The 3M Report: Week Ten

Welcome to the week ten 3M report; a look back on all the magic, mayhem, and mishaps that happened in the weekend games. Before we get into it, I want to thank Mo Brewington once again for covering the week nine report. Thanks, Mo!

Week ten began with a whimper in Baltimore Thursday night. The Ravens have put together two consecutive wins now after dropping four in a row and falling back to the pack in the AFC North. Despite leading by one point at halftime, Browns head coach Hue Jackson made a quarterback change. Rookie Cody Kessler was replaced with veteran Josh McCown to start the second half. How do you think that went? If you guessed two interceptions and a lost fumble when McCown was stomped by Terrell Suggs then you win the prize. One takeaway from this game is that Baltimore gave their young offensive players opportunities to make plays today. Both Breshad Perriman and Kenneth Dixon were heavily involved today. Perriman led the team in receiving yards and was the recipient of a 27-yard touchdown pass from Joe Flacco. Dixon was used heavily in the passing game, tying Steve Smith for the most targets with seven on the day.

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If I wasn’t writing this column Sunday morning, I may have turned my TV off and completely ignored football today. Watching my Packers fall behind 21-0 to the freaking Tennessee Titans had me screaming at the TV earlier than usual and left my wife wondering if she had married a man who had kept his Tourette’s syndrome a secret from her for the last eleven years. Things started off swimmingly. The Titans attempted an opening on-side kickoff which the Packers recovered. What did they do with their excellent field position on the first drive of the game? Three and out. Following the punt, Demarco Murray broke off a 75-yard touchdown run on his first carry of the game. On the next drive, Murray threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Delanie Walker. Kill me. Please. They lost the game 47-25 but Aaron Rodgers, Jordy Nelson, and Davante Adams all put up big fantasy numbers, so at least there’s that.

You know that gunk you scrape out from your toenails when you remember to cut them once every six weeks or so? I call it toe cheese. That’s what the Texans at Jaguars game was. Toe cheese. Blake Bortles? Toe cheese. Brock Osweiler? Toe cheese. I’m not sure which of Bortles’ interceptions was more comical. Do you go with his pick-six early in the first quarter where he tried really, really hard to stop Kareem Jackson from getting into the end zone? If so, perhaps you missed his attempt to ground the ball in the second quarter that instead of ending the play, bounced off T.J Yeldon’s foot and ended up in the hands of Whitney Mercilus. The only good news to come out of this game is that Allen Robinson showed up in garbage time and prompted his dynasty owners to slowly back away from the ledge.

If Texans at Jaguars is toe cheese then the battle of Case Keenum and Bryce Petty is fermented toe cheese ready to be juiced and turned into toe cheese wine. In this thrilling game, fans were forced to watch Jeff Fisher not give Todd Gurley a single touch on the goal line when the Rams got there in the first quarter. Jeff Fisher likes to make things hard on himself. Instead of an easy one-yard touchdown plunge for Gurley, Fisher thought it would be better to hand off to Benny Cunningham on first down who fumbled. Fortunately, the Rams recovered at the two-yard line. Well, ol’ Fish ‘stache certainly can’t run it in from two yards. That is much too far for him. A much better option was clearly to have Keenum throw two incompletions and then kick the 20-yard field goal. Bilal Powell had a surprise 21.9 PPR points, catching seven passes and getting into the end zone, otherwise, we got nothing from any Jets player for fantasy.

In another really terrible football game, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers got a home win against the Jay Cutler-led Chicago Bears. I don’t know why but I was weirdly optimistic about the Bears offensive output this week. I had visions of Alshon Jeffery finally having one of those signature seven catch, 150 yard, two touchdown Alshon games as he skied over rookie cornerback Vernon Hargreaves. Yea that didn’t happen. The only touchdown Cutler could muster was a hail mary to Cam Meredith on the final play of the first half. I still don’t know if Jameis Winston is actually #good but he and Mike Evans are awfully fun to watch. On one play, in particular, Winston ran around extending the play for more than 10 seconds and hit Evans on a 39-yard completion in the middle of the field. On the very next play, Winston found Freddie Martino (no, that’s not a made up name) for a 43-yard touchdown strike that put them up 24-10 in the third quarter. The Bucs put twelve more points on the board in a 36-10 route.

After getting beat down 17-3, the Chiefs rallied and put 17 points of their own on the board in the fourth quarter to get a road win against Carolina whose season is now in jeopardy at 3-6. This was a huge win for Kansas City as it keeps them tied with Oakland at 7-2 for the NFC West division lead. Tyreek Hill continues to put up nice fantasy numbers. He caught ten passes for 89 yards in this one and had a rushing attempt for another 12 yards. Cam made his owners happy with a big day on the ground including a rushing touchdown. Kelvin Benjamin was ok today with seven catches for 84 yards, but his fumble with 20 seconds left on the clock ultimately cost his team a key victory.

The mighty Atlanta Falcons offense was largely held in check today in Philadelphia by the Eagles defense. Julio Jones was a target monster, catching ten of 16 targets for 135 yards. Taylor Gabriel caught a 76-yard touchdown from Matt Ryan to put the Falcons up 15-13 in the fourth quarter but the Eagles got a second touchdown and a two-point conversion from Ryan Mathews to make it 21-15. After so much ballyhoo about Darren Sproles taking over the lead back role, Mathews carried the Eagles today with 19 carries for 109 yards and two touchdowns on the ground to go with a couple of catches for 30 yards. Mathews is such a great running back when fully healthy. It’s a rare occurrence and something the Eagles’ rookie quarterback Carson Wentz desperately need to be successful on offense.

