Drew Brees (credits below)
This is it, ladies and gents – the last Monday Night Football game of 2011. I’m hoping that you’re all reading this with your fantasy playoff matchups sewn-up, but if you’re like me…you’ve got a lot riding on tonight’s matchup.
I’ll get to the fantasy implications in a moment, but let’s take our usual look at what the playoffs would look like if the season ended today (there’s still a week to go, obviously, so some of these are based on tiebreakers right now):
AFC
First-Round Byes: New England and Baltimore
Wild Card Matchups: Pittsburgh at Denver, Cincinnati at Houston
NFC
First-Round Byes: Green Bay and San Francisco
Wild Card Matchups: Detroit at New York Giants, Atlanta at New Orleans
Before we get to tonight’s NFC South slugfest, there was a lot of action around the league over the holiday weekend to look at first:
I’ll have to clear my eggnog hangover to remember back to Thursday, but I seem to remember the Colts attempting to ruin their chance to get Andrew Luck while the Texans seemed intent on backing into the playoffs.
Early-game action on Saturday saw the Patriots roaring back in the 2nd-half to nip the Dolphins, the Bills doing their best to ruin Tim Tebow’s playoff chances, Andy Dalton leading the Bengals over the Cardinals while all of Cincinnati didn’t care, and the Titans keeping their playoff chances alive with a win over the lowly Jaguars. Elsewhere, the Jets failed to back-up Rex Ryan’s bluster in losing to the Giants, the Raiders blocking a field goal to edge the Chiefs and keep a playoff berth realistic, and the Steelers shut-out the Rams despite missing Big Ben.
Other Saturday results included the Vikings surprising the Redskins in D.C., the Ravens sleepwalking to a close win over the Browns, Cam Newton single-handedly dominating the Buccaneers, the 49ers squeaking to a road-win over the Seahawks, and the Lions finally making it back to the playoffs with a win over the Chargers. Oh yea…and the Cowboys lost to the Eagles while Tony Romo’s early thumb injury ruined a lot of fantasy playoff matchups (hopefully not yours).
Tonight’s game doesn’t have a ton of playoff implications other than seeding, but there’s a lot of other things at-stake (including many fantasy championships). The Falcons technically still have a chance to overtake the Saints in the NFC South and Drew Brees is this close to breaking Dan Marino’s single-season passing yardage record, but that’s not why you’re here so let’s get to the fantasy football part of this story.
In short, this one is mostly likely going to come down to the passing game (sorry Michael Turner owners). Both teams have decent rushing offenses, but they both also have somewhat decent rushing defenses as well. On the same token, both teams have borderline great passing offenses while also boasting some of the league’s lower-ranked pass defenses (especially New Orleans).
Drew Brees has been on fire, as of late, and hasn’t scored less than 20 fantasy points since Week 9. Matt Ryan, however, has been sneakily good lately and put up 31 and 20 fantasy points in his last two games. With Brees only 305 yards shy of breaking Dan Marino’s record, and with this game on the fast turf of the Superdome…I’m envisioning a shoot-out. What does that mean for those of us in our fantasy football semi-finals or finals? In short, it means good things for the owners of Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, Roddy White, Julio Jones, Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham, and maybe even Darren Sproles and Lance Moore. Like I said above, I’m hoping you’re all reading this with a win in the bag, but if not…best of luck to you all!
And finally, looking into my crystal ball for tonight…I’m going to predict a Saints victory with a final score of 34-31.
As always, let’s end this week with some of top fantasy-related news from this week:
- For those of you in keeper leagues, it’s going to be a long off-season of monitoring Adrian Peterson’s status as he recovers from his ACL/MCL tear. His status for the season opener in 2012 is in doubt and it’s probably a pretty risky proposition to keep him, as crazy as that sounds.
- What does that mean for this year? It means we should all go running to our waivers to see if Toby Gerhart is available for a Week 17 matchup against the Bears.
- Tony Romo’s bruised thumb proved not to be anything serious, so he should be fine for next week, but I’m still a little wary of starting him to be honest…
Thanks again for reading all season…I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these articles as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them! I’d also like to thank Alan and Evan of TheFantasyFix for having me…it’s been an absolute pleasure. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you all!
