Thanksgiving Day Overview

 

Thanksgiving Day is always a favorite of mine. Who wouldn't like spending the day with family and friends, delicious food, and a triple header of NFL Football? Especially, when you have a player in each game that's on your fantasy team like I did. Fantasy wise, it was better for some than others, and I'll provide a Team by Team breakdown in a second, but first HUGE PLAYOFF CHANGING NEWS. Apparently, the NFL provided a stat correction RGIII for Week 12, causing Matt and Drew's tie to turn into a Week 12 victory for Drew. This is big, because Drew's playoff run has been revived YET AGAIN. This is the 1st time a stat correction has affected an outcome of a game in our league, and boy did it come at the biggest time possible. Drew went from being in the hunt to being eliminated by me, to being in the hunt again, to being eliminated by Matt, to for a 3rd time, be in the hunt again. It's going to be tough, as Drew's going to need A LOT of help, if he wants to clinch a shot, but I'm pretty sure Drew's not complaining about being granted one more shot to make the tournament. Here are the team by team Turkey Day Plays.

The Bad Robofies

Turkey Day Plays: Rod Streater, Ray Rice

Total Pts: 15.5 points

Overview: If you're Mark, you're content with Dad's Thanksgiving Day score, as neither Rod Streater nor Ray Rice reached their projections. You might be a little disappointed that Ray Rice wasn't as god awful as he was in the past, but still, he was held under double digits. I actually think Streater is the more disappointing stat line, as with Denarius Moore out, he was figured to be the go to guy for Matt McGloin. Andre Holmes, however, took the majority of McGloin's targets, leaving Streater with modest performance. At the end of the day though, this is nothing more than a tune-up match for Dad, and a loss wouldn't effect him in the least.

Danny's Little Giants

Turkey Day Plays: Matthew Stafford, Jason Witten, Torrey Smith

Total Pts: 44.5

Overview: Here's an example of each kind of performance in the fantasy game. Matthew Stafford basically met expectations in his matchup with the Packers. Things were looking REALLY bad for him at first, because a)turnovers, he had 3 including a lost fumble and b)the running game was looking so dominant, it looked like passing might not be necessary. Luckily Stafford threw for 330 yards, and what really saved his day was a 20 yard TD pass that was amazingly caught one handed by Kevin Ogletree in garbage time. He basically met his projected points with 20. Jason Witten on the other hand, underperformed against the Raiders. Once again, this was another game where running to precedent over passing, but unlike Stafford, Witten was unable to overcome it. He only had 3 catches for 53 yards, missing his projection by 3.5 points. Then there was the overachiever performance. Torrey Smith, who most experts said should be on peoples benches (I'll never understand why some experts encourage you to bench your better players based on matchups, in a 12 team league, the chances that you have 4 wide receivers better than Torrey Smith is very small at best, I always hear this on NBC's stupid Fantasy Football Live Show, I wouldn't play (insert star here), but you know what YOU WOULD PLAY HIM, because you HAVE TO. He might not be an elite option that week, but if you're telling me to play Rod Streater or Justin Hunter over Torrey Smith because Streater plays Dallas or Hunter has a jucier matchup, that's beyond idiotic. Smith is still the better receiver and is a WR #2 with WR#4 downside at worst. Streater is a WR #3 with WR#5/6 downside, it drives me crazy..anyway back to the overview). So I "went against the grain" and of course stuck with Torrey Smith and he rewarded me handsomely. He caught a 55 yard off the bat, was tackled at the 1, but ended up getting that TD on that drive. He finished with 93 and a score and 18 points. Double his projection...yeah I feel sorry for the lemmings that actually live and die by these overpaid idiots. Yes, I KNOW V-Jax has a terrible matchup this week (another guy experts are advocating sitting on your bench), but I'm not gonna start Dexter McCluster because of it. Could he suck...yup he already did last time around, but just like Torrey Smith, the upside of 18 or more fantasy points is well worth the risk and 10 times out of 10 in our league, I'm starting V-Jax no matter what. So yeah, I'll go with good start for me, but not higher, cause the Witten performance dragged it down a bit.

