Ouch, my head. That must either be because I have become concussed or I once again lost my fantasy game by two points. If only I had more of the good and less of the bad and injured.
Fantasy Football leaders: Injuries and surprises highlight Week 10 quarterback news
Concussions change the landscape of fantasy and reality football.
Jonathan Daniel
Here are all the QB stories from around the league in Week 10:
The Good
Andy Dalton against the Giants (DALT-ON THE WOUND)
New York is free-falling again, as the Giants are wont to do. Don't worry though, this is how they always setup their Super Bowl runs. By looking pretty crappy by the end of the season. The Giants might have hit a new low on Sunday however when they gave up the best start of Andy Dalton's young career.
Dalton was 21-of-30 for 199 yards, 4 TD and 0 INT. It was the first 4-TD game of his career and the first time this season that he hasn’t thrown an interception. For a fantasy afterthought stuffed away on benches in any non-QB2 league, it’s easily the best value of any Week 10 quarterback.
For Dalton, he's continuing to build on his rookie success and has 18 TD passes in nine games. Much better than the 20 he threw in 16 games last year. His QB rating is up to 91.1 and he's averaging 7.4 yards per attempt with 64.4% completions. He's starting to enter the second-tier QB talk, but on a more permanent basis. Is Eli Manning still in that conversation? We'll get to that later.
For the Giants, they're 25th against the pass and 21st in total defense after ten games. Their defense is kept alive be generating turnovers, but when they've forced fewer than 3 turnovers this year, they are 1-4. They take a bye this week but then they face: Aaron Rodgers, Robert Griffin III, Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, and Michael Vick/Nick Foles.
Have fun with that.
Joe Flacco against the Raiders (RECORD-SETTING* DAY)
The asterisk stands for ‘Raiders’
The Ravens put up a franchise-record 55 points against Oakland in Week 10, led by Flacco's best game all season. After throwing for four touchdowns and four interceptions in his last five games, Flacco went 21-of-33 for 341 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT and 1 rushing touchdown. I'm still not a Flacco fan, but I'm definitely a Raiders defense fan.
Oakland has given up 97 points over their last two games and rank 31st in points allowed per game. Target Saints, Bengals, Browns, and Broncos over the next four. Yes, I guess I include 'Browns' in that list. Should be a nice opportunity for Trent Richardson.
Matt Ryan against the Saints (AT LEAST HE MIGHT HAVE WON SOME FANTASY GAMES)
Too bad he couldn't win the real one and keep the Falcons perfect.
Ryan did what he could, going 34-of-52 for 411 yards, 3 TD and 1 INT in a 31-27 loss to the Saints. Ryan gets up to 2,771 yards, 20 TD and 7 INT on the year (nine games) with a 102.6 rating but the Falcons should be worried. Atlanta has a great passing attack, but they’ve got no run game (26th) and can’t stop the run (25th) and they’re just average against the pass.
They’ll probably clinch a playoff game by Week 14, but what will they do after that?
The Saints still provide an excellent fantasy matchup for any fine fellow and owner. They're 32nd in total defense and 28th in scoring defense. They're like the Raiders with an offense. That's going to put sleeper tags on Raiders and 49ers over the next two weeks, before a re-match against the Falcons in Atlanta. Ryan should be fantasy QB #1 that week.
Matthew Stafford against the Vikings (Touchdowns? TOUCHDOWNS!)
Nobody in the NFL has attempted or completed as many passes as Matthew Stafford and he’s fourth in the league in yardage. Which is what makes his touchdown total look so weird in comparison to other leaders. Stafford finally got his act together on Sunday by going 28-of-42 for 329 yards, 3 TD and 1 INT in a loss to Minnesota. This comes two weeks after a 3-TD game against Seattle, but still leaves him with seven games at 1 TD or less.
A far cry from his 41-TD 2011 performance.
