Every week, fantasy owners have to ask themselves which surprise performances are real, and which are just the product of a fluke play, or a starter’s injury, or Jupiter’s position in relation to Venus.
Fantasy football stats: The sleepers of Week 10
Some veteran ex-stars bounced back with some numbers Sunday. Also, John Brown danced. Oh, how he danced.
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Sometimes, the flukes are obvious, and sometimes the newly dominant performers are clearly there for the long haul. Sometimes, though, it helps to look a little further into it and figure out the truth.
And then we guess anyway.
These are the sleepers of the week -- the good performances that weren’t quite great, or the sneaky numbers that might portend better things down the road. Read on:
Sleeper quarterbacks in Week 10
Michael Vick, NYJ (132 passing yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 39 rushing yards, 16 fantasy points)
The game the Jets played Sunday is the exact sort of game they need for Vick to be successful. At this point in his career, he's not a bring-you-back-from-behind quarterback. But if you can get a quick lead, as the Jets did Sunday, Vick -- with his usually short passes and extreme willingness to run the ball -- is a great "keep this lead" option. Unfortunately for Vick and the Jets, the team isn't likely to be good enough to regularly jump out to leads. Still, Vick's legs will keep him at least on the fringes of relevance.
Drew Stanton, ARI (85 passing yards, 1 touchdown, 3 rushing yards, 7 fantasy points)
Stanton has played only two games beginning to end this season. The first was Week 2, when his start was something of a surprise, and I'm marginally inclined to give him a pass. But the other was Week 3, when Stanton had a week to prepare for his game, and put up 18 fantasy points. At some point, we have to accept that Bruce Arians is an incredibly good coach, and there are enough weapons surrounding Stanton, replacing the injured Carson Palmer, that he'll be a mid-level QB2 most weeks.
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Sleeper running backs in Week 10
Frank Gore, SF (81 rushing yards, 1 rushing touchdown, 2 receiving yards, 14 fantasy points)
The fantasy numbers for Gore are fine -- his second-best fantasy performance of the year, and his best since Week 4 -- but the biggest takeaway for Gore was his number of carries. After barely 14 a game over the last month, Gore had 23 carries Sunday, as the 49ers made good on their claim to get their veteran running back the ball more often. Gore was plummeting down the fantasy rankings, but if he's going to get carries like that, he'll start climbing again.
Bryce Brown, BUF (35 rushing yards, 65 receiving yards, 1 fumble lost, 7 fantasy points)
If you were going to describe a reasonable game for Brown to have, this would basically be it: 100 total yards, but some sloppiness. Brown and Anthony Dixon were the load-carriers for Buffalo Sunday with Fred Jackson at less than full strength, and both put up at least reasonable performances. And with the team having to turn around quickly for a Thursday night game, it's possibly Brown and Dixon will get to be the guys again in Week 11. Neither one looks like a great fantasy option, but in a pinch, Brown looks like the better bet to put up numbers.
Sleeper wide receivers in Week 10
John Brown, ARI (73 receiving yards, 1 touchdown, 13 fantasy points)
If you're going to own one Arizona receiver, it's Larry Fitzgerald. But if you're going to own one after him, it's Brown and not Michael Floyd at this point; Floyd is barely ownable even in deep leagues. Brown, meanwhile, has been very up-and-down in his fantasy production this season, and the ups have been very up. But really, this entry is just an excuse to include Brown's celebration dance from Sunday, because it is all that is good in the world:
Cecil Shorts III, JAC (119 receiving yards, 11 fantasy points)
Shorts has led the Jaguars in fantasy wide receiver scoring twice this year. Allen Hurns has done it four times, Allen Robinson four as well. It's not that the team doesn't have offensive weapons to make it work in fantasy; it's that there are too many mouths to feed in Jacksonville, and there's little way to guess who will produce from game to game. If you guess right, you could get Hurns' 23-point game, or one of Shorts' or Robinson's big ones. But Hurns had zero fantasy points Sunday; Robinson had three a week ago. It's a crapshoot.
Sleeper tight end in Week 10
Mychal Rivera, OAK (64 receiving yards, 1 touchdown, 12 fantasy points)
Sue me, I’m still not buying it. Before the last minute of Sunday’s game, Rivera had 46 yards and no scores, a completely run-of-the-mill performance. It’s great that he got that garbage-time touchdown to turn a 41-10 game into a 41-17 one, but Rivera didn’t impress anyone with that game. He’s still not likely to crack the top 20 in my tight end rankings.
