It’s been awhile since T.Y. Hilton had Luck on his side. 23 months to be exact. Andrew Luck played his final NFL game on January 27th, 2019. Since that day, Hilton has played a total of 22 games. In that stretch he’s posted only one game of 100+ receiving yards (last week) and four games of 80+ receiving yards. Over the past three weeks he’s gone off for 81, 110 and 86 receiving yards–that’s right, three his four 80+ receiving yardage games from the past two seasons have come in the last three games. The hot streak culminated this Sunday as Hilton snagged 5 catches for 86 yards and his 3rd and 4th touchdowns. You guessed it, all four of those touchdowns have come in the past three weeks. The tide has finally started to turn T.Y.’s way, just in time for him to bring you home that coveted Wizard Phallus Championship Trophy. Wait, your league doesn’t have a Wizard Phallus Championship Trophy? How bout phallic pins for each championship you’ve won, which are pinned to your champions jacket in the prestigious pre-draft pinning ceremony? No? Well, I’m sure your championship will still be satisfying–almost as satisfying as my second penis pin. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday for fantasy football:
HOU @ CHI
Duke Johnson – 8 carries for 26 yards, 2 catches for 53 yards and a fumble lost. With David Johnson (COVID) infected with the plague, I expected the Duke of Houston to get more than 10 touches. Maybe it was the early fumble that opened the door for the elf, Buddy Howell (11 carries for 42 yards, 1 catch for 3 yards).
Keke Coutee – 3 catches for 24 yards and his 2nd touchdown. Brandin Cooks (neck) was a surprise inactive Sunday morning which opened the door for Coutee and Chad Hansen (7 catches for 56 yards), both of whom I recommended as sneaky starts in the Sunday Morning Primer which I’ll be writing from here on out.
David Montgomery – 11 carries for 113 yards, 3 catches for 42 yards and his 6th touchdown. That makes three touchdowns in the last two weeks for The Full Monty as he swung his dong in the Texans’ faces. Monty is starting to look like one of those mythical league winning running backs.
Allen Robinson – 9 catches for 123 yards and his 6th touchdown. So that’s what Robinson looks like in a real NFL offense! Unfortunately, as a Bear’s fan, I don’t trust this to continue with Mitch Trubisky (24/33 for 267 yards, 4 carries for 23 yards and 0 interceptions). But we can dream! Actually, dreaming is against the Bear fan code of conduct.
DAL @ CIN
Ezekiel Elliott – 12 carries for 48 yards, 2 catches for 11 yards. Who was the worse top 3 fantasy pick this year, Zeke or Saquon? At least with Saquon you could drop him, use the roster spot and not watch him drag your fantasy team into the toilet. Welcome to Deep Thoughts with Donkey. Zeke continues to ask to be fed as Tony Pollard (11 carries for 39 yards, 2 catches for 9 yards and his 3rd touchdown) keeps scavenging from Elliott’s food bowl.
Amari Cooper – 4 catches for 51 yards and his 5th touchdown. Amari’s been licking peanut butter off the red rocket the past three weeks with 15 catches for 206 yards and three touchdowns. He’s suddenly a solid WR2 again.
CeeDee Lamb – 2 catches for 46 yards. Unfortunately the rookie hasn’t been able to get his tongue on much of Dalton’s peanut butter.
Gio Bernard – 3 carries for 8 yards, 3 catches for 15 yards and a fumble lost. The Stache had 830 straight carries without a fumble–hadn’t lost one since 2013. So of course when he coughed it up on the first drive he got benched as punishment in favor of Trayveon Williams (12 carries for 49 yards, 3 catches for 14 yards) and Samaje Perine (10 carries for 32 yards, 2 catches for 9 yards). Makes complete sense! Trayveon, a second year man, is at least worth a look in deep dynasty leagues for what it’s worth.
Tyler Boyd – 5 catches for 43 yards. Boyd and Tee Higgins (5 catches for 49 yards) just aren’t feasible fantasy options with Brandon Allen (27/36 for 217 yards, 4 carries for 12 yards and 1 touchdown) behind center.
A.J. Green – 6 catches for 62 yards and his 2nd touchdown. Wait, A.J. Green is still in the NFL? Huh!