Stefon Diggs is really fun to watch. After not registering a single target in the first quarter, Sam Bradford hit him six times for 102 yards in the second quarter. Minnesota scored 20 in the second including an Adam Thielen touchdown with three seconds on the clock when most teams would have opted for the easy field goal. Those were the last points Minnesota would score as Washington shut them down for the rest of the game, handing the Vikings their fourth consecutive loss after starting the season 5-0. For Washington, it was the Rob Kelly and Pierre Garcon show. In relief of the injured Matt Jones, Kelly totaled nearly 95 yards from scrimmage. With Eric Kendricks sidelined most of the game with a hip injury, it was surprising to see Jordan Reed only see four targets in the game, but Vernon Davis made an impressive touchdown grab to exploit that matchup.

The best early game was Denver at New Orleans in a battle of the Saints offensive superiority in the Superdome against the dominant pass defense of the defending Super Bowl champions. Denver led by a touchdown at halftime but New Orleans made it a 17-10 game in the third quarter after two touchdown receptions from Willie Snead. Demaryius Thomas responded with an impressive touchdown of his own and the Broncos added a couple of field goals to make it 23-17 with under three minutes to go. Drew Brees moved them 75 yards down the field in six plays, culminating with an unbelievable touchdown catch by Brandin Cooks who had two Broncos defenders draped all over him and still managed to come down with the ball. Then, on the go-ahead extra point attempt, Justin Simmons leaped at just the right time to block the kick. Will Parks picked it up and ran it 84-yards for a defensive two-point conversion. Saints lose 25-23.

The Chargers have been a really fun watch at times this season. At other times they’ve been absolutely heartbreaking. In week ten the Dolphins handed them one of those heartbreaking endings despite the home field advantage. With 4:04 left in the game Philip Rivers connected with Tyrell Williams for a 51-yard touchdown putting San Diego up 24-21. Miami tied it with a field goal and Rivers got the ball back with just over a minute left in the game. After a first down pass to Melvin Gordon on the first play of the drive, Kiko Alonso stepped in front of Williams and took the interception 60 yards for the game-winning pick-six.

Philip Rivers threw for three touchdown passes in the game and moved up to eighth all-time with 301 career passing touchdowns, passing John Elway on the list. Rivers isn’t usually included in discussions about the great quarterbacks of his era, but he has been every bit as good as guys like Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, and Drew Brees.

Arizona held on to beat San Francisco 23-20 but it wasn’t the kind of performance we expected out of the Cardinals offense. David Johnson was held to just 55 yards on the ground against a Niners team allowing the most rushing yards in the league. Johnson made it up to fantasy owners as a receiver with five catches for 46 yards and a touchdown. Just when you thought you knew the pecking order of the Cardinal receivers not named Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd steps up and has a five catch 101-yard game. JJ Nelson was being talked up as the new number two, but he finished with just two catches for 29 yards after losing a fumble early in the game. Unless I can’t avoid it, I’m staying away from all of these guys except Fitzgerald for the rest of the season.

Colin Kaepernick had another strong fantasy day but it wasn’t quite enough to get the win. After the Patriots in week 11, Kaepernick has a favorable fantasy schedule against the Dolphins, Bears, Jets, and Falcons. If you are struggling at QB he is worth acquiring for weeks 12-15, but look for another option when he travels to Los Angeles in a week 16 game against the Rams.

The final afternoon game was the best game of the entire 2016 season through week ten. Dallas and Pittsburgh put up a combined 65 points, but it was the rookie duo of Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott who carried the Cowboys to the 35-30 road victory and an 8-1 record. Antonio Brown was magnificent as always with 14 catches for 154 yards and a touchdown. His touchdown came on a brilliant fake spike from Roethlisberger where Brown just ran by the defense to put the Steelers up 30-29. Unfortunately, it left Prescott and Eliott too much time on the clock. A huge facemask penalty on Ross Cockrell put the ball in field goal position, but Elliot decided to just run it the final 32 yards for the game-winning touchdown instead. Zeke finished with an incredible 209 total yards and three touchdowns. Dez Bryant was back again as well with a 116-yard game and a touchdown. If you didn’t have an opportunity to watch this game live I urge you to go back and find it on game pass. It was by far the most entertaining game I have watched this season.

Russell Wilson is back, ya’ll. He proved that with his performance in Foxboro Sunday night against a Patriots team that has looked unstoppable since the return of Tom Brady. Wilson’s 348 yard 3 touchdown performance is one his fantasy owners have been waiting for. Brady also passed for over 300 yards but was blanked in the touchdown column and threw an interception. The Patriots scoring came from their hammer, LeGarrette Blount, who ran for 69 yards and three touchdowns. With 4:24 left in the fourth quarter, Wilson hit Doug Baldwin for his third touchdown of the game to put the Seahawks up 31-24. Seattle left Brady too much time though and the Pats marched back down the field on a 30-yard completion to Julian Edelman and a 26-yard completion to Rob Gronkowski that took them down to the two-yard line. Brady was stuffed twice on quarterback sneaks, fumbling but recovering it himself once. Blount couldn’t get in either. It all came down to a fourth-down pass to Gronk who Kam Chancellor played tight coverage on and prevented the tight end from corralling the game-tying touchdown. Thomas Rawls should be back next week, but in addition to Christine Michael, he now will have competition from rookie CJ Prosise who had a breakout performance with 66 yards on the ground to go with seven catches for 87 yards.

That will do it for the week ten 3M report. Can you guys believe there are only three games left in the fantasy regular season? Me either. See you next week!

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