Fantasy Football: The Things I Learned – Week 8, 2015

By Chet Gresham – @ChetGresham
Follow @walterfootball for updates.

Below, check out my fantasy-centered recaps of key players from this week’s contests. For instance, did a player come back to earth after an aberrant breakout, or were they simply affected by something like game flow?

Chiefs 45, Lions 10

Just when you think the Lions were just run-of-the-mill bad, they go and get torn asunder by Alex Smith. They appear to be in a free fall still and should be exploited for fantasy points whenever you get a chance.

Alex Smith had his best game since Week 1 against the Texans, but he only threw for 145 yards. Smith also threw two touchdowns, which was his first multi-passing touchdown game since Week 1 as well, but the real fantasy points came on the ground, as he rushed five times for 78 yards and a touchdown. With Jamaal Charles gone, at least we know Smith is going to need to do more for his team if they want to win. He’s still going to be average, but in good matchups has enough upside for fantasy.

Travis Kelce had his first touchdown since Week 1 as he caught 6-of-8 targets for 49 yards and a score. When Kelce gets targets, Kansas City is a better team. He led in targets this week, and even though he’s not going to have a Gronkowski-style upside going forward, he will continue to be a top-five play.

For those of you who stuck with Charcandrick West after his poor fantasy debut, I commend you. Against the Lions, he put together a nice game with 20 carries for 97 yards and a touchdown, while catching 4-of-6 targets for another 25 yards. Now over the last two games, he has 241 yards and two touchdowns. After the bye next week, he gets a tough game in Denver, but faces San Diego twice in the four games after that.

There weren’t any Lions pulling their weight in fantasy this week, especially Ameer Abdullah, who touched the ball just once. He should get more touches going forward though. The Lions are already out of the playoff hunt, so keeping the ball out of Abdullah’s hands seems like a good way to hurt your real team in the long run. But of course, Abdullah is fantasy nuclear waste right now.

Vikings 23, Bears 20

It wasn’t always pretty, but the Vikings new No. 1 receiver, Stefon Diggs, ended up with another big game, catching 6-of-12 passes for 95 yards and a touchdown. Bridgewater was not at his best this game, but as long as Diggs is getting 12 targets, he’s going to put up good numbers.

Adrian Peterson topped 100 yards and had plenty of nice runs, but couldn’t find the end zone. His upside this year isn’t what it used to be, but the touchdowns will come.

Matt Forte injured his knee, and initial reports are of a MCL injury, which would most likely keep Forte out for multiple games. Jeremy Langford took over after Forte left the game and had an okay 46 yards on 12 carries. He’ll be worth a pick up, but keep expectations low.

Jay Cutler had a good game, supplemented with a hard-nosed touchdown run. He’s now had four straight positive fantasy games. Cutler’s not going to lead your team to a championship, but he isn’t hurting you either.

Alshon Jeffery has now had back-to-back great games since returning from his injury. He’s up to 18 receptions for 263 yards and two touchdowns the last two weeks. Jeffery could very well lead some teams to fantasy championships this season, especially after the Bears get by St. Louis and Denver in Weeks 10 and 11, because it gets easier during the fantasy playoffs.

Cardinals 34, Browns 20

John Brown was active for this game, but he was rested anyway. That’s painful for those that started him, but for Carson Palmer backers, it was nice to see him put up a big game without Brown.

Palmer completed 23-of-38 passes for 374 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. This was his best fantasy game of the season. He now has 6-of-8 games with multiple touchdown passes. He’s getting it done week in and week out.

Chris Johnson ran the ball an amazing 30 times (his most in any one game over the last five years) against the worst rush defense in the league, but fumbled twice and totaled just 109 yards. This was also a day in which we were promised to see more Andre Ellington, but he finished with three carries for zero yards. I’d expect Ellington to actually get a much bigger role coming out of the bye.

Michael Floyd caught his third touchdown of the season, but more importantly, his third in the last three games. John Brown’s hamstrings have helped Floyd lately, but he’s firmly entrenched in this offense again.

Gary Barnidge won’t stop scoring. He caught his sixth touchdown in the last six games, while catching seven passes for 53 yards. This was against the Cardinals, who hadn’t given a touchdown to a tight end all season. He’s matchup proof.

Brian Hartline scored two touchdowns. Coming into this game, he had 12 touchdowns through his 99 career games. Don’t go chasing waterfalls.

