At long last, the 2010 fantasy football regular season is complete. How does it feel? To those of you who saw your season end, I feel your pain. To those of you gearing up for a playoff run, congratulations! I will be sending three of my four teams to the playoffs, and even though I’ve been doing this for a while, I’m still pretty damn nervous. I know I’ll still be scouring that waiver wire, and you should be too; you never know what you can find that could be what you need. Good luck to you all.
Here are this week’s standout performers and mind-numbing duds, with an analysis on each player’s fantasy playoff strength-of-schedule.
CHRIS IVORY — Ivory was a hot commodity when Pierre Thomas went down, and this week he gave us crazy production: 117 yards and two scores on just 15 carries. He has now reached the end zone five times in three games since the bye week. Reggie Bush should be a relative non-factor even if he decides to play well; the only thing that derails Ivory is Pierre Thomas. Thomas hasn’t played since Week 3, although he continues to be ever closer to coming back. But Ivory still deserves a roster spot with Thomas back; he has proven that he can be productive and that he is a goal-line presence, which warrants flex play in deeper leagues. Watch out for his matchups against the Ravens (Week 15) and Falcons (Week 17), who have fantasy football’s fourth and third-best run defenses, respectively.
CHRIS JOHNSON — Are you kidding me? Sure, the Titans are in disarray, but this is ridiculous. They can’t block for him, Kerry Collins can’t throw to open up the run and, even more shockingly, the Titans held the ball for half of the amount of time that the Jaguars did. This is awful news for Johnson owners, but he hasn’t exactly been doing much to rectify it: 20 carries and just 58 yards may be awful, but yards-per-carry average is usually a strong indicator of how a running back is doing, and his sub-3 mark isn’t impressive. But fear not, fantasy owner: Johnson has one of the absolute weakest opposing run defense schedules in the NFL, facing the Colts twice and the Texans as well.
CHARGERS D/ST — An interesting unit to watch this year. In Week 4 it had 25 points and followed that up with -4, and this past week it followed up a 24-point performance by putting up -1 points. But look at the playoff stretch: the Chiefs, who should be the recipient of the retaliatory beatdown after the Chargers’ loss to the Raiders, then the 49ers and Bengals, who have been awful for most of the year. Denver is hit-or-miss in their Week 17 matchup, but if the Bolts are clawing for a playoff spot, my bet is on San Diego to mess up the Broncos.
THOMAS JONES — This year was interesting for the Chiefs’ backfield. Fantasy gurus were up in arms when Kansas City signed Jones, as they saw the potential of Jamaal Charles to be a top running back. Then, no one knew what the time share situation would be. Somehow, it has worked out for both players. Charles doesn’t get as many touches as he should but his yards per touch are through the roof. Jones is still getting 10 to 20 touches every single game, and if you’re hurting at running back, you certainly could do worse. The Chiefs have a decently soft schedule ahead, so I’d say it’s safe to roll with Jones if you must.
PIERRE GARCON — He is always on Peyton Manning’s radar, but hasn’t leapt into fantasy glory in the way that Austin Collie briefly did. He gets the targets, but not the touchdowns; he has just two all year, and he isn’t a huge big-play receiver, so his yardage can’t salvage his stat line. His PPR value is higher, as he has caught five balls in five of his last six, but I wouldn’t start him at this point. His upside is not equivalent to his risk, so sit him.
RANDY MOSS — If you need me to tell you, you probably didn’t make the playoffs anyway. No.
MATT RYAN — He is among the most consistent fantasy quarterbacks this season. He has a showdown with the Saints remaining, but his other three matchups are soft (Carolina twice and Seattle). He is one of those low-upside, low-risk players; he won’t get you much more than 20 points in a week, but he also won’t hang single digits on you. If you have him and another quarterback, it just depends on what you need that week; if you need a solid source of 15-ish points, Ryan is almost a guarantee.