Week 14 is here to roller coaster your emotions. Besides keeping my teams in line and writing about football I’ve also got this real job thing with the teaching of art school nerds (I was one too so I can make fun of them and do often). We are just finishing up the semester and I can tell you that I am ready to watch some football without grading or lesson planning hanging over my head! Today will be the last day of the take my real job work home with me football Sunday so that’s pretty awesome. Yeah real jobs suck. If writing about fantasy football was a real job it would start to suck as well. And that kind of sucks. But thankfully we have real and fake football to distract us from those kinds of things today! So I’m going to sit back and yell at my TV while Rex Grossman is picked 8 times and throws for negative yardage because I am starting his dumb arse! And that will lead to me drinking my newly purchased Half Acre Daisy Cutter Pale Ale and then burning my students papers in a ritual bonfire in protest.
Here are some sleeper types who are no longer sleepers because people have been talking about them as sleepers all week long but I don’t care I’m going to call them sleepers anyway:
Damian Williams: Nate Washington is hurting and hasn’t practiced. He still may gut it out but Williams is the guy to play this week. He’s been leading in targets for the Titans and gets a Saints’ pass defense that is giving up huge yardage. In the last 4 games wide receivers are averaging a league high 236 receiving yards a game. Drew Brees should be able to do his normal slaughtering of the laws of physics and passing ability and throw on the Titans which will mean Matthew Hasselbeck will need to throw a lot to pretend like he can keep up.
Rexroth Grossman: Yeah, you all know he’s a sleeper this week due to the fact that Dan Orlovsky threw for a crap-ton of yards and even a couple touchdowns in garbage time. I do wish Fred Davis was still playing but I think Roy Helu will get plenty of dump off passes and his ability after the catch will help Grossy get some unearned yards and Santana Moss and Jabar Gaffney are both capable especially against the Patriots.
Golden Tate: Talk about a turn of fortune for Mr. Tate. Ok, I will. He’s been a bust so far in his short career but last week he had a decent game but the real news from that game is that he was the #1 receiver. With Sid Rice gone Tate was the only receiver who was on the field for almost every play. The WR2 was split pretty much like a running back by committee. St. Louis has actually been fairly tough on #1 receivers but they aren’t Revising them and it’s not often you can find a #1 receiver just lying around in the scrap heap.
Ryan Fitzpatrick: I was impressed with his game against the Jets a couple weeks ago which was really just beyond amazing. The emergence of Brad Smith has helped and the loss of Fred Jackson actually helped force them to throw more (remember we are talking fake football here). In the last 7 weeks San Diego is giving up over 2 passing touchdowns a game and they are the 3rd worst in fantasy points given up to quarterbacks in that span. The Chargers are also the only team to give up 2 passing touchdowns to Blaine Gabbert.
Brad Smith: For the reasons above.
Nate Burleson: I think Matthew Stafford is going to destroy the Vikings pass defense and Calvin Johnson will be the guy but there should be plenty to go around and Burleson and Pettigrew both will have a good chance to get into the end zone (someone hobble Scheffler for me please).
Pierre Thomas: This one is kind of dicey sense even with Mark Ingram out there are plenty of backs in New Orleans who will take looks from him but he did get a touchdown both week 8 and 9 while Ingram was out last time. Darren Sproles and Chris Ivory get some looks but I think PT will be able to help your teams.
Michael Crabtree: The Cardinals have given up a ton of yardage to #1 receivers but not a lot of touchdowns. You could see that exact thing with Crabtree the last time the met in week 11 he had 7 receptions for 120 yards and no touchdowns. That to me is more luck than much else. Of course teams tighten up in the red zone but the 49ers have opened up their offense lately to test out their passing game now that they’ve got the division won.
Hot Links:
Evan Silva gives us his awesome Week 14 Matchups article once again all for the low low price of free!
Chuck Klosterman takes a look at what is up with all the Tim Tebow hate.
Some nerd looks at NFL receiver targets. I bet it takes him all day to put that shizz together. I’d bet a lot of money.
If you’ve ever spent even a half-second looking into how our brain works you’ve decided humans are really effed up. Renee Miller takes a looks at the intersection of neuroscience and fantasy football.
It’s always worth reading Pete Prisco’s film review of the past week.
The New Yorker meets Jon Gruden. That’s worth a read no matter where you’re from.
This is one of Carl’s better Locks this season. I laughed, I cried, I shared socially with media.