Ravens 29, Chargers 26

The biggest fantasy news from this game for Baltimore is the loss of Steve Smith Sr. for the season/ever with a torn Achilles. Joe Flacco has a band of misfit toys to throw to with Smith out, and even though Flacco was barely on the fantasy radar, he was a streaming option with Smith, but now, unless he can keep getting fluky 1-yard touchdown runs, has fallen out of fantasy contention. Santa will probably skip Baltimore Island this year.

Justin Forsett couldn’t take advantage of a great matchup this week as he totaled 74 yards on 18 touches and had just one target and reception. With Smith out, I would think the Ravens would get Forsett more involved in the passing game, but no. Maybe going forward that will happen.

Crockett Gillmore caught a short touchdown, but only had two receptions on four targets for eight yards. Hopefully in the second half of the season, he and Kamar Aiken should lead the way with Smith out.

The Chargers keep losing, but Philip Rivers keeps putting up big numbers. This week, he completed 28-of-37 for 301 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. That makes six games over 20 fantasy points out of his eight total. Other than Tom Brady, no quarterback has been as consistent. And his schedule looks enticing with Oakland, BYE, Kansas City, at Jacksonville, Denver (yuck), at Kansas City, Miami and at Oakland. Take your points.

San Diego’s wide receivers are almost always hurt, but whoever is there, Rivers connects with. This week, he lost Keenan Allen after a nice touchdown catch. The initial diagnosis for Allen is back spasms, so hopefully he’ll be back in time for their Monday-night tilt against the Bears. But Rivers then moved to Malcom Floyd, who caught 4-of-6 targets for 92 yards and two touchdowns. I think he could throw for 300 yards with the Duggars replacing the rest of his offense, or even better, his 23 children.

Melvin Gordon went from a first-half benching last week to 23 touches this week, while Danny Woodhead went from 16 touches last week to five this week. The trouble with that turnaround is that Gordon totaled just 61 yards in this game. Woodhead remains the better fantasy play due to his efficiency in the passing game, but he’ll need to get his touches.

Buccaneers 23, Falcons 20

After eight turnovers in his first four games, Jameis Winston has zero in his last three and has seen his fantasy points go up in the process. He has yet to have a game under 12 fantasy points, and his best two games were over the last two weeks with 19 fantasy points in each. This week, Winston scored a rushing touchdown to boost him up, but it was a designed play that we could see replicated. All in all, he’s playing with more control and is a safer fantasy play than earlier in the season.

Doug Martin didn’t have a big day, but he does seem to be pulling away from Charles Sims, as he had 24 touches to Sims’ nine. Martin has looked good enough to have good fantasy games with that many touches more often than not.

Devonta Freeman has gone a whole two games without a touchdown, but he did total 131 yards on 27 touches against Atlanta. Freeman caught 6-of-8 targets, which puts him at 40 receptions through eight games. He’s pretty much awesome.

Matt Ryan couldn’t get the win, but did put up 397 passing yards and two touchdowns. Unfortunately, a big game was cut down by an interception and a fumble. He just continues to find ways to not put up top fantasy numbers, even in great matchups.

Thankfully for Julio Jones, Matt Ryan uses him as a crutch, and with Jones’ ability, that means fantasy points and lots of them. After nursing a hamstring injury for a few weeks, it was time for Jones to shine again and shine he did. He caught 12-of-13 targets for 162 yards and one touchdown, which was his best game since his insanely hot start to the season. A healthy Julio Jones is your fantasy friend.

With Leonard Hankerson out, it was Jacob Tamme who filled in as the No. 2 target, while Roddy White continued to barely see work with just three targets. Even rookie Justin Hardy saw four targets, which may be a sign of things to come, but for now, Hardy has Tamme, Jones and Freeman ahead of him.

Saints 52, Giants 49

Wow, this game was, just, wow. With a record 13 passing touchdowns total, there was an embarrassment of fantasy points to go around. Drew Brees led the way as he tied the record of seven touchdown passes in a game. This comes after only having two games with more than one touchdown pass, and both of those were highs of two! There’s not much else to say other than there was no defense from either team and that Drew Brees is not dead yet.

There are too many Saints players who had huge fantasy games to go in-depth on their games. The big fantasy winners were Willie Snead, Marques Colston, Brandin Cooks and Ben Watson. Colston’s contribution of eight receptions for 114 yards and a touchdown were by far his highs in every category this season. His previous highs this year were four receptions, 69 yards and zero touchdowns. On his long touchdown against the Giants this week, he was as open as any player could be. Don’t go chasing these points.

