The 3M Report: Week 12
Welcome to the week 12 3M report; a look back on all the magic, mayhem, and mishaps from the weekend games. I hope everyone has recovered from the weekend festivities and are now one week closer to a fantasy championship. Let’s get into the penultimate week of the fantasy football regular season!
The least exciting game of Thanksgiving was the first. Anquan Boldin caught a short two-yard pass for the only Lions touchdown of the game and had a team-high seven catches for 69 yards. Minnesota answered late in the first quarter with a five-yard Matt Asiata touchdown plunge. For the next three quarters of play, it was a thrilling field goal battle between Matt Prater and Kai Forbath. Back and forth, field goal after field goal. I was on the edge of my seat. Finally, something else happened. Darius Slay faked deep coverage and then slipped in front of Sam Bradford’s pass to Adam Thielen. Slay took the interception 13 yards into Prater’s range and with zeros on the clock, the Detroit kicker put the game-winning 40-yard kick between the uprights.
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The NFC east is fun again! The second game of the day was a great one in Dallas against a surging Washington team led by Kirk Cousins, who in this one threw for 449 yards and three touchdowns in a losing effort as his team fell 31-26. The Dallas dynamic duo of Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott were dominant on the opening drive. The Cowboys rookies marched down the field on seven plays for 75 yards. Elliot accounted for 47 total yards and capped the drive with a four-yard touchdown run. After a few field goals, Terrance Williams showed up with a beautiful toe-tapping touchdown reception late in the second quarter and Washington countered with another field goal, making the score 17-6 Cowboys at halftime. The third quarter was relatively uneventful but that set up an epic fourth quarter. The two teams put up a combined 34 points in an action-packed final quarter that made the day for fantasy owners of Jordan Reed and DeSean Jackson. When the dust cleared, the Cowboys emerged victorious, completing the sweep of their division rivals. Jordan Reed suffered through what was later revealed to be a grade three AC joint separation, which generally includes multiple ligament tears. Reed played well through the injury, but as of this writing, it is unclear whether or not it will cause him to miss games.
The final Thanksgiving day game was set to be a great dessert after the Dallas and Washington main course, but a concussion in week 11 kept Andrew Luck sidelined. Instead, we were treated to Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Le’Veon Bell doing whatever they want to a depleted Colts defense. Scott Tolzien played better than expected but was simply overmatched. Asking him to outscore the three touchdowns from Brown and another one from Bell was simply too big a task. Tolzien did manage to make Donte Moncrief and Dwayne Allen fantasy relevant but TY Hilton disappointed three catches for 54 yards. Moncrief scored the only offensive touchdown of the day for the Colts after a fake punt 35-yard pass completion set Tolzien up inside the ten yard line. Two plays later he found Moncrief in the end zone. At the end of Thanksgiving night, I was thankful to start the week in several leagues with three touchdowns from Antonio Brown and to be facing that deficit zero times.
The Browns cut Taylor Gabriel before the start of the 2016 season and on Sunday he was the player of the game for the Falcons. Gabriel scored on receptions of 25 and 35 yards and finished the day with four for 75 and two touchdowns as he helped the falcons defeat the Cardinals 38-19. Think Cleveland could use a playmaker like Gabriel now? Sorry Browns fans, but I am glad I am not behind a team that constantly lets talent walk out the door.
Speaking of talented players, Julio Jones was held in check by Patrick Peterson today and caused Matt Ryan’s only interception of the day when he bobbled a pass that should have been caught. David Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald continue to be the entire offense for Arizona. Johnson led the team in rushing, receiving, and receiving targets. Fitzgerald caught all four of his targets but for only 53 yards. He was the victim of another helmet-to-helmet shot by Falcons rookie Keanu Neal who was just fined for a hit last week on Jordan Matthews. Neal said after that one that he “isn’t a dirty player.” I guess we’ll see.
He didn’t put up huge numbers, but Tyrod Taylor threw a touchdown and ran another one in, lifting the Bills over the Jaguars. His touchdown pass was to Justin Hunter who high-pointed the ball and ripped it out of the air for the score. LeSean McCoy continues to be a stud, ripping off a 75-yard rushing touchdown in this one. The most exciting news from this game for dynasty owners is that Sammy Watkins is back and making plays. He played limited snaps in his first game back since week two but caught three for 80 including a nice 62-yard reception. I’m excited by his remaining fantasy schedule and looking forward to using him down the stretch in some great matchups against the Raiders, Steelers, Browns, and Dolphins.
