Week 8 Observations

How was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

I had a pretty good week except that one of my favorite players, who happens to be on three of my best fantasy teams and also my real life team, had his ankle bent so his toes were facing behind him.

It was also annoying one of my other good teams lost by 23 after losing Quinshon Judkins to an injury and Drake London to a pre-game scratch. I mean of all the games for London to get scratched, it’s the one where ARSB and JSN are on bye, and he was actually needed.

I replaced London with Darius Slayton. Now Slayton got only 4.6 points because a 70-yard TD was called back due to a fradulent OPI. That was a 14-point play in itself. There were other small things like Dak Prescott throwing a senseless pick at the end of the half right before Brandon Aubrey would have had a shot at a 60-plus-yard FG attempt, or Courtland Sutton having a TD from my QB Bo Nix called back due to OPI by the TE, and then Nix calling his number on the next play, hitting him in the chest in the end zone only for Sutton to drop it. But that’s fantasy football, and all my other NFFC teams won, and all five are still more or less in contention this far into the season. But the loss of Skattebo in three leagues is going to hurt.

Here’s a screenshot from the charmed-life Chiefs-stack team:

It has 130 points with Patrick Mahomes, Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce going tonight. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the Skattebo teams, and now my running backs are Javonte Williams, Woody Marks and Tony Pollard.

• It was nice to see Christian McCaffrey come down to earth for once — eight carries and six targets, only 68 YFS. The Niners ran only 42 plays all game.

• George Kittle had four catches and a TD, but Mac Jones completed only 19 passes all game.

• CJ Stroud had probably his best game of the year, but with Nico Collins out, he spread the ball around. Maybe Jayden Higgins (eight targets) emerges in the second half, but Collins will be back, and I wouldn’t get too excited about the Texans passing game.

• Marks looks like a player — 111 YFS, four catches. Nick Chubb is just the early-down plodder at this point.

• I took Ravens -6.5 in Circa Millions, assuming Lamar Jackson was playing after he was deemed a full practice participant Friday. Of course he was later downgraded to partial, ruled out for the game, and the line went down to 2.5 before kickoff. Essentially I was tricked into getting it right.

• Caleb Williams should have established himself by now as the guy, but he still hasn’t. Going down the Trevor Lawrence career path.

• Rome Odunze got his 10 targets again and produced. But still seven for OZ and three for Devin Duvernay! Why wouldn’t they just build the offense around Odunze, DJ Moore, Luther Burden and Colston Loveland, their top players and prospects? Why are they feeding these random journeymen?

• Tyler Huntley did a good job game-managing — zero turnovers, only two sacks, 53 rushing yards. Hopefully Jackson will be back Thursday, but no idea why they trotted out Cooper Rush for two games.

• Josh Allen had only 163 passing yards in the blowout, but the two rush TDs create a nice floor.

• James Cook went bananas with 216 rushing yards and two TDs, but no catches.

• Khalil Shakir had a a nice catch and run TD, but it’s hard to start the Buffalo pass catchers.

• Chuba Hubbard had 12 carries to Rico Dowdle’s eight, but as usual Dowdle was more efficient. Tet McMillan finally got some targets, put up a 10-7-99-0 line.

• There were other bad calls in the Giants game besides the Slayton OPI — a fumble by Jalen Hurts on the ass-smash was blown dead, a phantom block-in-the-back called on Wan’Dale Robinson among them. It’s possible the NBA isn’t the only league that’s not entirely on the up and up.

• Jaxson Dart looks the part to me still. He lost the Slayton TD, he had perfect throws to Theo Johnson and Daniel Bellinger dropped. Slayton had another semi-deep ball he probably should have caught too.

• Tyrone Tracy is serviceable and the offensive line is playing better, but he’s no Skattebo, especially in the pass game.

• Saquon Barkley finally blew up, though he was limping around late in the game. Barkley also got involved in the passing game. Tank Bigsby got 100 yards over a tired defense too.

• Harold Fannin finally went off on my benches. He saw eight targets, so I guess he’s the team’s No. 1 such as it is. Dillon Gabriel isn’t the answer, and the Browns have to know that by now. Not sure what’s going on with Shadeur Sanders — his back acted up? Maybe he’s the next Johnny Manziel, though at least Manziel got to play.

• Myles Garrett got five sacks in a blowout loss. That’s rare.

• Drake Maye gets his points every week. He also added 50 rushing yards.

• Maye spread the ball around a lot, but Kayshon Boutte is a TD machine. He caught his fifth of the year.

