Booms and Busts: Week 16

It’s Week 16, and it feels like we don’t have a lot of room to make many mistakes. We’re going into the likely semifinals, or even in some leagues, a final, wondering if we will pull out victorious. You want to ride off into the sunset or fail in a heartbreaker while using your studs, but sometimes you have to look at the weakest spot on your roster and see who may ride your bench most weeks but is sitting on a juicy potential matchup. Let’s not make this intro any longer than it needs to be, and let’s get right into the action!

 

Booms: Week 16

 

Jerome Ford, RB – Cleveland Browns

Week 16 Matchup: Cincinnati Bengals (21st against RBs)

 

The season for the Browns is pretty much tucked away in the corner, maybe in a box and wrapped under the tree, that’s how over it is. Two weeks ago, the Browns had an entirely different starting running back, quarterback, and view on life. Now, we’re a week removed from a Nick Chubb broken toe and a replacement of Jameis Winston with Dorian Thompson-Robinson. This spells out an entirely different game plan for the Browns’ offense and one that will likely evolve into a more fluid opportunity based gameplan. In comes Jerome Ford, a not-very-appealing fantasy option for teams normally, but we’re in silly season. No Nick Chubb and a quarterback that has seen pro opportunities and has only proven he’s, at best, a third-string quarterback option. Just this past year, Ford was used often with the offense at a complete standstill behind the arm of Deshaun Watson. They relied on Ford as a plodder, able to take down reasonable chunks of yards. Ford may not gain you a Saquon Barkley-level ceiling, but he’s sitting on one of the best opportunities in all of the NFL on a pretty mediocre-looking Sunday slate.

The Bengals are going into the week 21st against the run and bouncing between periods of solid defensive output and, on the other hand, some very lackluster finishes. In six games this season, they’ve allowed over 100 yards on the ground and have only had three games this season where they haven’t given up a rushing touchdown. When  Thompson-Robinson sets up behind center this week, there’s a huge chance he doesn’t pass over 25 times in the game. With Ford sitting in front of the likes of wheel route king Pierre Strong and D’Onta Foreman, there isn’t that much worry he won’t get a chance to rush early and often on Sunday. There’s potential for a top-15 performance from Ford.

 

Bucky Irving, RB – Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Week 16 Matchup: Dallas Cowboys (26th against RBs)

 

That’s right, we’re going back to our sweet, sweet prince. Bucky Irving came out of Oregon in a flash, being picked by the Bucs in the 4th round of a somewhat critical draft with the impending losses of Tom Brady and Bruce Arians going into the next season. Irving has shown up hugely in 2 of the past 3 weeks, and the one that wasn’t a huge performance got shortcircuited by an injury. In those performances, he had 117 and 152 yards, respectively, going for 7.8 yards per carry and 6.1 in the other. Irving is a dynamic rusher who can also catch passes and take them for large chunks of yardage. While he came into this season sitting in waiting behind Rachaad White, it’s very clear that Irving has taken the starting job.  Irving is going into an incredible opportunity against a Cowboys defense that has underperformed. The matchup is extremely juicy for the running backs, but even better if they’re able to catch passes, as the Cowboys are dead last in average yards per reception to running backs, allowing almost 10 yards per carry to the position.

Irving will receive the opportunity to carry roughly three quarters of the carries, as the backfield worry was carry split, but we’re probably entirely past that at this point. While White has carried almost as often as Bucky, his return is much less impressive. This past week, Irving and White both received 15 carries, but it was Irving who averaged almost twice as many yards. Between his ability to catch passes, as well as take off for large chunks of yardage, this could be a perfect matchup to watch Irving bloom and burst out. Wouldn’t be shocked to see him finish as a top-10 running back.