KC @ MIA
Patrick Mahomes – 24/34 for 393 yards, 5 carries for 9 yards, 2 touchdowns and 3 interceptions–he now has 33 touchdowns and 5 interceptions on the season. The three interceptions were a 150% increase to his season total but there was also some bad luck involved. Mahomie will still be rewarded with a ketchup steak after another solid game.Â
Clyde Edwards-Helaire – 16 carries for 32 yards, 5 catches for 59 yards. That’s the kind of receiving work we all expected–and didn’t see–from the Clydesdale this year. The five catches match his total from the previous three games combined and the 59 receiving yards matches his receiving total from the previous five games.
Tyreek Hill – 3 catches for 79 yards, 1 carry for 32 yards and his 14th and 15th touchdowns. Reek posted one rushing and one receiving touchdown and we somehow don’t have a glossary term for the Slam and Legs of football. Taking suggestions down in the comments.
Travis Kelce – 8 catches for 136 yards and his 9th touchdown. Last week he had, get this, 8 catches for 136 yards and a touchdown. Dun dun dun. Welcome to the Twilight Zone, where it’s Kelce’s world and we’re all just living in it.
DeAndre Washington – 13 carries for 35 yards, 2 catches for 17 yards. Myles Gaskin (COVID) was just the latest fantasy casualty of the year 2020. The consensus was that Washington would take the lead role in Gaskin’s absence–and he did–but it was rookie RB/WR Lynn Bowden (1 carry for 2 yards, 7 catches for 82 yards) who made the real impact against KC as he saw 9 targets from Tua Tagovailoa (28/48 for 316 yards, 6 carries for 24 yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 1 rushing touchdown and 1 interception) in an exciting almost-comeback.
DeVante Parker – Goose egg’d. Parker left late in the first half with a leg injury and didn’t return. Mack Hollins (5 catches for 66 yards) tied Bowden for a team high nine targets with Parker sidelined and Jakeem Grant (3 catches for 32 yards) has also been in the mix the past few weeks.
Mike Gesicki – 5 catches for 65 yards and his 5th and 6th touchdowns. Sick game for Gesicki! He’s suddenly looking like the stud we expected coming out of college.Â
ARI @ NYG
Kyler Murray – 24/35 for 244 yards, 13 carries for 47 yards and 1 passing touchdown–he now has 23 passing touchdowns. My favorite thing about this performance was Kyler’s eyes. My second favorite thing was that he started running again, so maybe that shoulder is finally feeling better again.Â
Kenyan Drake – 23 carries for 80 yards, 1 catch for 10 yards and his 9th touchdown. That’s five touchdowns in the last four weeks and I’m starting to feel a little better about ranking The Drake #7 overall in my preseason top 100 fantasy football rankings. I still don’t feel good about it, but better.
DeAndre Hopkins – 9 catches for 136 yards. DHop had a tough matchup against lockdown corner James Bradberry, but ended up feasting on James’ Bradberries.Â
Wayne Gallman – 12 carries for 57 yards, 3 catches for 16 yards. Just when we thought Wayne was definitely Batman, he throws this stinky curveball at us.
Evan Engram – 2 catches for 18 yards. We expected Daniel Jones (11/27 for 127 yards) to be better than Colt McCoy (2/3 for 18 yards) in his return from the hamstring injury. Jones was not better than Colt McCoy.
MIN @ TB
Dalvin Cook – 22 carries for 102 yards, 2 catches for 8 yards and his 15th touchdown. The one true Chef made a beautiful spread with a ham and potatoes and all the fixings, even in a negative game script against Tampa.
Adam Thielen – 3 catches for 39 yards. I told everyone to sell Thielen midseason! I’m kidding, I’m kidding! He’s been great in the second half, still my bad on that one.
Justin Jefferson – 4 catches for 39 yards. We all knew that Tyler Conklin (5 catches for 40 yards) would outperform both the rookie phenom and Thielen.
Irv Smith Jr. – 4 catches for 63 yards and his 3rd touchdown. Big Irv was my one sneaky tight end start in the Sunday Morning Primer . So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
Ronald Jones – 18 carries for 80 yards, 1 catch for 4 yards and his 7th touchdown. I really misread this backfield after the Leonard Fournette (healthy scratch) signing. If you had told me Fournette would be a healthy scratch in week 14, I would’ve asked what he was scratching.Â
Chris Godwin – 2 catches for 25 yards. It wasn’t just Godwiener who went limp in this one, Mike Evans (3 catches for 56 yards) and Antonio Brown (5 catches for 49 yards) were both flaccid as well, with Scotty Miller (1 catch for 48 yards and his 3rd touchdown) scavenging their touchdown.