Honorable Mentions: Philip Rivers (337 yards, 3 TD, 2 INT), Drew Brees (298 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT), Sam Bradford (275 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT)
The Bad
Andrew Luck against the Jaguars (THURSDAY NIGHTS ARE NO FUN)
You give a kid three days off, you better hope to get lucky. Or in this case, ‘Not Lucky’ because Lucky was pretty sucky for Week 10: 18-of-26 for 227 yards, 0 TD and 1 INT won’t beat Alice in accounting. Andrew Luck, for all his talent, is not much of a fantasy quarterback yet. He has no 3-TD games yet. He has 3 TD and 4 INT over his last five games combined.
What people will argue for is that Luck scored two touchdowns on the ground against Jacksonville, giving him five on the year, but I can’t count on rushing touchdowns from Andrew Luck. Not when he turns it over twice (fumbled it too) so his fantasy day was still underwhelming, like most of the last five weeks.
He may rack up the yards (because he’s 5th in the NFL in attempts) but there aren’t many fantasy rewards for him yet. Oh well, at least the Colts have won four straight. (Is now a good time to mention that I picked the Colts as a sleeper playoff team pre-season? No? Okay, well too bad.)
His matchup against the Patriots this week won't be talked about by anyone at ESPN or the national media at all. It won't be discussed constantly. But it is a good matchup for Luck.
Peyton Manning against the Panthers (HOW DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING? LUCK AND MANNING ARE INSEPARABLE)
Seriously, I can’t seem to find one without the other. While Luck had 0 TD passes, Manning had 1 TD pass but also fumbled and had fewer fantasy points than his young twin. The Broncos are going to play the Colts in the playoffs. You know that, right?
Denver hardly needed Manning in their 36-14 win over the Panthers and he still rates as one of the top quarterbacks in fantasy or reality. He's posting the highest completion percentage (69.7%) of his career. He's like Chad Pennington but elite.
Just not this week.
Ryan Tannehill against the Titans (HOW COULD THIS HAVE GONE SO WRONG?)
You've scored 50 points over your last two games. You've got the Titans defense coming into Miami. You haven't thrown an interception since Week 4. I guess the Dolphins, sometimes, are who we thought they were.
Tannehill went 23-of-39 for 217 yards, 0 TD and 3 INT, giving him 5 TD and 9 INT in nine games this year. Five touchdown passes in nine games. Starting Ryan Tannehill in your league would have been an odd choice unless you had a player on a bye week, but some of you probably did have a player on a bye week and so that sucks.
It should have been better than this.
Eli Manning against the Bengals (NOT AS GOOD AS ANDY DALTON)
Two Super Bowls are a great way to overlook a player that’s been mediocre-to-bad for much of his career. Manning has put together some amazing playoff performances, he is not a terrible quarterback, but sometimes he is a really terrible quarterback.
Manning went 29-of-46 for 215 yards, 0 TD and 2 INT in a blowout loss to the Bengals. Cincinnati was reeling with four straight losses and then BAM! they get a nice dose of Eli.
Over his last three games, Manning has 0 TD, 4 INT, 527 yards. That’s right, save it for the playoffs, Eli.
The Injured
The Bears free-falled from near the top of the NFC to out of the playoffs in a hurry last season when they lost Jay Cutler. Hopefully for them, Jason Campbell doesn't turn into Caleb Hanie. Cutler left in the second quarter with a concussion, which is very "indefinite" news for the Bears.
Cutler is a mediocre fantasy QB, so it shouldn’t affect many people, but it very well could harm the value of Brandon Marshall. Campbell is not a fantasy QB at all.
Michael Vick suffered a concussion as well and the Eagles might just stick with Nick Foles after a loss that drops them to 3-6. Less than 2% of teams to be 3-6 or worse have made the playoffs since 1990. With growing likelihood that Vick and Andy Reid will be gone after the year, might as well see what Foles can do. You've lost five straight games.
That bodes nothing for your fantasy team.
Alex Smith left with a.... concussion. Seriously, did the NFL revert back to leather helmets? They should probably snag some of those hard ones that help protect the head. Smith’s concussion helped lead to the mother of all hated endings in the NFL: The tie.
I don't think that Colin Kaepernick is necessarily a better quarterback than Smith for the 49ers, but he could be a much more intriguing fantasy player with his dual-threat ability. If you had to pick up one of these three, it would be Kaep.