Not Even Lying

Turkey Day Plays: Calvin Johnson, Nate Burleson, Rashad Jennings

Total Pts: 34.5

Overview: It's a little worrisome that Nate Burleson got completely shutout, i mean taking a 0 sucks bad, it's like a 8-7 advantage, but Calvin did his things (100 and a score) and Jennings scored two TD's of his own (against the embarrassing shitty Cowboys Defense) to hold down the fort. Jennings did concussed, so that's something Kenny has to be aware of, but for this week, despite the 0,  I think Kenny's fine and still in line for a W.

Passion De La Puente

Turkey Day Plays: Tony Romo, Jarrett Boykin

Total Pts: 13

Overview: I hope Mike's real Thanksgiving went better than his fantasy football one. Dreadful is the only way to describe his start. If I could re pick, I'd say Drew wins this hands down now. A big 0 from Boykin , followed by a lackluster Tony Romo performance. Considering Zac Stacy's concussion issue and matchup, it's not looking good for Mike and that #2 bye. Good thing a playoff berth wasn't at stake here.

 Bigger Balls

Turkey Day Plays: Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Dez Bryant

Total Points: 42

Overview: If you want to beat Kenny, your guys have to be on their A-Game. Mayra really needed one of those game changing Dez Bryant games, with like 2 or 3 TD's and a 150 yards. Unfortunately, he basically did what he was projected for. A TD saved his day, but 61 yards against the Raiders is beyond disappointing. Antonio Brown was even more disappointing. He only had 59 yards and barely got half his projected points. With her two best plays done with mediocre plays, and Knowshon Moreno's status still up in the air, I'm not seeing how Mayra pulls this off even with a Burleson 0 (there's a possibility that Greg Jennings matches this). At least Big Ben was surprisingly good. He finished with 257 and 2 TD's for 19 points.

Shock The Monkey

Turkey Day Plays: Miles Austin

Total Pts: 1.5

Overview: Not a great start for Mark at all, but it's only 1 play, and it was his WR #4 at that. It's nothing to overreact to, but it would've been great to get some kind of performance from Miles. One of his god awful wide receivers is going to have to step up, and he's wasted one now with Miles.

Channel 4 News Team

Turkey Day Plays: Brandon Pettigrew

Total Pts: .5

Overview: Same as Mark. It's one play and it's Albert's tight end, so it's not the end of the world, but in a game with the Lions had well over 500 yards total yards offense, it sucks Pettigrew only attributed 6 yards of it. His bigger problem is how out of their mind his opponent's player played which we'll get to in a sec.

Dr. Light's Robots

Turkey Day Plays: Jordy Nelson

Total Pts: 2

Overview: Ouch....first Matt finds out that he didn't tie, he lost to Drew, then the Packers crap the bed, and because of how god awful shitty Matt Flynn, Jordy Nelson has his worst game of the season at the worst time possible. Nelson had 1 catch for 9 yards until the very last drive of the game where he caught one more pass. Again, one player won't make or break you, but it's not the kind of start Matt wanted. Especially since points are involved in a tiebreaker if he does indeed still pull off the win.

I'm A Paul Heyman Guy

Turkey Day Plays: Reggie Bush

Total Pts: 23.5

Overview: The stars aligned for Drew yesterday. First of all, he's back in the playoff hunt thanks to a stat correction. Then Reggie Bush scores 10.5 more than Posey's two players combined. Bush started the game with a fumble, but quickly recovered with 182 combined yards and a score. Momentum has swung Drew's way, and if he can keep the scoring up, he might find his way into the playoffs after all.

NEXT!!!!!

Turkey Day Plays: James Jones

Total Pts: 8.5

Overview: Thanks to a garbage 50 yard grab in the ending minute of the 4th quarter James Jones reached his projected total. With Matt Flynn at QB, it's a miracle he even did that. 

Hoosier Daddy

Turkey Day Plays: Eddie Lacy

Total Pts: 4

Overview: Well...if this was a meaningful game, I'd say Eddie Lacy being a non factor was HUGE. 4 points for Ryan's RB#1 is really bad. However, in the grand scheme things, it only matters for Ryan's pride.

Springville Warrior

Turkey Day Plays: DeMarco Murray

Total Pts: 29.5

Overview: I love the unpredictability of this game. Here's Eugene, playing for absolutely nothing, win or lose, taking on Albert who's got the far superior team and is trying to make the playoffs, and is set up for a pretty easy win on paper. On paper that is. DeMarco Murray decided to go NUTS. 102 combined yards and not 1,2 but 3 TD'S. Yikes. 29.5 points. This "easy win" just got a little bit more difficult.