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Thanksgiving week is almost upon us and a nice division battle between two playoff contenders was sure to heat up enough to start thawing out those turkeys. The Colts came limping into Houston with their extensive injury report to take on the Houston Texans who were coming off a complete thrashing that was provided by Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens

After a slow first quarter, the offenses started to wake up a little bit and we saw what we had become accustomed to from Deshaun Watson. Jacoby Brissett and his bulky knee brace kept the Colt’s offense on the field with his legs and scored a touchdown with them. Was anyone else really nervous for Brissett every time he took off with the ball? 

For the gamblers that sided with the home squad, it was a frustrating 4th quarter. The spread had the Texans favored by 3.5 points and while Houston was up 3, they squandered a couple of late opportunities to cover that number. Just kick a late field goal or at least try! It was another lesson in the fact that NFL teams don’t care about our gambling tickets. Here’s what I saw from a fantasy football perspective. 

Performance Checks

T.Y. Hilton saw plenty of opportunities to do favorable things for the Colts’ offense but ended up with 3 catches for 18 yards. T.Y. led the Colts with 6 targets and one embarrassing drop.

Jonathan Williams was obviously the play last night with over 100 rushing yards and a touchdown. Jordan Wilkins didn’t touch the ball once. I figured that the Colts would end up going with the hot-hand approach at running back, but I didn’t think that Williams would handle almost all of the carries. Hynes played his usual role of change of pace back but didn’t have a big impact outside of catching a couple of balls and picking up bulk yardage on the 9 carries that he did have. 8 fantasy points isn’t going to get it done. 

– Houston did a great job of containing Jacoby Brissett who only had 129 yards through the air and no passing touchdowns. 

– To nobody’s surprise, Deshaun Watson was a man on a mission last night. Watson threw for 298 yards and 2 touchdowns. Watson only gained 10 yards on the ground, but I’m sure it’s a performance that fantasy owners will take after the struggles of last week. 

DeAndre Hopkins had one of his best fantasy nights of the season with 94 yards and 2 receiving touchdowns. He was the Hopkins we have become accustomed to with a few “how did he do that?” moments. 

– When Will Fuller is on the field you’re running the risk of missing out on some big points if you leave him on your bench. Fuller led the team in targets with 11 and caught 7 balls for 140 yards. He had a couple of nice big plays including a 51-yard catch. 

Carlos Hyde didn’t have a big night. He was often stuffed at the line of scrimmage. Houston wasn’t disguising the run very well and Hyde paid the price. However, Hyde did manage to rip off a 33 yard run in the second half to show us he still has it.