Lance's 2021 Week 13 Recap and Week 14 Waiver Priorities
RECAP
-Zimmer needs to go. I’ve tried to stay loyal to him because I’ve really appreciated the years he’s gotten us into the playoffs, but I can’t stand by him anymore. He’s a defensive coach and the Vikings couldn’t get a defensive stop at the end of the game against Jared Goff and the winless (now one win) Lions. It doesn’t stop there, the defense has been awful for two straight seasons. Last year you could use the COVID opt-outs and young secondary excuse. This season that excuse is gone. Minnesota needs to move on. Great job Detroit, now please go beat Denver next week so I don’t feel so bad.
-Gardner Minshew, The Stache himself, led Philly to a big win, even if it was against the lowly Jets. This was a pivotal game since it was against arguably their easiest remaining opponent and a loss would have dropped them to 12th in the conference. I don’t think they stick with Minshew when Hurts is healthy. The highs were fun for the Jags too, but his lows killed them.
-Is Miami a legitimate threat? I don’t think so. Look at their last five opponents (the Texans, Ravens, Jets, Panthers, Giants), Baltimore is the best team among them and they’ve been exposed recently. They have a decent chance at finishing the year 8-9 or 9-8, but the AFC has too many good teams this year and I don’t think that will be enough for them to secure a playoff spot.
-Kyler Murray once again demonstrated why Arizona has the most lethal offense this season when he’s healthy. If the defense keeps up their level of play, Green Bay might be the only team in the NFC that can run with them.
-That was an impressive performance by the Chargers. They only had one less turnover than Cincy had, they just executed better when their defense gave them the ball back. Definitely their finest body of work this season.
-I gotta hand it to Washington. They’ve won four straight games (three of which I didn’t think they’d pull off) and they’ve got themselves back in the playoff race. In the last five weeks their defense has allowed 17.4 PPG. If that was their season average they’d be ranked third and they’d be running with Dallas for the lead in the NFC East. Great job by Rivera and his staff for getting that unit back on track.
-The Ravens are hurting badly. Opposing Defensive Coordinators have figured out if they just keep blitzing Jackson they can get to him before he can even take a breath. And on their own defense they lost Marlon Humphrey for the season, so both of their starting Corners are now gone (Marcus Peters being the other). With how tough the AFC is, they may not make the playoffs in what started out as such a promising season despite the early injuries.
-The Chiefs offense may still be completely lost, but the defense has got them covered. I don’t know if that will be enough in the playoffs, especially if they end up taking on New England, Buffalo, Indy, Cincinnati or even the Chargers, so Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy need to figure out what the problem is and fix it before the regular season ends.
-Ugly weather on the Monday night game setup a battle of defenses and wills. Clearly New England’s Running Backs just wanted it more.
FANTASY WAIVER WIRE TARGETS
QB: Jimmy Garoppolo (San Francisco)
After this week the fantasy playoffs start for most of us, so I won’t be including a player for each position, I’ll only include players that I think will actually help you for that week. Jimmy G should get your attention right now. He’s not heading back to the bench anytime soon and his opponents during the fantasy playoffs are Atlanta (4th most fantasy points allowed to QBs), Tennessee (2nd most) and Houston (10th most).
RB: Kenneth Gainwell (Philadelphia)
They’re heading into the bye week which may give Sanders plenty of time to recover from whatever he did to his ankle, and allow Hurts to be back at full strength for week 15. But just in case those two have lingering issues you should snag and stash Gainwell. Minshew liked having him as a target, and he ran the ball well in his role against the Jets.
RB: Tevin Coleman (NY Jets)
He’s getting the bulk of the Jets’ backfield work and making the most of it. Starting him against New Orleans might be tough, but in the last couple weeks their run defense hasn’t been the same force we’ve seen over the last season and a half.
WR: Amon-Ra St. Brown (Detroit)
He’s coming off a 12 target, 10 catch day, that deserves your attention regardless of what team he plays for. Coming into this past draft he was expected to end up as a high target Receiver, which is great for PPR leagues. His lack of major production can be attributed in part to Detroit’s offense, but also due to the amount of time it usually takes for rookie Receivers to adjust to the pro level. If this was his coming out party you can guarantee there will be plenty more of these high target games since Detroit’s basically going to have to pass non-stop in all of their remaining matchups.
TE: Zach Ertz (Arizona)
He’s 85% rostered on Yahoo, but for those of you who fall into that 15% this should be your target. His most difficult opponent through the fantasy playoffs is Detroit (18th most fantasy points allowed to TEs), Indy and Dallas are both top ten in points allowed to the position. If Ertz isn’t there and you’ve continually had struggles at TE, I wish you luck, there were plenty of other options I’ve provided each week that you could have and probably should have gone for. If you did grab Logan Thomas, I hope you have another option available cause that’s rough.
K: Dustin Hopkins (LA Chargers)
He’s a good streaming option this week, since LA’s offense is showing no signs of stopping and the Giants may be forced to roll with Jake Fromm this week. Could be a bloodbath that gives LAC lots of good starting field position.
D: Los Angeles Chargers
Speaking of a bloodbath that could give LAC good starting field position, here’s the unit that will be the cause behind that. Their 20 point outing last week was a surprise, and if Fromm is the one under Center the Chargers could dwarf those results. Difficult to do, but it would be a young passer in his first regular season action.
