It’s a tradition as old as wearing a facial covering while using the public crapper or washing your hands like an obsessive compulsive garbage man: Wednesday Afternoon Football! Since there’s no Thursday Night Football game for me to breakdown with my rankings this week, I’ve decided to nail two Ravens with one stone by recapping the Wednesday afternoon dumpster fire in this introduction for the week 13 rankings.
Maybe it was the week long uncertainty of whether this game would actually be played, maybe it was the fantasy football gods punishing us all for the NFL’s blind greed, maybe it’s because you put your Christmas lights up 3 weeks before Thanksgiving. Whatever the reason, this was the most boring Wednesday Afternoon Football game in the history of Wednesday Afternoon Football.
Only one Raven player produced positive fantasy results as Marquise Brown (4 catches for 85 yards and his 3rd touchdown) posted the best game of his very disappointing season thanks to his 70 yard touchdown catch late in the 4th quarter. Maybe this kickstarts Hollywood with a much softer schedule on the horizon. The friendly schedule gives me cautious optimism on the entire Ravens offense, including Lamar Jackson, J.K. Dobbins and Mark Andrews, as they all return from the virus outbreak.
On the Steelers side, you could tell they came in expecting to sleepwalk their way to a win and, well, they pretty much did. Juju Smith-Schuster (8 catches for 37 yards and his 6th touchdown), or Shoo Shoo Schuster-Smeeth as they call him on NBC Espanol, was the only Steeler to find the end zone while the damage from their two other (more talented) receivers Diontae Johnson (8 catches for 46 yards) and Chase Claypool (6 catches for 52 yards) was minimized. Benny Snell (16 carries for 60 yards, 3 catches for 33 yards), who I judiciously invested all my FAAB in after week 2, did show some flashes while filling in for James Conner (COVID). Remember, Conner fell into the high COVID risk group as a cancer survivor (diabetic Mark Andrews fell into this category too); not sure if this will actually impact either of their recovery times or if they even experienced any symptoms, but Snell’s worth a roster spot regardless. Anyway, here’s my fantasy football rankings for week 13 which will be frequently updated until Sunday kickoff:
*If you’d like more robotic weekly rankings with projections, check out Rudy’s Pigskinonator which is available on a free trial and then only $5.99 for the rest of the season.