Rob Gronkowski – 1 catch for 2 yards and his 5th touchdown. The Bucs’ blocking tight end strikes again!
DEN @ CAR
Melvin Gordon – 13 carries for 68 yards, 3 catches for 23 yards. Someone in the comments mentioned that Gordon will have his DUI hearing early this coming week, and sure enough, this article confirms that report. It seems like there’s a decent chance Gordon takes a plea deal and decides to serve the accompanying three-game suspension this year to make himself more appealing to teams in free-agency this offseason. In that case, Phillip Lindsay (11 carries for 24 yards, 2 catches for 7 yards) would suddenly leap into RB2 discussion so make sure he’s owned in your league.
K.J. Hamler – 2 catches for 86 yards and his 2nd and 3rd touchdowns. The Bronco rookie wide receiver who blew up against the Panthers was surprisingly not Jerry Jeudy (2 catches for 42 yards), it was K.J. Hamburgler who stole my chances of a fantasy championship away in one dynasty league. Seriously, who starts Hamler in the playoffs of a 12-team league!? I’m in a league with a sorcerer.
Mike Davis – 11 carries for 51 yards, 5 catches for 42 yards and his 6th and 7th touchdown. That sorcerer dude had Davis on his team too and of course the Christian McCaffrey (shoulder/quad) version of Mike Davis surfaced again this week. There’s a chance CMC isn’t ready for week 15 and there’s also a chance Davis falls into that league winning RB bucket.
Robby Anderson – 8 catches for 84 yards, 2 carries for 13 yards. Bob and Son cooled off for most of November, but the targets never disappeared. Of course D.J. Moore (COVID) was also missing for this game, but Anderson has been Teddy Two-Gloves’ favorite option even with Moore in the game.
Curtis Samuel – 7 catches for 68 yards, 2 carries for 22 yards. Samuel has been a duel threat all year and if Moore misses, uh, more time, then Curtis will be an upside WR3 next week.
TEN @ JAC
Derrick Henry – 26 carries for 215 yards, 2 catches for 7 yards and his 13th and 14th touchdowns. That’s 1,532 rushing yards for The Predator on the year as he now sets his night vision on the 2,000 yard club.
A.J. Brown – 7 catches for 112 yards and his 9th touchdown. And that’s nine TDs in the last 10 games and 297 receiving yards in the last three games. I wonder if anyone is still pushing back on my high ranking of Brown in the top 10 dynasty rankings for 2021 fantasy football.
James Robinson – 12 carries for 67 yards, 4 catches for 16 yards. 83 yards and no touchdown? Who are you, Ezekiel Elliott? We’ve become so spoiled by JRob posting 100+ yards and/or a touchdown in pretty much every game.
Keelan Cole – 7 catches for 67 yards and his 5th touchdown. The big news from this contest was the mid-game return of Uncle Rico, Gardner Minshew (18/31 for 178 yards, 2 carries for 22 yards and 1 touchdown) which should’ve happened weeks ago. Unfortunately, even The Original Stache couldn’t bring the big bust D.J. Chark (2 catches for 16 yards) back from the dead. But on the plus side, there were signs of life from rookie Laviska Shenault (6 catches for 49 yards) who saw 11 targets.
IND @ LV
Jonathan Taylor – 20 carries for 150 yards, 2 catches for 15 yards and his 6th and 7th touchdowns. The kid from Home Improvement is finally maturing after an over the fence heart-to-heart with neighbor Wilson, and I’m finally starting to not look like an idiot for ranking him #1 in my top 10 rookies for 2020 dynasty football. Nyheim Hines (7 carries for 58 yards, 4 catches for 17 yards) was left hanging out with Al Borland.Â
Josh Jacobs – 13 carries for 49 yards, 3 catches for 25 yards. The Jinglehammer returned this week after trolling his fantasy owners with an Instagram post Sunday morning that said he wasn’t playing. Maybe not the best way to win over fans, Josh! Wonder if he just meant that he wasn’t going to play well?
