Fantasy

Fantasy Football Week 15: The Wide Receivers Strike Back

by Peter Overzet

5 days ago

In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by New Era:

Last week I wrote about the 2024 fantasy season being The Year Of The RB.

But here’s the thing about the fantasy season.

It’s 17 weeks long, not 14 weeks.

And while the early-round RBs might have brought teams to the dance, the WRs crashed their party in a big way yesterday.

League-winning RBs like Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry turned in duds—neither of them cleared 10 points—while a handful of WRs detonated for 30+ points (more on them in the Pick 6 recap column below).

Nothing perfectly encapsulated this early-round RB flop in Week 15 quite like Jonathan Taylor ”fumbling” the ball at the goal line on what would have been a 41-yard TD run.

For Barkley and Henry managers, hopefully you had a bye this week (or Br Ian Thomas Jr.).

For everyone else … buckle up.

The fantasy football playoffs have been flipped on their head.

UTILIZATION REPORT GAME LOGS

What else is in today’s newsletter?

Pete’s Pick 6: The Bills are peak entertainment
Watercooler: Fat guy TD
Fantasy Life Trivia: BTJ edition

Week 15 Fantasy Football Takeaways

by Peter Overzet

It's time for Pete's Pick 6—a weekly recap column where I round up all of the best (and sometimes worst, if I'm feeling prickly) fantasy action from Sunday's games and spotlight the biggest winners and losers.

🎉 The Bills are pure entertainment

Can we just take a second right now to appreciate this Bills team and what they mean for fantasy? We all collectively spend a lot of time complaining about low-scoring affairs, TNF duds, never-ending commercials and stoppage of play, etc.

But this 2023 Bills team is pure, raw, uncut football goodness. They were designed in a lab to produce high-octane, wildly entertaining football.

Last week they gave us the game of the year vs. the Rams, and then said "Hold my (own?) beer" and did it again vs. the Lions on Sunday.

The two teams combined for 90 total points, 1,080 combined total yards, and 12 total TDs. Josh Allen put up another gaudy fantasy line (430 total yards, 4 TDs), but was somehow upstaged by Jared Goff in the fake points department (507 total yards, 5 TDs).

Over the past two weeks on the road, Allen has led the Bills to 90 points, 10 TDs, no INTs, and 400+ total yards in each game. The fantasy numbers are just as ridiculous.

Allen is your MVP (his leading pass receiver yesterday was Ty friggin' Johnson for goodness sake) and if there is a football god, the Bills will be in the Super Bowl.

We might not deserve it, but we need it.

🧓 Respect your elders (Davante Adams & Mike Evans)

There is plenty of data that suggests veteran players tail off at the end of the season due to the wear and tear accumulated across multiple months of grueling football action.

But you wouldn't know it looking at what Davante Adams and Mike Evans did yesterday:

Adams: 9-198-2

Evans: 9-159-2

The most insane thing about the Adams stat line is that he did it ~~w̶i̶t̶h̶ A̶a̶r̶o̶n̶ R̶o̶d̶g̶e̶r̶s̶ a̶s̶ h̶i̶s̶ Q̶B̶~~ all in the second half. Seriously, he had 0 receptions in the first half.

As for Evans, did you really think he was going to let his 1,000-yard receiving streak come to an end without a fight? This dude is an absolute machine. He is 31 years old, coming off a brutal hamstring injury. Barely practicing … and yet he balls out week after week.

The 2014 WR class is one of the best ever, but Adams and Evans are the creme de la creme.

4 MORE WEEK 15 HIGHLIGHTS

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