Thanksgiving week is upon us which means that Week 11 of the NFL season is nearing its end. Most league’s trade deadlines have either passed, or are very nearly passed, so the team we have now is the team we are riding through the fantasy playoffs. That doesn’t mean to stop being active on waivers, I just believe that in most competitive leagues the waiver wire is pretty picked over by this point of the season. The playoffs are in sight! Keep grinding! Our hard work will pay off! These are my mantras come this time of year. All we need to do is make the playoffs. Once we are there, anything can happen! Anyway, let’s jump into this week’s recap, shall we?

Expect the Unexpected

Come this time of year, most NFL teams have plenty of data on their opponents. Even if it is a team they don’t play very often, there is plenty of film out there for good coaches to develop game plans for anyone. But, there is always something magical that can happen when two division rivals play each other with nothing on the line except pride. That is what we witnessed today when Momma’s Boy DeVito led his Giants to victory over the Washington Commanders. DeVito and the Giants had shown us nothing on offense for two weeks, and no one expected them to put up much of a fight today…except me. The Commanders haven’t been a very good football team recently either. The Giants defense is pretty good against the run, and making a young quarterback one dimensional is a good way to give yourself a chance. And that is exactly what happened. I still wasn’t all that impressed with what I saw from the Giants offense, I just think they played a really bad Washington defense that made them look better. Games like this are why we “love” this game so much.

Nobody is Perfect

Up to this point of the year, I think it is very safe to say that CJ Stroud has really surprised some people with how well he has played. Again, this comes as no surprise to me as he was my highest rated QB in last year’s draft, but nobody is perfect. Maybe people were too quick to jump on the bandwagon and start declaring Stroud to be the NFL MVP. Today showed that he is very much human. He had a rough outing against a defense that by most metrics isn’t very good. They did, however, have a good game plan for how to confuse the young phenom. He misread a few coverages and looked very much like a rookie QB at times today. At other times he looked very much like the MVP candidate that we have seen the past few weeks. This is the life of playing a rookie QB. The biggest takeaway for me in this game is this, even in a game where CJ Stroud played somewhat poorly, they still found a way to win. Granted, Arizona is not a very good team either, but they certainly had opportunities in this game. Demeco Ryans is certainly inserting himself into the discussion for Coach of the Year, at least for me.

We Simply Can’t Have Nice Things

Fantasy owners this year have been subjected to an incredible array of major injuries. These injuries do not care who they hit. They have hit superstars, stars, jags, and guys nobody cares about. The problem is that they just keep on coming. As soon as we start to think the worst is behind us, a new wave of injuries just washes right over us. We start to get some guys back, and then some of those same guys are knocked out. Then, some of the guys that we have been able to rely on during the injury-palooza that has been this season, they start to get knocked out of commission too. This year just has no chill when it comes to injuries. Guys have have proven to dependable, many of them have been bitten by the injury bug this year too.

Even with all the injuries, we as fantasy owners must ride the wave. Keep working the waiver wire, there may yet be that one hidden gem that secures you a championship. We can do this.

Holiday Greetings

With this week being Thanksgiving, we are treated to our normal helping of holiday games  this year (plus one!) In addition to the three Thanksgiving Day games, we are also being treated with a Black Friday game for the first time. The NFL is nothing if not opportunistic! I love my tradition of sitting around on Thanksgiving afternoon and watching the games as much as anyone, however, I think it is time for us to rethink the entirety of the mid-week games. As the NFL leans into the gambling is good crowd, much of the data shows us that these mid-week games are not good for the game. Player safety needs to be considered, and these short week games are not great from a player safety standpoint. I think this year it can be said that even the quality of the on-field product has suffered as well. I understand all the media deals are still more important for the business of the NFL, and I know that means that these games aren’t going away. Still, I think the NFLPA needs to leverage a lot of these data points to try and get rid of the mid-week games when it is time to come back to the negotiating table.

While we are discussing the Thanksgiving holiday, I want to take this time to let you know that my normal practice/injury report round-up article will not be coming out this week. I will be taking this week to spend with my family. I will be back next Monday with my weekly recap as usual. I hope that each and every one of you are able to enjoy the holiday this week, and I look forward to being back with you next week! As always, you can always reach out to me for questions about your rosters or lineups on X(Twitter) @2fatguysff