On the Jaguars side, there’s not a lot to get excited about. They did snap an NFL-record 25 game opening drive scoreless streak when Chris Ivory scored a touchdown from two yards out. Unfortunately for Ivory, he was out-rushed by quarterback Blake Bortles who finished with 81 to Ivory’s 44. The Jaguars fell to 2-9 and head coach Gus Bradley started thinking about what he is going to do with his life in 2017.
I told a buddy of mine this week that the Chargers are going to win out and make the playoffs. It seems like a ludicrous proposition but I really feel this team is much better than their record indicates. They started their run on Sunday with a 21-13 win on the road in Houston. Philip Rivers tossed touchdowns to Dontrelle Inman, Tyrell Williams, and Hunter Henry. Antonio Gates was curiously absent with a fantasy goose egg. I had almost zero tilt over this one. On one team where I was starting Coby Fleener every week I made a move to acquire Gates from a rebuilding team and put him right into my lineup expecting at least one score. Kill me.
Where do the Texans go from here with Brock Osweiler? He threw three more interceptions today to give him 12 touchdowns against 13 interceptions in his first 11 games as the Texans starter. If for some godforsaken reason you started him in fantasy, at least you got a rushing touchdown. DeAndre Hopkins owners are excited to get 12 points out of him in week 12. That’s how bad it’s been for Nuk owners in 2016. Maybe it’s Brock and the offense, maybe it’s the extra weight he added this off-season, or maybe it’s just that three coaching staffs in Miami were right about Lamar Miller’s ability to be productive with a heavy workload.
As someone who recently traded for Colin Kaepernick in a superflex league, I was pretty excited about his fantasy performance in week 12. Kaepernick’s performance didn’t get his team a win on the road in Miami but his 296 passing yards, three passing touchdowns and 113 rushing yards netted me 37.64 fantasy points and a win in Capitalist Pigs which is run by the incredible creator of the Scott Fish Bowl, @ScottFish24. Ndamukong Suh stopped Kaepernick on the two-yard line as time expired to save the Dolphins victory 31-24.
Ryan Tannehill also threw three touchdowns but none of them went to the likely candidates. If you guessed Dion Sims, Kenny Stills, or draft darling Leonte Carroo as the recipients of those touchdowns then you won the week but none of those guys were likely to be anywhere near a lineup in a week with no byes. Devante Parker did have a nice 46-yard reception he had to lay out for but finished with a disappointing three for 64 on the day.
If someone told me the Rams scored 21 points I would first call them a liar, but then I would guess that Todd Gurley had at least two touchdowns. I would have been wrong. Gurley accounted for just 50 rushing yards and 39 receiving yards on four catches. It was actually rookie quarterback Jared Goff who in his second career start accounted for three passing touchdowns to Kenny Britt, Tavon Austin, and Lance Kendricks. As good as Goff was at times, his mistakes were costly. His second quarter fumble resulted in seven points for the Saints when Drew Brees took one in himself from the one-yard line. Brees threw for four more touchdowns, including two to rookie Michael Thomas, who made up for his struggles last week by catching nine passes for 108 yards in addition to the two scores. One of the best plays of all the Sunday games was a 50-yard razzle-dazzle touchdown pass from wide receiver Willie Snead to running back Tim Hightower. Mark Ingram was back from the dead in week 12. Just ten days after being knocked unconscious in the Thursday night loss in Carolina, Ingram exploded for 146 yards and a touchdown on just 14 carries. Ingram also added a 21-yard touchdown reception making him the fantasy RB1 on the week in most formats.
What Terrelle Pryor has done this season is incredible. In just his first full season as a converted wide receiver, he has been fantasy relevant all season long on a terrible 0-12 Browns team. In week 12 he caught six balls for 131 yards including a 54-yard shot from Josh McCown. The Browns hung around for more than three quarters and were within one score with 8:47 left in the game when McCown hit rookie Corey Coleman for a 21-yard touchdown. Eli Manning and Odell Beckham answered that score immediately with a four-yard touchdown, their second touchdown connection of the day. In the first quarter, Beckham gave his fantasy owners a scare when he went to the locker room with a thumb injury. He ended up only missing one series but it was definitely a butt-pucker moment in the second to last game of the fantasy regular season. Perhaps the real start of the game for the Giants though was Jason Pierre-Paul who recovered a fumble for a 43-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter and caused another one on the Browns final drive of the game to seal the victory.
