Week 15 Observations

Annoying

I’m getting annoyed with the NFL. Not that I have much at stake anymore — Chiefs stack, LOL — just too much arbitrariness, too many injuries. For example, I have a small bet with Jeff Erickson every year wherein I pick four teams to win the Superbowl around Week 13, and he gets the field. It’s a fun bet, and often I’m a big favorite, but this year I’m a big dog. That’s fine, just means more skill in picking, and one of the teams I picked was the Packers. Guess I was betting on Love to prevail, always a mistake in principle — had he been Jordan Evil, Jordan Treachery, Jordan Deceit, I’m sure it would have been a better bet. But it’s annoying Micah Parsons tore his ACL because obviously their defense was a big part of why I picked them.

I also am in the RotoWire Dynasty League where I traded Emeka Egbuka for a treasure trove of old guys to make my run. (I also swapped Malik Nabers for CeeDee Lamb, despite my Giants fandom and bullishness on their future.) And now my best QB (it’s QB-flex) tore his ACL too. What the fuck is the point?

In Circa I had the Titans +12.5. They were down 10, 49ers get the ball with five minutes left, drive the length of the field to run the clock down to 1 minute, no timeouts for the Titans. It’s 4th-and-1 inside the Titans 25, Kyle Shanahan keeps the offense out. Great! Whether they make the first down and kneel or fail and the Titans get the ball, I’ve got it, and I’m 3-1 on the day, pending the Steelers tonight. But no, they lined up to get the Titans to jump — just fucking jump! — they didn’t jump, called TO, then kicked a nutless FG to go up 13. Why not just go for it and end the game? Now you’re risking a blocked FG and a kickoff!

The Giants lost again, which I suppose was good for their draft standing, but how many times does Jaxson Dart have to go into the tent? I mean he’s in the tent more than the homeless people on skid row in downtown LA! And then I have to hear the announcer bitching about designed runs and keeping him safe the whole game after that.

And what is going on with the league? Kyle Pitts and Trevor Lawrence were two of the biggest busts in NFL history relative to prospect status and here they are five years later as though they were 100 percent as advertised? Did I accidentally stumble into a timeline split where they have been good this whole time, but I’m just remembering the wrong history?

These last few weeks I’ve decided I’m not going game by game in the observations, instead just talking about what I want to talk about. Any fantasy advice is already known, it’s Week 16 coming up, so why am I analyzing backfield usage and targets like it’s August? Who cares?

• I had the Browns in Circa because Grok recommended them, and I was persuaded by its reasoning. I would never just do what AI said because it’s wrong about lots of things — ask it about a complex math concept you understand like really large numbers, and it’ll confidently return errors even after being corrected. So no way it knows what’ll happen in an NFL game, given the level of complexity therein. But I like bouncing ideas off other “people,” seeing them thrown back at me to reveal what I really think, and the Browns seemed good to me. I badly neglected the state of their offensive line. Yes Shadeur Sanders was bad, but peak Mahomes would have been much the same behind that line, and I should have known better. Consider how bad Joe Flacco was on the Browns before joining the Bengals, and it’s not like the Bengals have a *good* line themselves.

• D’Andre Swift is good. I’ve mocked him as “D’Andre Soft” in the Snarky150 for years, but he’s productive every year and has good quickness and vision. Ben Johnson (and Liam Cohen) are the rare instance where all the hype about the successful offensive coordinator becoming head coach was justified. I mean it was useless for fantasy if you were drafting Rome “rug pull” Odunze, DJ Moore, Colston Loveland or even Caleb Williams (at least the last month), but the team run blocks and executes much better. Same with the Jags who can’t get Brian Thomas involved and lost Travis Hunter for the year, but still got a game for the ages from Jeff Spicoli. The only silver lining is there are no doubt many miserable people who started Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert and even Joe Burrow over Spicoli and are much more annoyed than I am.

• I faded Trey McBride and Marvin Harrison because I didn’t think Kyle Murray could support them at their respective prices, but Jacoby Brissett got McBride 13-12-134-2 against the NFL’s top defense. There are a handful of difference-makers every year, and McBride was surely one of them this year.

• What’s the deal with Woody Marks? He gets hurt every game, and can’t convert on the goal line to save his life unless it’s a broken play where he picks up a fumble. Then someone I’ve never heard of, Jahwar Jordan, rushes for 101 yards.

• Why did the Jets not move Breece Hall at the deadline? They were holding onto him to have Isaiah Davis be their best back?

• Why do the Raiders even exist? They should fold and distribute their key players to functional organizations.

• The Eagles will win the NFC East, but does anyone think they’re interesting in the playoffs or capable of making a deep run? Meanwhile Saquon Barkley has turned into late stage Eddie George.

• It’s odd that Marcus Mariota, Brissett, Davis Mills for a few games, Mac Jones for half the season are doing as much as Jackson, Burrow, Mahomes and Herbert now. It’s Josh Allen or bust if you’re going big at QB.

• The Bills still don’t have a single startable pass catcher. It’s just Allen, James Cook and a bunch of scrubs.

• Drake Maybe Not

• At least the Pats kept TreVeyon Henderson fresh for their playoff choke. Your consolation round team is crushing it too. Why sign Stefon Diggs and give Mack Hollins eight targets?