Darren Waller – 7 catches for 75 yards. Last week was the grand opening of his new restaurant, Wallerburgers. This week it was Nelson Agholor (5 catches for 100 yards and his 7th touchdown) who opened up his new restaurant: Nelson’s Gnocchi.
NYJ @ SEA
Frank Gore – 8 carries for 23 yards, 1 catch for 8 yards and a fumble lost. I knew the Gore concussion was a lie, robots don’t get concussions. Hopefully nobody was depending on a followup performance from Ty Johnson (8 carries for 16 yards). Also hope you weren’t desperate enough to start Frank Gore.
Jamison Crowder -2 catches for 7 yards. At this point the Jameson supply is starting to run low, Conner McGregor’s Proper Number Twelve is next up.Â
Russell Wilson – 21/27 for 206 yards, 4 touchdowns and 1 interception–he now has 36 passing touchdowns on the season, a new career high. Pete Carroll gave Russ some new pots and pans for Hanukkah this year and Russ wasted no time putting them to use. Petey also gave Russ the whole 4th quarter off, to his fantasy owners’ dismay.
Chris Carson – 12 carries for 76 yards, 3 catches for 22 yards and his 9th touchdown. Carson City has some of the top restaurants in all of Nevada, you’ll find Russ preparing food there from time to time.Â
D.K. Metcalf – 6 catches for 61 yards and his 10th touchdown. The Golden Calf produces the sweetest milk, which Russ steams into a delightful cappuccino froth most Sundays.
Tyler Lockett – 5 catches for 52 yards. The highs and lows of owning Lockett are what I imagine meth addiction is like. Thankfully I’m not addicted, I can quit anytime I want!
GB @ DET
Aaron Jones – 15 carries for 69 yards, 2 catches for 6 yards. A-A-Ron? Is A-A-Ron pre-sent? Where in the name of Jaquellin did A-A-Ron go?
Davante Adams – 7 catches for 115 yards and his 14th touchdown. That’s his 12th touchdown in the last eight weeks. Davante just moved ahead of both John and John Quincy in my Adams rankings.
D’Andre Swift – 7 carries for 24 yards, 4 catches for 26 yards and his 7th touchdown,. It wasn’t exactly a Swift return from concussion for D’Andre, but he’s finally back and jumped right into the lead role where he left off. Also, Kerryon Johnson (2 carries for 3 yards, 1 catch for 10 yards and his 3rd touchdown) is so hot right now!
Marvin Jones Jr. – 4 catches for 48 yards. As Kenny Golladay’s (hip) season long holiday continues, The Martian took a little holiday himself. The targets were still there though (8), so if Golladay doesn’t return, Jones remains a viable WR3 with upside.
T.J. Hockenson – 6 catches for 43 yards and his 6th touchdown. I’m curious to see where Hock goes in drafts next year. If I don’t feel like ponying up for Kelce or Waller, I may end up owning Hock all over the place.
NO @ PHI
Taysom Hill – 28/38 for 291 yards, 5 carries for 33 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. After a slow start to this game you could sense all the haters getting ready to victory lap on Taysom, but Hill got it rolling in the 2nd half and once again made some nice throws. Sure, they lost, but it was a valiant comeback effort by The Book of Mormon. It sounds like Drew Brees (108 broken ribs) is doubtful for week 15. How long does it take for 108 broken ribs to heal??
Alvin Kamara – 11 carries for 50 yards, 7 catches for 44 yards and his 14th touchdown. The demise of Kamara with Taysom playing RB may have been slightly overstated. He’s no longer in the elite RB1 group with Cook and Henry, but he’s still a very solid RB1.
Michael Thomas – 8 catches for 84 yards. Can’t Guard Mike with Taysom at the helm. He hauled in all 8 targets against the Eagles.
Jalen Hurts – 17/30 for 167 yards, 18 carries for 106 yards and his 1st career passing touchdown. I’m making the call on Philadelphia, I don’t care what the other news networks are doing! This is Hurts’ job for good and Carson Wentz (benched) should prepare for relocation. Hurts was another recommended sneaky start in my Sunday Morning Primer this week and I ranked him 6 spots higher than the Fantasy Pros Expert Consensus. Not bad for a donkey.
