The lead up to Week 16 had more key players with uncertain injury situations than any in recent memory. Thankfully, most of those players either ended up playing or were ruled out early, but the one guy who was a surprise inactive happened to be playing in one of the late games — and happened to be the best player in fantasy football. Todd Gurley’s absence — and C.J. Anderson’s ascendence — likely swung a lot of fantasy championship games and is perhaps the logical conclusion to the madness we’ve witnessed over the final month of the 2018 fantasy season.
This column tends to be forward-looking in nature, but this week we’ll emphasize players’ outlooks for next season rather than next week. Congrats to everyone who took home a fantasy title yesterday, and good luck to those of you whose matchups will not be decided until the Monday night game!
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The Gurley incident shows why you should always have a backup plan for injured players
Gurley’s status for Week 16 was shaky all week. The Rams needed a win for playoff positioning, but they were playing the lowly Cardinals, and it always seemed like they could opt to play it safe and sit their stud RB. But then there were reports on Sunday morning that the Rams were planning for Gurley to play. The reports never definitively said “Gurley will play,” and sure enough, he ended up sitting after all.
Since the game had a late kickoff, fantasy managers who hadn’t added C.J. Anderson as insurance were left scrambling with few good options available in most leagues. This is why it’s critical to designate a bench spot to a player who can step in if the unthinkable happens — especially in Week 16 of redraft leagues when there is no need to waste roster spots on players who don’t serve an immediate purpose for your fantasy squad.
C.J. Anderson decided a lot of fantasy leagues, while John Kelly truthers were left disappointed
On Friday morning, I pointed to a report by a staff writer for the Rams’ official website indicating that Anderson — not Kelly — would be the next man up in the event that Gurley was out. Many of the responses I got were surprising — some Kelly owners were up in arms that this couldn’t possibly be true considering Anderson had just joined the team and had recently been cut by the Raiders, whereas Kelly was a star in the making. They even dismissed the report out of hand as an “internet rumor.” Which, to be clear, it wasn’t. This was a legitimate report from a journalist who closely follows the team. Sure, he could have ended up being wrong, but this is information that needed to be taken seriously in evaluating whether to play Kelly, Anderson, both, or neither.
By the time Sunday rolled around, several other Rams beat writers had confirmed that Anderson would get the bulk to the carries if Gurley didn’t play, and sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Anderson not only led the Rams’ backfield, he looked great doing it, finishing tied with Alvin Kamara as the second-best fantasy RB of Week 16. Kelly played sporadically behind Anderson and didn’t make much noise for fantasy owners who stuck him in their lineups.
The lesson here is a simple but important one. It’s important to take all information into consideration when making lineup decision, whether or not it fits what you want and hope to be true. We have to accept uncertainty as fantasy owners and try to make the best decisions we can based on the full extent of what we know. The other lesson is that opportunity is king when it comes to running backs. Once it became clear that Anderson was more likely to get that opportunity than Kelly, Anderson became precisely the kind of high-upside fantasy play that can win you a championship.
Aaron Rodgers’s frustrating fantasy season finished with a flourish
If you spent an early draft pick on Aaron Rodgers this season, you had an uphill climb to get into your league’s fantasy championship game. The consensus top QB coming into the season was outside the top-10 at the position entering Week 16, but he finally delivered a vintage week-winning performance against the Jets, throwing for well over 400 yards and accounting for four touchdowns (two passing, two rushing) and a two-point conversion.
If you watched a lot of Packers games this season, the image that probably sticks in your mind is Rodgers with his hands on his hips and a beleaguered look on his face. Surrounded by injuries and inexperience on the field and coaching ineptitude off it, Rodgers also seemed to take a step backward himself as he leaned a bit too much on the improvisational skills that had worked so well for him in past seasons. But towards the end of a game that meant far more to fantasy owners than either of the teams involved, Rodgers finally cracked a smile, seemingly remembering that the game is supposed to be fun. Hopefully, fantasy owners who drafted Rodgers can do the same.
The Jets emerged as the least expected fantasy king-makers
Outside of a random Isaiah Crowell game here and there, the Jets were a massive fantasy headache for most of the season. Honestly, their biggest contribution to our game was providing a team to stream defenses against. But that suddenly changed over the last couple weeks, culminating in a Week 16 where Elijah McGuire, Robby Anderson, and even Sam Darnold led fantasy owners to victory.