Ben Watson on the other hand has now put together a month’s worth of good games. Over his last four games, he has 26 receptions for 369 yards and three touchdowns. In good matchups, he’s starting to look pretty safe.

Eli Manning threw for six touchdowns and looked great doing so. Of course, the Saints’ pass defense is awful, but nobody else has thrown for six touchdowns against them, so there’s that. Besides two duds against the Cowboys and one against a tough Eagles defense last week, Eli has put up good numbers in five of his eight games. This is the way of Eli, so don’t give up on him after a bad game, but don’t go all-in on him after a big one.

Odell Beckham Jr. caught 8-of-9 targets for 130 yards and three touchdowns. He’s now had a touchdown in 5-of-8 games and four or more receptions in every game. And Beckham’s also played through an injured hamstring. He’s good.

Shane Vereen caught eight passes for 60 yards and a touchdown. Of course, all the stats this week have been shot through with steroids, but this is what they need to do with Vereen every week. But he’s now had three games with eight receptions, one game with four, two with one and two with zero. Throw the ball to him!

Texans 20, Titans 6

The Texans continue to put up passing numbers, but this time, they actually led most of the game instead of garbage-timing all the fantasy points. This week, DeAndre Hopkins got back on his unstoppable fantasy train with eight receptions on 11 targets for 94 yards and a touchdown. Hopkins has now had a touchdown or 100+ yards in 6-of-8 games. He’s also had double-digit targets in every game this season.

With Cecil Shorts out, Nate Washington has come up big in fantasy the last two weeks. In those two games, he’s caught 13 passes for 201 yards and three touchdowns. With no Arian Foster and a rag-tag bunch of running backs, the secondary target in this passing offense should have value.

Brian Hoyer has now hit 17 or more fantasy points in five of his six games, while only starting four of them. Many of those points came in garbage time, but with Ryan Mallett gone, we can feel fairly good about Hoyer holding onto the job, and by some magic curse, he keeps putting up numbers.

Arian Foster’s clear backup was Alfred Blue, who had 19 touches for 72 yards, including five receptions. Chris Polk was next with nine touches. Blue didn’t do all that much fantasy-wise, but his 19 touches are good to see and make him the favorite going forward.

Antonio Andrews led the way for the Titans with 19 touches for 82 yards, while Dexter McCluster had seven touches for 38 yards. No other running backs touched the ball. This would be good news for Andrews, but with David Cobb coming back, this backfield will most likely remain a cluster.

Bengals 16, Steelers 10

Le’Veon Bell appears to be done for the season with a torn MCL. This is awful, awful, horribly sucky news for football in general and especially for those that had him in fantasy. The somewhat good news is that DeAngelo Williams has looked great in relief of Bell this year and makes for a nice pickup going forward.

Ben Roethlisberger started out hot, but quickly turned into a bloated pumpkin, throwing three interceptions in the second half. This was his first game back from his MCL sprain, so I think we can give him a pass for now.

Andy Dalton had his worst fantasy game of the year, which was extra painful in a great matchup. This of course highlights the trouble with divisional games, but you just can’t overthink these matchups. There’s no sane person that would have sat Dalton in this game.

A.J. Green caught 11-of-17 passes for 118 yards and a touchdown and was the best player on the field for most of the game. He had three down games in a row coming into Sunday, but when the going gets tough for the Bengals, they lean on Green.

Jeremy Hill out touched Gio Bernard 16 to three in this game. Bernard still looks like the better runner, but when the Bengals want to grind out a game and keep the other team off the field, they will try to do so with Hill.

Rams 27, 49ers 6

The Rams have found the secret to winning, and his name is Todd Gurley. And he’s the same secret to help you win your fantasy season. Amazing that those two things actually go together for once. He’s now rushed for 128 or more yards in four straight games and totaled 566 rushing yards and three touchdowns in that stretch. He’s a beast.

Amazingly, Tavon Austin had more fantasy points than Gurley this week, as he rushed for a touchdown and caught a touchdown while totaling 119 yards. Austin now has two games over 20 fantasy points in standard leagues, one over 10 and four under nine. How do you know when he’s going to have a big game? You don’t.

Colin Kaepernick managed to not turn the ball over, but also managed to throw the ball 41 times and complete just 20 for 162 yards. It’s better than Aaron Rodgers, but just about anybody could say that in Week 8.

