The toughest part of the Thanksgiving week of NFL action for us fantasy football addicts has to be the three days off between games. Sure, we have Thursday games every week, but that typically means that we have one or maybe two guys playing at most. When you have six of the NFL’s best teams playing on Thanksgiving, though, you’re talking half of an entire fantasy roster in some cases. That means if your players have bad games, you’re stuck staring at those piss poor stats for the next several days and wondering what the hell went wrong.
Even worse, you’re left breaking down the stats and scenarios for what you still need to win, and that blows, because your opponent probably still has seven or eight players left against you, and by Sunday morning you’re curled up in a ball next to your toilet, mumbling, “Please don’t kill me, Doug Martin… oh God, please don’t kill me.” And then, of course, he f*cking kills you.
Once again, pull up your chair, because we have plenty of fantasy football issues to work out in this week’s group therapy.
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QBs That Rightfully Kicked Ass: Cam Newton (41), Tom Brady (36), Robert Griffin III (36), Matt Stafford (29), Eli Manning (28)
We can argue Cam Newton here like we argued RG3 last week, but Newton is supposed to be playing lights out. Especially when he’s playing a team that just quit in the middle of the season like a fat kid who is somehow told to play second base. I’d personally like to thank Matt Stafford for showing up this late into the season when he’s already helped sink my team. It’s really a nice consolation prize.
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RBs That Rightfully Kicked Ass: Arian Foster (23), Doug Martin (18), Trent Richardson (16), Stevan Ridley (15), Ray Rice (15)
Foster has 1,064 yards and 12 TD, which is on pace for what we’d expect from the No. 1 overall pick. Meanwhile, Martin has 1,050 yards and 9 TD, which is a phenomenal for a guy who was probably drafted anywhere between the 5th and 10th rounds, depending on your league’s scoring and how smart your friends are. I’d still call Ridley the biggest surprise out of this year’s top RBs because Bill Belichick is worse than Mike Shanahan with his RBs.
WRs That Rightfully Kicked Ass: Dez Bryant (24), Julio Jones (20), Calvin Johnson (20), Andre Johnson (18), Torrey Smith (14), Demaryius Thomas (14), Jordy Nelson (13)
I absolutely hate fantasy football hindsight, and we should be able to Baker Act people for going back and looking at their draft results to determine which guys they should have actually drafted with which picks. That crop of receivers above features guys we expected to be awesome every week. So why the hell has Cecil Shorts been more valuable to me than Jones and Bryant?
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QBs That Let Us Down: Carson Palmer (7), Josh Freeman (10), Aaron Rodgers (12)
We’ll get to this in a moment, obviously.
RBs That Let Us Down: Ronnie Hillman (0), Fred Jackson (1), Jonathan Stewart (2), Marshawn Lynch (4)
Hillman shouldn’t have actually been a surprise, but I know plenty of people who started him despite the news that Knowshon Moreno was the starter for the Broncos.
WRs That Let Us Down: Mike Wallace (0), DeSean Jackson (0), Brandon Lloyd (2), Larry Fitzgerald (3), Randall Cobb (4), Dwayne Bowe (4), Roddy White (5)
A lot of WRs let fantasy owners down this week. Cecil Shorts didn’t, though, because the fantasy gods are laughing at you.
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Players That Came Out of Nowhere and Spanked Us Good: Colin Kaepernick (21), Russell Wilson (23), Chad Henne (20), Bryce Brown (26), Shane Vereen (19), Daniel Thomas (13), Chris Givens (17), Cecil Shorts (16), Mohamed Sanu (14)
Kaepernick shouldn’t have been too big of a surprise against the Saints defense, and with a little consistency, Wilson will soon be in the “Expected” group. As for the guy who I expect to hear the most horror stories about, that would be Eagles RB Bryce Brown, who had 115 yards and a TD at halftime last night, and if he didn’t have two fumbles, he’d have had 30 points in his debut.
My fantasy ball-kicker was Carson Palmer, whose craptacular performance against his former team probably sent me packing from the playoffs in one league. Real men step up against the teams they shit all over. Instead, the Bengals were the men and you can find Palmer back on my waiver wire tomorrow.
Bring the stories, friends. I’ve got the tissues and lemon squares.
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