 

Sam LaPorta, TE – Detroit Lions

Week 16 Matchup: Chicago Bears (24th against TEs)

 

Sam LaPorta has been in waiting for the majority of the season, but the preseason anointed top 3 Tight End has finally started to show out and will have a huge opportunity to with recent developments. LaPorta started the season with a slowed pace, but over the past five games, he’s had over six targets in every single game he’s played. While production hasn’t come along with every game in that time, he has shown that he is capable of once again being a large piece of this offense’s puzzle. In this past week’s game, LaPorta was an absolute terror, hauling in 7 of his 10 targets for 111 yards. In his last game against Chicago on Thanksgiving, the matchup didn’t give him a ton of yardage, but he hauled in two end zone touchdowns.

The timing for the matchup this week, unfortunately, couldn’t get better, as the Lions are facing a ton of injury woes, but the biggest one currently being that their dynamic goal line prowler David Montgomery, who was a huge proponent of their goal line package, and now, unfortunately, will not be available until the end of the playoffs, at best. The big winner would be the tight end position, known to body up in the middle of the field. When the game is over on Sunday, LaPorta may finish this week as an RB1, and that’s something that would be greatly welcomed, given this was the same player that was being thrown around as a drop just a few weeks back.

 

Busts: Week 16

 

Calvin Ridley, WR – Tennessee Titans

Week 16 Matchup: Indianapolis Colts (8th against WRs)

 

The season of Calvin Ridley and absolute confusion continues. Ridley has had some immense matchups, but what we’re likely looking at this week is a matchup where we try to move from Ridley if possible. In the past three games, Ridley has seen relatively solid target amounts (5,12,7). What we haven’t seen from it is any form of reliable and solid fantasy production. Ridley has seen the 100-yard mark just once this season and has amazingly only scored 3 touchdowns this entire season. Part of the reason for that is an entirely new offense that doesn’t have a huge sense of what it is just yet. Derrick Henry has left the area and is replaced by Tony Pollard. The team is trying very hard to make Will Levis a thing of value, but he really hasn’t had a solid season, again seeing the bench for the week ahead. That leaves Mason Rudolph behind center on Sunday, and that is something that will likely ground this offense into a very conservative game plan, not trying to do more than they need to against an also ailing Colts squad.

While they’re ailing, the Colts do have a very solid secondary and have so far been the 8th overall defense against wide receivers. While the Titans are trying to figure out what their future will look like for next year, there’s not a ton that won’t be torn down here next year for something new. While Ridley will be around for multiple more years, the team doesn’t really have a legitimate second wide receiver. There may be an air out or two to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, but I don’t foresee the ability for Ridley to get more than 50 yards in the air on a huge peppering of misguided targets.

 

Jerry Jeudy, WR – Cleveland Browns

Week 16 Matchup: Cincinnati Bengals (22nd against WRs)

 

The Browns have had an extremely up-and-down season, as was mentioned in the Jerome Ford discussion earlier. What they have now is a matchup against across-division rivals that will fight tooth and nail for a very unlikely playoff spot. They’re also doing it with one hand tied behind their back as well. Jerry Jeudy has had a glow-up in the level of Queer Eye over the past few weeks, but the fact of the matter was it could have likely been expected when Jameis Winston started to play at quarterback.

What that looked like was this:

*10/27, first game with Jameis Winston, Jeudy has a 62.5 percent catch rate and his best game for over a month.

*  After that game, Jeudy has averaged over 100 yards per game, including a 235-yard receiving game against his former team.

Jeudy, unfortunately, lost his best friend on the field, as Jameis interception after interception’ed his way out of the starter role. Now he’s going to be facing off against a tough in-division matchup where the Browns are going to likely want to ground the ball and slow the pace of the game down. What this game likely won’t give us is a game where the Browns have a high-flying passing affair. Now add in the worst overall passing quarterback on their team in Dorian-Robinson. Avoid this one if you can.

 

 

Photos courtesy of Icon Sportswire
Adapted by Kurt Wasemiller (@kurt_player02 on IG & Threads, @kuwasemiller on Bluesky)