With Carlos Hyde out, the 49ers had absolutely no running game other than Kaepernick, who led the team with 28 rushing yards. Mike Davis and Kendall Gaskins combined for 15 carries for 10 yards, while Reggie Bush’s season ended with an ACL tear.

Raiders 34, Jets 20

The Jets’ vaunted defense looked mighty pedestrian as they gave up 333 yards and four touchdowns to Derek Carr. But Carr also looked sharp once again. He’s been a bit inconsistent for fantasy to start the season, but he’s making a case for himself over the last two weeks. He also has a nice schedule coming up, so as long as he can translate this play into non-Black Hole games, he should have plenty of upside coming up.

Amari Cooper was able to get open on Darrelle Revis early, but Carr ended up taking the easier route with Michael Crabtree and Andre Holmes. Crabtree led the way with seven receptions for 102 yards and a touchdown on 12 targets, while Holmes scored two touchdowns on his only two receptions. Cooper and Crabtree will remain the only reliable receivers though.

Latavius Murray looked great running against New York’s top run defense, gaining 113 yards on 20 carries. After a bad patch with injuries and fumbles, it looks like he’s back on track.

The Jets lost Ryan Fitzpatrick on the first drive with torn ligaments in his non-throwing hand. That pushed Geno Smith back into the starting role. For spot duty, Smith didn’t look too bad. He threw for 265 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, while adding 34 yards rushing. He did take a hard hit late in the game, and we’ll have to check on his status, but he has some fantasy upside in this offense.

Brandon Marshall had his fifth 100+-yard game, giving him five on the season. The only game in which he hasn’t topped 100 yards and/or had a touchdown was against the Patriots. It took a whopping 18 targets to get him nine receptions, but he got them.

Seahawks 13, Cowboys 12

This Seattle/Dallas game was a snooze fest from start to finish. The Seahawks pulled it out, but Russell Wilson had just 13 fantasy points to lead the team. He’s now only hit 20 fantasy points in one game this season, and that was the only game in which he threw for more than one touchdown. He hasn’t thrown for more than two touchdowns in a game or topped 287 passing yards all season. And the reason he’s usually such a good fantasy player, his rushing ability, hasn’t helped him that much because he has yet to rush for a touchdown. Of course, he will rush for a touchdown at some point and we could see him crank up that aspect of his game after the bye, but right now he’s just a fringe QB1.

Jimmy Graham led the way with 10 targets, catching seven for 75 yards, but Luke Willson was the only player to find the end zone for either team this week. The good news is that Graham is getting plenty of targets and remains a top tight end play moving forward.

Darren McFadden was probably the best fantasy player on the day as he totaled 113 yards on 20 carries and six receptions. His receiving chops are coming in handy for his fantasy upside, and as long as he keeps this up, he should still be the lead back by the time Tony Romo returns from his collarbone injury, which will help his scoring opportunities immensely.

Matt Cassel threw for 97 yards.

Broncos 29, Packers 10

Aaron Rodgers threw for 77 yards.

Let me write that again. Aaron Rodgers threw for 77 yards. And no, he wasn’t injured and he didn’t have to leave the game after one completion due to violent intestinal trauma. The Denver Broncos’ defense is what happened to him. They pressed his receivers while pressing him and the Packers just suffocated. It most likely wouldn’t have mattered to the outcome on Sunday night, but Rodgers is missing Jordy Nelson something fierce.

Eddie Lacy scored the lone Packers’ touchdown on a goal-line run, and managed just 47 yards on 12 touches total. But compared to before the bye, Lacy had a great game, because he was the starter and scored a touchdown while James Starks did neither of those things.

The fantasy football Peyton Manning is dead, while the game-manager Peyton Manning is rounding into form. Manning threw for a season-high 340 yards, but all three of Denver’s touchdowns were scored on the ground, and he was also intercepted once. That positive run game helped Manning put up those yards, but it also kept him from getting his touchdowns. Will he have good fantasy games in the second half of the season? I believe he will, but they will be hard to predict.

Both Ronnie Hillman and C.J. Anderson found the end zone on Sunday Night Football, Hillman twice and Anderson once. Anderson easily had his best game of the season as he rushed for 101 yards on 14 carries and his touchdown, while Hillman rushed 19 times for 60 yards and the two touchdowns. This was a game Anderson needed and it probably keeps this committee fairly even, even though Hillman was named the starter.

For more thoughts, check out Walt’s updated NFL Power Rankings, which will be posted Tuesday morning.

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