A common mantra we hear this time of year is to stick with the players who go you here, and that’s true for the most part. You shouldn’t sit your studs just because they have a bad matchup. But most people who made it to the fantasy title game did so without at least one of the guys who got them there and needed at least one waiver wire gem to close the deal. The emergence of McGuire as an RB2, Anderson as a WR2, and Darnold as a legitimate streaming option are not outcomes we could have envisioned a month ago, but owners who aggressively pursued these Jets were richly rewarded for their perseverance. Drafting a great team can get you pretty far, but championship teams also relentlessly work the waiver wire until the very end.
Nick Foles is the magic man once again
When I think of Foles, I picture the pied piper blowing on his flute as he leads the Eagles to improbable victories. Is that weird? Whatever the case may be, Foles has a flair for the dramatic and it is often accompanied by some big fantasy stats, as was the case in the Eagles’ dramatic victory over the Texans in Week 16. It remains to be seen how this year’s adventure ends for Foles, but his place in Eagles lore is already assured after last season’s Super Bowl run. It is hard to imagine him returning to Philadelphia as Carson Wentz’s backup next season, so it will be very interesting to see where Foles ends up. If it’s a good situation, he could absolutely push his way into weekly fantasy relevance next year.
Chris Carson is the antidote to rookie hype
Before there was the John Kelly rookie hype train, there was the Rashaad Penny rookie hype train. All preseason we were told that the Seahawks shouldn’t be believed when they said Carson was their starting running back, and that they simply had to install Penny in that role after using a first-round pick on him. Pete Carroll is well known for spinning positive about all of his players, but it turns out that he meant what he said, making Carson a steal of a pick for anyone who took the plunge on draft day. Carson finished as the number one fantasy back in Week 16 and as a top-12 RB in fantasy points per game in non-PPR formats. Not bad for a guy who went after pick 80 in most drafts. You can expect to hear the Penny hype pick up again next preseason, but I’ll continue to back Carson in this contest until proven otherwise.
It looks like the end is near for Gronk
There is a lot of chatter going around about the end of the Patriots’ dynasty, but while is remains tough to get a read on the futures of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, there is plenty of on-field evidence that this could be the end of the road for Rob Gronkowski. New England reportedly tried to move on from him last offseason, but he refused to play for any team other than the Patriots. So they reluctantly brought him back but made little effort to feature him in the offense as he struggled through injury and ineffectiveness.
Gronk was almost universally considered a top-six fantasy option at tight end week in and week out based on his conceivable upside, but that had more to do with the state of the position than it did with anything Gronk showed us on the football field this year. His fantasy season ended with a whimper in Week 16 as he failed to catch a single pass. Perhaps he’ll pop up for a big game or two in the playoffs, but his days as an elite fantasy tight end appear to be over. It’s a big loss at a position where few players have ever produced the kind of numbers that he did, particularly in the red zone.
Doug Baldwin still has some gas in the tank
Baldwin’s age-30 season had been a rocky disappointment for most of the year, to the extent where he surfaced on the waiver wire in a lot of leagues. It was hard to argue too vehemently with fantasy owners who decided to move on from Baldwin. He struggled with injury, saw a precipitous decline in targets as the Seahawks became a run-heavy team, and looked to fall behind Tyler Lockett as the Seattle WR to own. But Baldwin and Russell Wilson have rekindled their connection down the stretch, allowing Baldwin to produce over 200 receiving yards and three touchdowns over the last two games. His days as a borderline WR1 are probably over, but if Baldwin finishes strong he will certainly be back in the WR2 conversation heading into next year.
Adam Gase hates your fantasy team
The Dolphins have been a fantasy quagmire this season, as Gase has consistently deployed his receivers and running backs in a way that minimizes their fantasy value. While plenty of Dolphins have had huge fantasy performances, no receiver has seen consistent enough looks to even be a reliable WR3, while the backfield has been a messy timeshare all season long. It’s been an exercise in frustration for Kenyan Drake owners, and now those who took a chance on Kalen Ballage know the feeling. Gase’s job is to win football games, not accrue fantasy value, of course, but at 7-8 it’s hard to say he’s been a rousing success on that front either. There are rumblings that Gase won’t be back in Miami next year, so perhaps this team will start to get interesting again from a fantasy perspective in 2019.
JuJu Smith-Schuster has got fantasy managers’ backs
Smith-Schuster injured his groin in practice during the week, leaving his status for Week 16 uncertain, but he did his fantasy owners a solid by reassuring them that he would play. JuJu ended up losing a fumble that cost Pittsburgh the game, but not before he put up over 100 receiving yards for the eighth time this season. Regardless of how he performed, it is refreshing to see a player who cares about his supporters, whether they are Steelers fans or fantasy owners. At just 22 years old, Smith-Schuster is already establishing himself as a high-end WR1 in fantasy leagues, and his allegiance to fantasy mangers will make him an even more fun player to have on your roster in 2019.
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Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.