With no AJ Green after a severe hamstring injury last week, Andy Dalton was unable to propel his team past the division rival Ravens. It was Dalton’s fumble with 1:12 left on the clock that gave the Ravens the win. The Bengals were driving when Elvis Dumervil sacked Dalton and caused the fumble that ended Cincinnati’s playoff hopes for 2016. The Baltimore offense wasn’t much to write home about either. After an opening touchdown drive capped by a nice Breshad Perriman reception in the back of the end zone, the Ravens relied on four field goals from Justin Tucker to elevate them to first place (tied with the Steelers) in the AFC North. Three of Tucker’s kicks were from more than 50 yards and he has now made 34 consecutive without a miss. He has also converted all 15 of his extra point attempts, a rarity in 2016. The Ravens run defense is one of the league’s best, but without Giovani Bernard around anymore I would have expected a decent game for Jeremy Hill. Instead, he had fewer yards on the ground than Rex Burkhead. Gross.
I feel pretty confident that no one projected Matt Barkley for 316 yards and three touchdowns, let alone have a chance to tie the game if not for an egregious drop in the end zone by a wide open Josh Bellamy. In the end, the Titans were able to hang on for the 28-21 victory. Coupled with losses by the Colts and Texans, this win pulls Tennessee to within one game of the AFC south division lead. With two tough games coming up against the Chiefs and Broncos, the Titans needed this win to stay in the hunt for what will likely be the only playoff spot from the division. If you are a Bears fan I really don’t know what you have to hang your hat on or what to take away from this season. I guess Jordan Howard is pretty good.
Seattle was hot entering week 12 after rolling through Buffalo, New England, and Philadelphia in the last three weeks. Russell Wilson seemed to be 100% after suffering through early season leg injuries and the Seahawks were primed for another win against a Bucs team that has struggled against the pass most of the season. That defense brought their A-game on Sunday and held Seattle to just one yard passing in the first half. Jameis Winston and Mike Evans got off to a quick start, hooking up twice in the first quarter for the only two touchdowns of the entire game. Down 0-14 quickly, Seattle scored a safety when Luke Stocker was called for holding in the end zone, giving the Seahawks their first two points of the game. Unfortunately, they only added three more points the entire game and fell 14-5 to Tampa Bay. Wilson was sacked six times and picked off twice. Perhaps Tampa has given the rest of the league a template to stop the Seattle offense which looked poised to go on a run similar to the one they went on down the stretch in 2015.
Tom Brady’s knee was gimpy on Sunday and Rob Gronkowski left the game early with a back injury, but the Patriots were able to rally late for a 22-17 win when rookie Malcolm Mitchell caught his second touchdown of the game with 1:56 left on the game clock. With the win, Brady tied Peyton Manning for the most wins in NFL history with 200. It was also the 500th win for the Patriots franchise. Rex Ryan would have liked nothing more than to spoil both of those milestones but on the final drive, Ryan Fitzpatrick fumbled on a hit from Chris Long and New England ran out the clock. While Fitzpatrick couldn’t get the win, he did breathe life into some of his targets for fantasy purposes. Brandon Marshall has his best game in weeks with 67 yards and a touchdown. Quincy Enunwa stays relevant as well with 109 yards and a touchdown.
Oakland was up 24-7 at halftime but Cam Newton and Carolina rallied with an 18 point third quarter that put them up 25-24 entering the fourth quarter. Ted Ginn pulled in an 88-yard strike from Newton early in the fourth to make it 32-24. From that point on it was all Raiders. Derek Carr overcame an injury to the pinky finger on his throwing hand to lead a fourth-quarter comeback victory at home and improve their record to 9-2. Michael Crabtree was the apple of Carr’s eye in this one with eight receptions for 110 yards on a whopping 11 targets. Amari Cooper took a backseat in this one with just four catches for 22 yards.
The NFL’s first season with three tie games since 1973 was narrowly avoided when Cairo Santos doinked a last second overtime field goal off the left upright and barely went through to lift the Chiefs over the Broncos 30-27. Tyreek Hill had an incredible game. He scored all three of Kansas City’s touchdowns; one as a rusher, one as a receiver, and one as a kick returner. Spencer Ware doesn’t seem like the same player since returning from a concussion earlier in the season. Trevor Siemian played one of the best games of his career but it wasn’t enough to beat the Chiefs Sunday night. He threw for 368 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. Emmanuel Sanders had a huge game for fantasy owners as well with seven for 132 and a receiving touchdown.
That’s a wrap for the week 12 report! I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend and I’ll be back with you next week to review the final week of the fantasy football regular season. Good luck to everyone making that final push for a playoff spot!
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Creator and Co-host of Dynasty Game night, the fantasy football game show.
Creator and host of the Zookeeper Stories podcast.
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