• TreVeyon Henderson broke out a little bit with 75 yards on 10 carries, though he lost a fumble. Seems like Mike Vrabel is forgiving about those if his treatment of Rhamondre Stevenson is any indication.

• Justin Fields bounced back in a huge way — zero sacks, zero turnovers on 32 attempts.

• Breece Hall had a monster game especially if you include the duck he threw in the back of the end zone to Mason Taylor. It was actually a good pass, and he bought time until Taylor was open, but the spiral was lacking.

• Isaiah Davis had 109 YFS in his own right and looked smooth as a receiver. If Hall were to get traded, Davis could be a three-down back.

• Ja’Marr Chase had another 19 targets from Joe Flacco. Tee Higgins caught a long TD, but saw only two.

• Chase Brown and Samaje Perine are more or less splitting carries now. Brown had a strong all-around game, scored twice and showed a lot of poise on a designed flea-flicker where he was about to pitch it back to Flacco, saw a Jets defender had gotten through, aborted the pitch and instead took it outside and ran for a first down.

• A lot of people had the Falcons in Survivor this week. Should have talked to me before picking them — would be like an episode of “Scared Straight” where ex-cons talked to at-risk youth about how bad prison is. Don’t pick up the soap, Jeff Erickson!

• I picked up Kirk Cousins in the Steak League with Lamar Jackson out, and Sam Darnold on bye. I chose poorly. No matter how soft Penix is, Cousins are not the answer.

• Bijan Robinson had his worst game against the league’s worst run defense. I did start Kyle Pitts who did fine, but it was over Harold Fannin. Think I’ve gotten that decision right maybe once in eight weeks.

• The Dolphins randomly decided to get it together and play a credible game. Suddenly those Jaylen Waddle shares are worth something again, and De’Von Achane is back to his full credible-team 1-2 turn value. Might be time to sell high before it collapses again.

• I picked up the Bucs defense in two key leagues, and it really paid off. They should have had yet another defensive TD, but a phantom whistle made it just a fumble recovery at midfield.

• I took the Saints plus 3.5 in Circa which was dumb. But I went 3-2 overall, and I said that was my least favorite of the five picks.

• Baker Mayfield didn’t have to do anything, so he didn’t. Cade Otton had a TD overturned because he was down at the one-foot line.

• Chase McLaughlin kicked three 50-yard FGs. Kickers used to make like one of those per season not so long ago.

• Spencer Rattler got benched for Tyler Shough in the second half, but it made no difference. The Bucs defense is pretty good, something I noticed against the Lions last week which is why I picked them up.

• Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed each saw 12 targets, Juwan Johnson saw eight. That’s the kind of narrowing tree you want for fantasy.

• Tyjae Spears looked pretty spry in a blowout loss. If Tony Pollard gets dealt, Spears would be interesting until his next injury. As it stands, it’s tough to start either splitting carries on a bad team.

• That Dike is becoming more attractive by the game, especially during the bi-weeks.

• Cam Ward is going down the Bryce Young career path.

• Jonathan Taylor had 153 yards and two rushing TDs on only 12 attempts. And he also caught a 19-yard TD pass. Reminds me of that Todd Gurley season from 2018, only with more efficiency.

• Danny Dimes never makes mistakes apparently.

• These are the Cowboys I expected this year, but they fooled me for a few games into thinking they might be good.

• I put RJ Harvey into my flex over Cade Otton at the last minute in one league. Nice to be pleased about *something.*

• Bo Nix gets his numbers, but still doesn’t look smooth to me.

• JK Dobbins is racking up yards, but without many receptions he’s TD dependent. Looks great though.

• Troy Franklin caught two TDs, and Sutton had his chances, but the Broncos spread the ball everywhere.

• Jordan Love just got on a streak of 19 straight complete passes and took over the game in the second half.

• Josh Jacobs did nothing all game, but scored and caught three passes. He always gets you *something*.

• Tucker Kraft had a huge game — he’s dangerous and physical with the ball in his hands, reminds me of Kittle.

• Christian Watson finally came back and had a strong game — 4-4-85-0. I’m not sure where Matthew Golden fits in with the bigger, equally explosive Watson back. And Jayden Reed could be back in the next several weeks too. And of course Romeo Doubs is still around.

• The Packers did a good job hurrying Aaron Rodgers who had a modest game. The Steelers need another receiver badly. Roman Wilson had a bit of a breakout, but I’d expect the Steelers to make a move before the deadline.

• Chris Boswell is such a beast — two 56-yarders, a 52-yarder and a 48-yarder in the same game. It’s too bad the Packers pulled away late, I was greedy for more.

• They should change “Tight End Day” to “Kicker Day.” Real league would.