• Herbert-Mahomes was less entertaining than a bum fight I saw near Skid Row with my then nine-year old daughter in LA a few years ago. If I keep doing what I did this year with respect to my NFL investments, I’ll probably be duking it out there soon, and you guys can compare me to premier QBs in a game that totals 29. (I will fuck that dude up though.) Seriously though, who knew not having an offensive line would be a problem for both QBs and all their godforsaken receivers?

• Joe Burrow seems despondent about something, talking like late-stage Andrew Luck. Ja’Marr Chase even said after the game he might have to cheer him up.

• Lamar Jackson attempted 12 passes, one of which went incomplete when Zay Flowers dropped what should have been his second touchdown. The AFC North winner is drawing deader than dead. At least the Ravens covered — the oddsmakers knew *something* by making them 2.5 point road favorites two weeks after the Bengals blew them out in Baltimore. Oh, and in the Steak League, where I desperately needed points, I had the bright idea to drop Harrison Butker for Evan McPhearson.

• The NFL is so bad, Philip Rivers had to unretire, throw wobbly 15 yard (max) passes and nearly win on the road in Seattle, against a supposed playoff contender. It took a last minute 56-yard field goal, though only because a Grupe made a 60-yarder for the lead. If kicking keeps evolving over the next 10 years the way it has over the last 10, punting will be obsolete. Incidentally, I have zero doubt I could beat Rivers in a sprint and probably a distance throwing contest.

• So much for Jonathan Taylor keeping up the pace. And the Colts leading receiver was Ameer Abdullah.

• I’m convinced Kenny Walker was a practical joke by the retarps™ (retarded sharps) this year. JSN still managed 113 yards, but would it kill the Seahawks to get him double-digit targets?

• Why is Tony Pollard suddenly capable after 13 weeks of being useless? Cam Ward is getting better, but by better, I mean competent game manager, and that’s an odd role when you’re always trailing by double digits. He’s managing the cover, I suppose, and due to Shanahan’s FG he wasn’t even able to do that.

• I saw someone post that George Kittle had a season high in receiving yards, and so I checked, and he had only 88. I know he was hurt, but people were drafting this guy in the third or fourth round. They probably want to punch Jajuan Jennings (two TDs) in the nuts.

• The NFL is so random, the Panthers beat the Rams then lost to the Saints. Bryce Young is the game manager Cam Ward hopes he can be. Why would you draft Tet McMillan that high and throw to him four times?

• What happened to league winner Rico Dowdle who is once again just a guy?

• Jalen Coker should acquire a drug habit rather than risk going down the Andrew Luck career path for ironic naming.

• Once Dart gets concussed out of this dimension once and for all, I’m confident Tyler Shough will be the best QB of this draft class, proving the NFL is indeed totally random.

• I had the Rams -6 in Circa, and I was thrilled to see Dan Campbell go for the PAT after scoring the TD down 14. Epic discipline not to disturb an intact cover with analytics bullshit.

• ARSB would be carrying my Beat Seslowsky league team to a great first week of the NFFC playoffs had he not given me a zero on Thanksgiving Day. If you’re gonna turn your ankle, have the decency to do it in the first quarter, not on your first target.

• It’s weird that whoever the NLM is that replaced Ben Johnson refused to target Jameson Williams for half a year before having to be replaced by Campbell.

• One silver lining is my Jahmyr Gibbs team had a bye this week. That’s how you do it — get someone the bye, then save your worst game for when he’s on it.

• I’d be shocked if Davante Adams returns for the fantasy playoffs. He was playing through a bad hamstring and seemed to aggravate it severely.

• Puka Nacua went down too — looked like a career ender — before returning from cramps. Maybe he’ll even score a TD next week if Adams is out.

• Christian Watson looked like he was going to the hospital with his chest injury, but apparently he’s fine. Some guys get injured so much, they just assume the worst by now. I just can’t believe they threw the ball to Matthew Golden, thought they had given up on him by now.

• Bo Nix always goes bananas on my bench. It’s worse than just being bad, like he’s mocking you the whole year.

• RJ Harvey scores TDs, but he’s less likely to find open space than some poor bloke in the UK doing two years in a cell for insensitive social media posts.

• The Cowboys pretended to contend for a minute and then were like, “Just kidding, we’re just as soft as you thought!”

• How does Brandon Aubrey miss two kicks in one game? I knew when they had him execute the fake (he did it perfectly), it was going to mess up his rhythm.

• Javonte Williams left with an injury, ceded a goal-line TD, then came back and was better than before he left. Talk about a plodding accumulator this year.

• George Pickens disappeared again at an inopportune time. Not sure what’s going there. Ryan Flournoy looks like a player, by the way.

• JJ McCarthy played okay after the first pass where he had it batted back, then himself batted it into the lineman’s hands for a pick. Pro tip: bat it down, not forward into a crowd.

• Justin Jefferson had eight targets, but two catches for 22 yards. One of the more colossal healthy busts in recent memory.

• I still have two playoff teams left, both low stakes, both full of players who were a lot better a month ago than they are now. Hopefully Week 16 will be less annoying, but I’m dubious.