Written by Trader X exclusively for www.thefantasyfix.com. Trader X is a top-50 gamer on a major fantasy sports website, and is the founder of www.FantasyTrade411.com. You can follow him and/or ask him for fantasy advice on Twitter @FantasyTrade411
(December 17, 2011 - Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images North America)
I’ll get to the fantasy implications in a moment, but let’s take our usual look at what the playoffs would look like if the season ended today (there’s still a week to go, obviously, so some of these are based on tiebreakers right now):
AFC
First-Round Byes: New England and Baltimore
Wild Card Matchups: Pittsburgh at Denver, Cincinnati at Houston
NFC
First-Round Byes: Green Bay and San Francisco
Wild Card Matchups: Detroit at New York Giants, Atlanta at New Orleans
Before we get to tonight’s NFC South slugfest, there was a lot of action around the league over the holiday weekend to look at first:
I’ll have to clear my eggnog hangover to remember back to Thursday, but I seem to remember the Colts attempting to ruin their chance to get Andrew Luck while the Texans seemed intent on backing into the playoffs.
Early-game action on Saturday saw the Patriots roaring back in the 2nd-half to nip the Dolphins, the Bills doing their best to ruin Tim Tebow’s playoff chances, Andy Dalton leading the Bengals over the Cardinals while all of Cincinnati didn’t care, and the Titans keeping their playoff chances alive with a win over the lowly Jaguars. Elsewhere, the Jets failed to back-up Rex Ryan’s bluster in losing to the Giants, the Raiders blocking a field goal to edge the Chiefs and keep a playoff berth realistic, and the Steelers shut-out the Rams despite missing Big Ben.
Other Saturday results included the Vikings surprising the Redskins in D.C., the Ravens sleepwalking to a close win over the Browns, Cam Newton single-handedly dominating the Buccaneers, the 49ers squeaking to a road-win over the Seahawks, and the Lions finally making it back to the playoffs with a win over the Chargers. Oh yea…and the Cowboys lost to the Eagles while Tony Romo’s early thumb injury ruined a lot of fantasy playoff matchups (hopefully not yours).
Tonight’s game doesn’t have a ton of playoff implications other than seeding, but there’s a lot of other things at-stake (including many fantasy championships). The Falcons technically still have a chance to overtake the Saints in the NFC South and Drew Brees is this close to breaking Dan Marino’s single-season passing yardage record, but that’s not why you’re here so let’s get to the fantasy football part of this story.
In short, this one is mostly likely going to come down to the passing game (sorry Michael Turner owners). Both teams have decent rushing offenses, but they both also have somewhat decent rushing defenses as well. On the same token, both teams have borderline great passing offenses while also boasting some of the league’s lower-ranked pass defenses (especially New Orleans).
Drew Brees has been on fire, as of late, and hasn’t scored less than 20 fantasy points since Week 9. Matt Ryan, however, has been sneakily good lately and put up 31 and 20 fantasy points in his last two games. With Brees only 305 yards shy of breaking Dan Marino’s record, and with this game on the fast turf of the Superdome…I’m envisioning a shoot-out. What does that mean for those of us in our fantasy football semi-finals or finals? In short, it means good things for the owners of Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, Roddy White, Julio Jones, Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham, and maybe even Darren Sproles and Lance Moore. Like I said above, I’m hoping you’re all reading this with a win in the bag, but if not…best of luck to you all!
And finally, looking into my crystal ball for tonight…I’m going to predict a Saints victory with a final score of 34-31.
As always, let’s end this week with some of top fantasy-related news from this week:
- For those of you in keeper leagues, it’s going to be a long off-season of monitoring Adrian Peterson’s status as he recovers from his ACL/MCL tear. His status for the season opener in 2012 is in doubt and it’s probably a pretty risky proposition to keep him, as crazy as that sounds.
- What does that mean for this year? It means we should all go running to our waivers to see if Toby Gerhart is available for a Week 17 matchup against the Bears.
- Tony Romo’s bruised thumb proved not to be anything serious, so he should be fine for next week, but I’m still a little wary of starting him to be honest…
Thanks again for reading all season…I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these articles as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them! I’d also like to thank Alan and Evan of TheFantasyFix for having me…it’s been an absolute pleasure. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you all!
Written by Trader X exclusively for www.thefantasyfix.com. Trader X is a top-50 gamer on a major fantasy sports website, and is the founder of www.FantasyTrade411.com. You can follow him and/or ask him for fantasy advice on Twitter @FantasyTrade411
(December 17, 2011 - Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images North America)
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