Miles Sanders – 14 carries for 115 yards, 4 catches for 21 yards and his 4th and 5th touchdowns. Colonel Sanders is back baby! Speaking of which, have you seen this Lifetime original Colonel Sanders movie starring Mario Lopez? Looks like an instant classic.
Alshon Jeffery – 1 catch for 15 yards and his 1st touchdown. Wait, A.J. Green AND Alshon Jeffery are both still in the league?
ATL @ LAC
Todd Gurley – 6 carries for 19 yards, 2 catches for 12 yards. So this is why the Rams moved on from Gurley, those knees just can’t hold up to a normal workload for a full season. Look for more of Ito Smith (11 carries for 42 yards, 1 catch for 3 yards) to finish the year.
Calvin Ridley – 8 catches for 124 yards and his 8th touchdown. Riddle me this Ridley: why is Julio Jones (hamstring) always hurt? Ridley remains a locked in WR1 with or without Julio in the lineup, and I expect he’s the first Falcons’ WR off the board in 2021 fantasy drafts.
Russell Gage – 5 catches for 82 yards, 1/1 for 39 passing yards and a passing touchdown. Gage is a decent WR3 dart throw if Julio misses more time and he also happens to be the best quarterback on his team.
Austin Ekeler – 15 carries for 79 yards, 9 catches for 67 yards. Muscle Hamster 2.0 jumped on the running wheel Sunday afternoon and never stopped. This is the guy I expected when I ranked him #5 overall in my preseason top 100.
Keenan Allen – 9 catches for 52 yards and his 8th touchdown. After the worst game of Justin Herbert’s (36/44 for 243 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception–he now has 25 passing touchdowns on the season) young career, he got back to business dishing it to Keenan and EKeler. Allen did leave late with a hammy injury so keep a close eye on his status this week. Oh, he also set the record for most ever receptions in his first 100 games, no big deal!
elite.@Keenan13Allen | #ProBowlVote pic.twitter.com/rCUpypeFHk
— Los Angeles Chargers (@Chargers) December 13, 2020
WAS @ SF
J.D. McKissic – 11 carries for 68 yards, 2 catches for 18 yards. With Antonio Gibson’s (turf toe) I had to McKissic several fantasy championships goodbye. I don’t trust McKissic in anything outside of full PPR leagues.
Terry McLaurin – 2 catches for 24 yards. For the second week in a row, Terrence of Scarabia was unable to find Scarabia. How McLaurin gets only 6 targets each of the last two games is beyond me.
Raheem Mostert – 14 carries for 65 yards, 2 catches for 5 yards. I wish Mostert was still the most hurt so I didn’t feel like I had to start him this week. Jeff Wilson (11 carries for 31 yards, 1 catch for 13 yards and his 6th touchdown) continues to take way more of the 49ers workload than I’d like.
Brandon Aiyuk – 10 catches for 119 yards. Yep, I was wrong about Aiyuk. The kid’s the real deal and had plenty of opportunity with Deebo Samuel (hamstring) getting injured on the first play. Which brings me to my next rambling thought: at what point do we start considering Deebo injury prone?
PIT @ BUF
James Conner – 10 carries for 18 yards. Conman sold his fantasy owners a bridge.
Diontae Johnson – 4 catches for 40 yards. So much Johnson, so few balls caught.
Juju Smith-Schuster – 6 catches for 55 yards and his 7th touchdown. JuJu’s been very TD dependent this year–which makes sense since he’s the Steelers’3rd best wide receiver–but Big Ben does tend to look his way often down by the goal line. I can’t find any logic in Chase Claypool’s (3 catches for 15 yards) lack of usage over the past two weeks (only 10 total targets).Â
Zack Moss – 13 carries for 43 yards. Moss dug his way out of last week’s dog house, but I still have little interest in this split backfield with a vulturing QB. I’m dumping Devin Singletary (7 carries for 32 yards, 1 catch for 2 yards) and Moss wherever I still own them.
Stefon Diggs – 10 catches for 130 yards and his 5th touchdown. You know when you’re way higher on a player than everyone else, but somehow you don’t end up with them in your most important league? It makes your stomach turn like you just ate 5 week old chili.Â
