We had a pretty crazy fake football day here in fake football land. Tons of injuries, divine intervention, rookie breakouts, and a lot of craptastic QB play. Here is a look at some of the crappy, slap happy, and extra sappy.
Arian Foster: 234 total yards and three touchdowns makes for your fantasy player of the day and if you stuck with him through the hard times you are feeling pretty darn good about yourself right now. Aren’t you!!? Well, I would be too. And am in one league. There’s nothing to suggest we are anywhere near sell high time here.
DeMarco Murray:Â Murray started the game off with a 91 yard touchdown run and it was all gravy from there and there was a whole artery clogging glut of gravy with 254 total yards rushing. Move over Emmit Smith we have a new single game rushing leader for America’s Team. My 5 year old niece could average 4 yards a carry against the Rams, but Murray averaged 10 yards a carry so he’s probably better than my niece. He gets the Eagles next week and will once again be a great start. If he keeps this up while Jones is hurt it will be hard to get him off the field.
Adrian Peterson: 175 yards rushing and a touchdown usually doesn’t just tie you for the third best fantasy running back of the day, but this week it did. Christian Ponder’s numbers weren’t great, 13/32, 219 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INT, 4 rushes, 31 yards. That’s a God-awful percentage, but he had a much livelier arm than McNabb and just made shizz happen. That has to help All Day, but I think I could QB the Vikings and Peterson would still rush for 100 yards.
Matt Forte: And rounding out the top 4 fantasy backs this week is Matt Forte who leads the world in all purpose yards with 1091 after putting 183 on the board in London. He composes over 46% of the total offensive output this season. He is the Bears.
Tim Tebow: He looked unbelievably bad all game and then turned everything around in the 4th quarter to give him decent fantasy numbers and a win. His numbers in the first 3 quarters are enough to scare any fantasy owner away including myself, but we did get to see why it’s easy to start him. He currently is the 5th highest scoring quarterback for the week and I sure didn’t think that was going to happen after watching the first half.
Ben Roethlisberger: The guy has hit his stride with the offensive line coming together. Against the hapless Cardinals he went 26/39 for 361 yards with 3 touchdowns and that’s 9 in the last three games with only 1 interception. With Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders all playing well there’s no reason he can’t keep this up.
Santana Moss: There were a ton of injuries this week and Moss didn’t miss out on the fun. He broke his hand and should be out 3-4 weeks. This gives Jabar Gafney and Fred Davis a bit of a bump and probably hurts Moss since he won’t be able to accumulate any fantasy points while not playing.
Tim Hightower: So I picked Ryan Torain this week and Hightower starts and goes off for a while and then gets hurt and Torain comes in and gets negative points. Hrm? I quit. Well, I’m never done. I’ll come back for more beatings. I love the sweet sting of fake football pain. Hightower’s long term prognosis does not look good. Speculation is that he has a torn ACL which would end his season. If that’s the case Torain remains a solid hold and Helu gets even closer to being the guy.
Earnest Graham: It’s being reported that he has a torn achilles tendon which would most likely end his career along with his season. LeGarrette Blount will need to come back wuickly because Kregg Lumpkin is not an early down back. He could be useful in PPR leagues, but if Blount can’t go look for the Bucs to find some crap to throw out there with Lumpy.
Hines Ward: He hurt his ankle and Emmanuel Sanders came in on 3 receiver sets which made for a much better set up for Roethlisbeger and really helped Antonio Brown get 102 yards on 7 receptions. We really need Ward to go gentle into that good night.
Chris Johnson: Good golly miss Molly this guy is sucking like a gravitational singularity. His conditioning is supposedly the issue, but we’ve been hearing this all season. I’m starting to wonder if CJ2tired is ever going to wake up. I have to believe he will because there is no reason he shouldn’t. He hasn’t been injured and he’s not too old so I hope he can get his groove back.
Beanie Wells: He left the game with a knee injury on the knee he had surgery on which is probably not the best thing, but at least he still has one good knee! We don’t know the extent of the injury yet and not much speculation is being thrown out there for us to glom onto, but Alfonso Smith is the guy to pick up if he’s out for a while.
Darren McFadden: He left the game early with a foot sprain and watched on the sideline as Boller and Palmer threw 6 interceptions. The good news is that Run DMC will get a week to heal his foot with the bye. It might be a good time to pry him away from his owner.
Mark Ingram: In a huge blowout Sean Payton with his dip firmly inserted in his disgusting lip decided he needed to throw the ball at every possible opportunity and then Ingram gets one nice run and of course injures his heel. Am I giving up on him? No. Do I have faith? No. He is a bench warmer until further notice.
Brandon Lloyd: Even with backup A.J. Feeley in for the injured Sam Bradford Lloyd saw 12 targets catching 6 of them for 74 yards. There is no reason to think his involvement won’t be as their go to receiver from here on out. Look for him to have a nice second half of the season.
Demaryius Thomas: Thomas made a great TD catch to help the Broncos come from behind to win and was targeted a fat 10 times by Tim Tebow who only threw the ball 27 times. Tebow’s errant throws will make Thomas’ 4 catches on 10 targets the norm, but the upside is there.
Early Doucet: He continues to get his targets and got a touchdown this week. His upside is bluh, but he’s starting to get consistent.
Jackie Battle: He’s getting the Jamaal Charles treatment from Todd Haley. He should have 25 carries, but instead Tom Jones gets 9 for a big fat 17 yards compared to 16 for 76 from Battle. Oh and LeRon McClain got the goal line look and fumbled. Battle is clearly the best goal line back and McCluster the best 3rd down back while McClain should be the full back and Jones needs to just go out back and stay there.
