At a different time in my adult life, I was a Tournament Scrabble player.Yeah, that's a thing. Sometimes I'd spend a weekend playing games upon games, spinning my mind for hours and trying toscrape out every point I could.
At those long tournaments, I'd generally hope for a fair draw, an even draw. I don't need all the breaks, just give me a fighting chance. I'll find a way to make it work for 10 or 20 or even 31 games.
Until the last round, of course. At that point, forget equity. In the finale, may the tile gods smile on me, may I run pure. Easier on the nerves and the stomach.
My fantasy ethos is the same. Give me a fair draw for the first 16 weeks, sounds good, I can work with that. In Week 17, I'm not opposed to getting lucky. Let's build a lifetime memory in the championship round.
Derrick Henry managers can relate. Henry was a useful but unspectacular back for most of his age-31 season, sitting at RB11 entering this week. The Ravens didn't have Lamar Jackson available Saturday at Green Bay, and the Packers needed the game, too. Henry was playable here, but far from a smash pick. His ECR sat at a modest RB12.
And then Henry broke the slate— 36 carries, 216 rushing yards, four touchdowns. It's a new personal best for carries, his second career four-touchdown game, his seventh date over 200 yards. It's also the second-best fantasy game of his career by basic scoring, or his third-best game if you prefer a PPR lens. Derrick Henry was a league-winner after all in 2025 — if you could navigate to the finals.
Jahmyr Gibbs managers don't want to hear any of this. Gibbs looked like the best running back in football about a month ago, but his fantasy playoffs were a dud. He was held to the RB33 finish against the Rams in Week 15 (7.8 points), he was passable versus the Steelers (17.8 points, the late touchdown helped) in Week 16 and then bottled up on Christmas at Minnesota. When the Vikings had finished off the Lions, Gibbs was sitting on a modest 64 total yards, no touchdowns, just two catches. He lost a fumble, too. The result, a grand total of 5.4 fantasy points.
The Minnesota defense was a dangerous matchup, but no rational person was going to rest Gibbs. The top echelon of offensive talent has to be started, no questions asked. But they pay the guys on defense, too.
Maybe the crumbling Detroit offensive line was too much to overcome. Gibbs didn't top 4.0 yards per carry in any of the past five weeks. Sometimes his passing-game chops bailed him out, sometimes that wasn't enough.
One additional reason to play Henry or Gibbs this week was that their teams were incentivized to win. We knew they'd at least leave it all on the field, do whatever it takes. Conversely, it can be risky to ride with non-contending teams at this time of the year. Sometimes they'll rest a bunch of key players; other times, those teams will struggle with focus or motivation. We'd like to think no one ever packs it in for the year, but sometimes that's the case, which leads to me to ...
A meaningless game in reality proves key for fantasy
I was hoping the Cardinals and Bengals could give us a pinball game Sunday, no matter that they're not contending clubs. Jacoby Brissett had been pretty good for two months, although he slumped last week against Atlanta. Joe Burrow obviously returned to action a month ago. Neither team has much on defense, so let's line up the players and watch them score.
The Bengals got the memo — heck, they dictated the memo for three hours. Burrow chucked for 305 yards and two scores, Ja'Marr Chase did his thing (7-60-2), Chase Brown turned 25 touches into 141 total yards and two scores. Cincinnati's sleep-walking loss to Baltimore two weeks back shook our faith, but the Bengals posted 400-plus yards the next two games, en route to 82 total points. If you survived the fantasy regular season in Cincinnati, The Burrow Show came back just in time.
I wish Arizona had punched back more, although the concentration of the offense saved some fantasy managers.Brissett fell far short of the 400 yards I called for in our Week 17 bold predictions, but at least he threw for two scores and put up some garbage time production. Trey McBride (10-76-1) and Michael Wilson (5-89-1) continued to be volume monsters, absorbing 23 of the 35 Arizona targets.
Of course it wasn't all sunshine and lollipops. Marvin Harrison Jr. is still battling a heel injury and probably shouldn't have played — he drew just one target, which fell incomplete, and left the game early. The Cardinals couldn't keep the game competitive, which crushed Michael Carter's case (nine touches, 43 yards).
There's no perfect rule for the non-contending teams. For about nine weeks, Brissett was a right answer — but not the last two weeks. McBride was a monster all year, especially after the QB change, andhad one of the best TE seasons in recent memory. Wilson proved to be a useful pickup, though he was easier to trust when Harrison wasn't in uniform.
Other fantasy booms and busts
— It's a shame the NFC South can't send the Saints to the NFL playoffs, because it's pretty obvious New Orleans is the best team in that division right now.New Orleans outscored the Titans 34-26andgave us a bunch of fantasy utility. Tyler Shough was super again (333 passing yards, two scores) and he kept pitching the ball to Chris Olave (8-119-1) and Juwan Johnson (4-95-0), just like we want. Olave merely needed a healthy season to pay off, and Johnson was a gettable fantasy sleeper if you focused on his sizable contract extension.
There was one fantasy downside in the New Orleans huddle — the Taysom Hill number didn't repeat. Apparently his smash game last week was a hometown farewell thing, because he hardly played against Tennessee (just three touches). Meanwhile, Audric Estime (14-94-1) lugged the mail and looked like the pile-mover he was at Notre Dame.
— It was a great day to have Patriots on your roster, aseverything gloriously came in during a 42-10 romp of the hapless Jets. TreVeyon Henderson was healthy enough for 19 carries (82 yards), although we would have liked a touchdown. But Rhamondre Stevenson scored twice, and Stefon Diggs and Hunter Henry also had receiving touchdowns. Drake Maye had his way with the New York defense, throwing five touchdown passes against just two incompletions. And of course the Jets didn't manage an interception — they're stuck on zero picks through 16 games, an amazing feat of incompetence.Maye is the Q2 on the week with 32.44 fantasy pointswith just two games left on the slate.
I told half the free world to bench Breece Hall in this likely blowout, but Hall wound up coming in with a 59-yard touchdown in garbage time. Given that the Patriots had a 32-point lead at halftime, I'm not sure how engaged New England truly was when Hall was ripping off his scoring run. But hey, it counts. It's not the most sustainable business model, but it counts.
— They say success has many parents but failure is an orphan, but a lot of the fantasy duds could be traced to poor quarterback play. Bryce Young (54 yards, 2.3 YPA) sunk Tetairoa McMillan (one catch, five yards). Philip Rivers (147 yards, 4.7 YPA) and Aaron Rodgers (168 yards, 4.3 YPA) played like the 40-something quarterbacks they are. Jared Goff (five sacks) was harassed and confused by the Minnesota defense for three hours on Christmas. And of course Detroit's offensive struggles that enabled Max Brosmer (51 yards passing) to be camouflaged on the other side.
—The Week 17 quarterback leaderboardwas a mixture of mobile QBs and pocket guys. Maye's five scores pushed him into the 30s, so his legs (22 yards) were just a garnish. Malik Willis, Trevor Lawrence and Jaxson Dart each rushed for two scores, and Bo Nix punched in a touchdown. The top real-life quarterbacks generally throw proactively for their best results, but mix in the running as a nice change-up. The running plays can be a key club in your bag, but you don't want to hit it on every shot.
