Thursday Night Observations
No Sound
I woke up this morning wondering why I had put Brian Robinson in my lineup over Jaylen Warren without much of a thought. All year Robinson (when healthy) was ahead of him, so once he was healthy again, I subbed him in reflexively. But the Indigenous Peoples were underdogs, and so were the Steelers, in which case you’d normally want the pass-catching back, especially in full PPR.
As I walked down the long hallway to the office TV room, I anticipated watching the game with dread, and that only grew when on the first play from scrimmage Austin Ekeler was on the field for some reason. Of course, Robinson scored the first TD and even caught a pass, so that took the edge off pretty quickly.
The other thing that was off, besides the edge, was the volume. For God knows what reason the video and volume on the 40-minute edited version were out of sync — the audio was maybe 10 seconds ahead, so I was hearing Al Michaels describe the future, and that was intolerable. In other words I watched an edited version on mute so forgive me if I omit anything important in the observations below.
Jayden Daniels maybe isn’t 100 percent still. He didn’t scramble much, and they didn’t even try a Hail Mary at the end of the first half. I don’t have any shares, so I was happy to see the dud for fantasy. He and Terry McLaurin.
Robinson ran well, his YPC average hurt by those two stuffs in the fourth quarter. Very strange the IPs went on 4th-and-2, down two, in FG range. I had Philly -3.5 in my picking pool, so I was actually fine with it.
None of the IP WR did anything. It was all Zach Ertz and Austin Ekeler.
Saquon Barkley was having a quiet game for 55 minutes and then bam. Imagine thinking the Giants were dumb to draft him over Sam Darnold six and a half years ago!
Jalen Hurts always has that floor from the short rushing TDs, even in a Thursday-night under game when Barkley had two long TDs.
I started Dallas Goedert over Jonnu Smith in a couple places, and I can live with that output.
DeVonta Smith seems to be the most hurt by Barkley’s arrival. He’s not the alpha WR, and now the Eagles have an elite back around which to center their run-heavy attack.
I decided to sit the Eagles defense at the last minute, so I was rooting against them too. That late garbage TD to Ertz was nice, as Philly wound up with seven points.
What’s wrong with Jake Elliott? One of the worst kicking games in recent memory.