
Thomas Rawls
Todd Gurley
Rashad Jennings
On both sites, that’s the order in which I rank these guys from a point-per-dollar perspective (though you could easily bump any guy to the top on either site – and this is especially true of Rashad on FanDuel, where his price gives you some notable savings on the other two options).
Let’s start with Rawls:
I expect Rawls to be heavily involved in all facets of the game this week, with C.J. Prosise out and Christine Michael no longer on the team. The Buccaneers rank 20th in DVOA against the run, they rank 22nd in yards allowed per carry, they rank 27th in DVOA at covering running backs out of the backfield…and perhaps just as importantly, the Bucs rank fifth in DVOA at covering tight ends, which should filter a couple targets away from Jimmy Graham and toward Rawls. He has a high likelihood of a touchdown in this spot, and the yardage should be there as well.
Gurley continues to be a conundrum, as a supremely talented running back on a team with a poor offensive line and poor play calling and poor quarterback play. Unbeknownst to many, the Saints now rank 16th in DVOA against the run and 10th in yards allowed per carry. I’m sure plenty of people are talking this week about what a great matchup this is for Gurley, and how bad the Saints’ run defense is. Realize that this is not completely true. But I do expect the Saints to score points this week, and I do expect the Rams to get a bit more aggressive with Jared Goff. Each of these things will A) open more lanes in the run game for Gurley, and B) create opportunities for Gurley to rack up points in the pass game as well. Gurley’s ceiling is a bit lower than Rawls’ ceiling, but the usage and talent give him a high floor, and the fact that the Rams will likely be playing catch-up raises his ceiling to “strongly in play” as well.
Rashad Jennings is an interesting case, as he’s a volatile play that is highly likely to draw heavy ownership. Typically “volatile and high ownership” means – from a game theory perspective – that you should fade the guy in tournaments. But the volatility in this case comes from two things: 1) The Giants have not made a firm commitment to a one-RB approach at any point since Ben McAdoo took over this offense, so it’s a bit optimistic to assume that a couple high-usage games from Rashad guarantee he’ll see 20+ touches again; and 2) Rashad Jennings is just not all that good these days. With that said, the Giants have been winning while giving Rashad the ball, so there is a strong chance this keeps up; and the Browns’ run defense is bad enough (30th in both DVOA and yards allowed per carry) that “talent” matters far less in this spot. Jennings has a floor this week of 14 touches and six or seven fantasy points…but he has a ceiling of 25 touches and probably around 30 fantasy points. Know the risks – but also, know the potential reward.
PASS CATCHERS
I hate the wide receiver and tight end positions this week.
Any week I find myself feeling that way, I start digging in and uncovering things I missed on the surface. This week, I’ve been digging in, and so far, I’ve still found very little.
But you know what? This also makes sense. After all, this is one of those weird weeks in which most of the matchups should yield lower-scoring games; as of Friday morning, there are only four games with an over/under above 46 points (and two of those are pegged at only 46.5).
One of those games at 46.5 gives us a strong San Diego passing offense against a solid Houston pass defense that ranks 11th in DVOA against the pass and eighth in yards allowed per pass attempt. On the other side of this game, we have a poor quarterback in Brock Osweiler, taking on a Chargers pass defense that ranks ninth in DVOA. You could force in DeAndre Hopkins in tourneys as a low-owned, high-upside play, and you could certainly make a case for C.J. Fiedorowicz or Tyrell Williams in this game, given usage. But there’s nothing here to jump up and celebrate.
The next game at 46.5 is the Patriots and Jets, and while Julian Edelman is a strong play (one of my favorites on the weekend, in fact – especially if Rob Gronkowski misses again), his touchdown equity is low, and the guys on the Patriots who do have a better shot at grabbing a receiving touchdown have a lower yardage ceiling.
Then we have the two “high-scoring” games. We’ll start with the game in Atlanta that we touched on above: Cardinals at Falcons. Desmond Trufant should move into the slot to cover Larry Fitzgerald (who is basically the same receiver as Edelman these days in terms of role…with a higher touchdown share in general, but with a tougher matchup this week), and while this should theoretically filter targets toward the outside, what makes us think Carson Palmer can consistently make the outside throws he needs to make? And even if he can, what makes us think we have any idea which of J.J. Nelson, John Brown, or Michael Floyd would benefit this week? As for the Falcons: Julio Jones should still post a strong game this week – but in a matchup with Patrick Peterson, he’ll have a tremendously difficult time actually justifying his price tag. And the work going toward Julio lowers the upside of all the other components on this side of the ball.
Finally, we have the game in Oakland that it seems some people are excited about, but I’m just not seeing the Amari Cooper excitement the way others are. Carolina has now improved to 19th in pass defense DVOA, in spite of ranking as low as 31st at one point earlier in the season. This is still a “fine” matchup, but it’s not remotely an elite matchup. Considering our RotoGrinders ownership projections currently have Amari projected at 30% or higher on both FanDuel and DraftKings, it would take something more than a “fine” matchup for me to be excited about pulling the trigger on a play. On the other side, I actually like Ted Ginn as a guy who should see six or more targets and matches up really well with the bigger corners in the Oakland secondary, but it’s always a risk to roster Ginn; and while I certainly like Kelvin Benjamin and Greg Olsen, I’m not racing out of my way to make sure either guy is on my roster.
“So…thanks for all that, JM. That’s really no help at all.”
Fair. But I actually brought all that up to reach an important point that I feel is very much worth making on a week such as this:
Don’t force “ideas” into your lineup.
A lot of times, we get it stuck in our heads that there are certain ways you have to construct a roster. But this is not at all the case. Each week, the optimal approach is going to be different; and this week, the “optimal approach,” in my mind, may very well be paying up at running back and quarterback and taking some savings at wide receiver and tight end.
If you want to use Odell Beckham in a sweet matchup in Cleveland, or if you want to use Amari Cooper in what is projected to be a high-scoring game in Oakland, or if you want to load up on some mid-range guys like Doug Baldwin and Greg Olsen and Julian Edelman, I certainly won’t argue against that approach. Heck, I like all those guys, and I’ll probably be on one or two of them myself.
But also, realize that Tyler Boyd is going to see eight or more looks this week with A.J. Green and Giovani Bernard out – in a great matchup against Jerraud Powers in the slot. Realize that Tajae Sharpe is seeing a full compliment of snaps on the Titans, and Marqise Lee is not far behind Allen Robinson in target distribution for the Jags, and Brandon LaFell is likely to get some red zone work this week with Green out and Tyler Eifert taking on the toughest tight end matchup in football. Realize that Kenny Britt will see valuable looks with the Rams sure to fall behind. Realize that you don’t have to have one of the “big names” on your team in order to have a big weekend.
Each week, my approach is a bit different from the weeks before. This week, I am making sure I get the quarterback I like, and the running backs I like, and the defense I like…and I am figuring out wide receiver and tight end after that. Things are more straightforward for me in those other spots this week, so this approach will prevent me from forcing in a wide receiver or tight end I “really want to play,” to the detriment of other areas on my roster.
I encourage you to do the same.
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I also encourage you to be thankful, regardless of how this weekend turns out. After all, we have it pretty darn good.
Thanks for hanging out, friends. I’ll see you back here next week – and I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!