Five Burning Questions
This week’s Five Burning Questions is brought to you by the letters J and H, which are Jim Henson’s initials. In case you missed it, Henson’s most important project, Sesame Street turned 45-years-old this past Monday. As a kid who grew up on a farm in South Dakota with only four channels to choose from and a mother who largely objected to non-educational cartoons, Sesame Street was a big part of my childhood. Without sounding too pretentious (PBS watchers love to tell you they watch PBS), I have no doubt watching shows like Sesame Street, Mr. Rodgers and Captain Kangaroo played a big part in shaping the weird, creative mind belching out the words you are reading now.
With that in mind, our theme this week is brought to you by the letter F, for Forced Sesame Street jokes and references.
1.) Can Jay Cutler be the Bert to Marc Trestman’s Ernie, or are they headed for divorce?
Last week in this space I said I thought the Bears would be fine from a fantasy perspective. Oops. Cutler posted a season-low completion percentage, with Matt Forte, Alshon Jeffery and Martellus Bennett all failing to top a 50% catch rate on their way to an embarrassing defeat.
As ever, the focus in on Jay, whose play dictates whether the Bears are elite fantasy producers or week-losing disappointments. I’ve long wondered how much Jay enjoys football. His body language and laissez-faire attitude are what you’d expect from somebody who doesn’t really like being wherever they are. A lot of people probably have a hard time comprehending how you couldn’t love the NFL, but to the players it is a job and sometimes people end up being good at things they dislike. If that thing could make you crazy wealthy, you’d probably find a way to force yourself to do it. If you already don’t like doing something, when that thing goes to hell, you like it even less. I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t what we are witnessing.
It wasn’t long ago I had Cutler in my top-10 dynasty quarterbacks under the guise he’d continue to put up stats under Trestman. But with their football relationship on tenuous ground, I’ve dropped him precipitously. Even if Trestman gets another season at the helm, this time next year we could be looking at two guys who are mere months from being out of work.
[am4show have=’g1;’ guest_error=’sub_message’ user_error=’sub_message’ ]
2.) What player makes you act like Oscar the Grouch?
Bernard Pierce, Ben Tate and Cam Newton are all candidates, but Michael Floyd takes the title for me. Our good friend Jacob Feldman covered the struggling Cardinal in great detail earlier this week, so I’ll point you there for a more detailed take. My thoughts boil down to two simple things: 1.) He needs to play better; 2.) They need to deploy him more intelligently.
As Jacob points out in the piece I linked above, with Larry Fitzgerald playing a ton of snaps out of the slot, Floyd is left on an island versus opposing defense’s number one corner. At this point he hasn’t risen to that challenge. Part of this falls on his shoulders, but much of it can be blamed on Bruce Arians’ usage of the youngster.
When looking at average depth of target, or aDOT*, we see Floyd ranks fifth in the NFL at 18.8 yards. Nearly every player above 17 yards on this metric is deployed strictly as a deep threat (we are talking Robert Meachem, Travis Benjamin, Brandon Lloyd territory). Whether an elite talent who caught a solid 58% of his targets last year (a number in the same neighborhood as Dez Bryant, Alshon Jeffery and Rob Gronkowski) should be used in such a role is highly debatable.
I’m not bailing on Floyd entirely, but until we see him actually do something I’ve dropped him from my top-10 to 16th.
*aDOT is a Pro Football Focus tracked metric that shows an average of how many yards from the line of scrimmage a player is when targeted
3.) What should we expect from Josh Gordon next week?
I don’t see why he wouldn’t become an immediate WR1. Quarterback Brian Hoyer has been adequate and certainly was not at all harmful to Gordon’s value last year. If you look to offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, he has a strong history of flooding his X receiver with targets.
The bigger question is whether or not Gordon can keep himself out of trouble. While nobody has the answer to this, this is the way I am treating it: pretend whoever your current topped ranked WR is has a concussion history and one or maybe two away from retiring. Wherever you’d put that player is where you should rank Gordon. For me, it is 12th.
4.) Who is your sneaky DFS play this week?
Benny Cunningham.
Since Tre Mason took over as starter, Cunningham has been St. Louis’ passing game back and main guy around the goal line. In a game where the Rams will have to throw early and often, his paltry price of $5400 on FanDuel offers great value. If you play DFS on a site with full PPR scoring, he could be that much better.
5.) Who would win in a cage fight between Big Bird and Snuffleupagus?
Despite short arms that aren’t really arms at all, Big Bird would definitely have the advantage on the feet. He (she?) has long legs and could keep Snuffy at kicking range, wearing him down with leg strikes to the body and snout before trying to go high with a fight ending head kick. Also, Snuffleupagus has no hands/arms.
Where Snuffy would excel is at close range. He could use his trunk to stifle the bird’s movement and pin him up against the cage. Because Big Bird’s arms are wings, I wouldn’t expect his dirty boxing to be effective, further helping the wooly mammoth win the up-close battle.
Once he closes the range, Snuffy could use his trunk to wrap up Big Bird’s legs, taking him to the mat, where he could work ground and pound or use his fifth appendage to sink in a fight ending choke.
Ultimately, the battle would come down to Snuffy’s more varied skill set, immense weight advantage and the brittle nature of Big Bird’s hallow bones. I’ll take him in a TKO by crushing (literally) late in round two.
[/am4show]
- How to Win Without Watching Football - July 22, 2021
- 2018 Summer Sleeper: Chicago Bears - July 9, 2018
- NFL Draft Aftermath: Winners and Losers from the AFC North - June 18, 2018
