Gotta play four quarters or all 60 minutes, as they say, and there were some games like that yesterday. Probably a lot of fantasy matchups where it seemed one team had won or lost until the late games started, too. And oh yeah some major injuries. A lot of ground to cover, so let's go.
Cowboys at Panthers: The Panthers were a rare betting favorite in this game, which was a little dubious all along. The Cowboys have some talent, and it's not like they've been mailing it in lately. While Carolina has been impressively competitive itself against superior Kansas City and Philadelphia teams lately, their defense has been pretty awful all along. Here it made Cooper Rush (3 TDs) look good, and CeeDee Lamb had a big game, as did Rico Dowdle (albeit with no touchdowns). Panthers offense did nothing; a long Jalen Coker touchdown was the extent of it. Chuba Hubbard and Adam Thielen both disappointing, with some serviceable PPR work at least.
Kansas City at Browns: Well, the Jameis Winston era might be over, sadly, with Winston just continuing to throw interceptions at an absurd rate. Remember the talk a couple of years ago that corrective vision surgery could clear that up? Yeah no. Benched for Dorian Thompson-Robinson late. Plenty of other developments. Nick Chubb left with a foot injury. Jerome Ford looked really good and is your pickup this week, if available. Patrick Mahomes also left with an injury after getting pretzeled in a sack, it's being called a high ankle sprain which if so means we'll probably be seeing Carson Wentz for multiple games.
Dolphins at Texans: Rough outing for Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins offense. Seemed like Tua wasn't seeing the field well on some throws (3 interceptions). Not a great game, again, for Houston's offense either, with Joe Mixon shut down, and C.J. Stroud and the passing game generally putting up modest numbers. (2 TDs, but just 17 yards for Nico, and nobody else did much.) Houston pretty much led all the way, but an ugly game.
Jets at Jaguars: Big question about how the Jets might use their running backs. It was a committee, in which you were glad if you sat Breece Hall until the final minutes, when the Jets got set up near the goal line on a long completion to Davante Adams (monster day) and Hall punched in the short TD. So I think you can feel OK if you started or benched Breece. Jaguars D really bad, kudos to Aaron Rodgers for playing well in a meaningless game, and to those who started Adams (Garrett Wilson also scored, so all the Jets you could have reasonably used worked out). Brian Thomas also a big game, because he's great too.
Commanders at Saints: Watching this game, which was surprisingly entertaining, with about 3 minutes left, Washington had the ball near midfield with a 20-13 lead. Next Gen Stats said the Commanders had a 98 percent likelihood to win. Seemed really high for a one-score game, so we started rooting for the Saints. Indeed, the Commanders missed a long field goal, Saints got the ball back, Spencer Rattler (replacing Jake Haener, who had struggled) led New Orleans down to throw a touchdown on the last play of regulation. Couple nice plays (presumably Rattler starts next week), even though the 2-point conversion pass play didn't have much chance.
Ravens at Giants: Well, the Giants did a nice job of slowing down Derrick Henry. Sorry to those who started him (obviously nobody had the option of sitting down Henry), hope more of his quiet games were against you. Otherwise the Giants stopped absolutely no one, with Lamar, Rashod Bateman and Justice Hill putting up big numbers, Mark Andrews scoring, Zay Flowers at least being s0-so in PPR. Giants got a huge game from Malik Nabers and let Devin Singletary frustrate those who chanced Tyrone Tracy by allowing him to vulture a touchdown. Tommy DeVito and Tim Boyle quarterbacked this game for New York, pretty much all you need to know.
Bengals at Titans: Playing probably the league's worst defense, and taking an early lead on a drive that ended with a Tony Pollard touchdown, and then another score where they decided to spread the wealth to Tyjae Spears, wasn't enough for Will Levis. He threw almost half as many interceptions (3, including a Pick Six) as completions and was benched for Mason Rudolph. Despite the choice matchup, Titans favored short throws to running backs and tight ends (so Calvin Ridley and the other wideouts disappointed). Burrow, Chase Brown, Tee Higgin and Ja'Marr Chase all did pretty well, good to have them on your side if they were.
Patriots at Cardinals: Big game for James Conner, as expected. Big game also for Trey McBride, who I think set a record for most catches in a season without a touchdown catch or somesuch. Otherwise the big story was Kyler Murray leaving with an injury, which would pretty much kill their slight playoff hopes. Drake Maye managed some decent production, running quarterbacks will do that. But not a lot going on for the Patriots.
Colts at Broncos: For the first half, this was game was mostly Indianapolis. Anthony Richardson leading drives, Jonathan Taylor breaking off runs, Bo Nix making rookie mistakes and throwing head-scratching interceptions. But then, the Colts made two of the biggest, costliest mistakes you'll ever seen one team make in the same game. Presumably most have seen Jonathan Taylor -- a 5-year NFL veteran -- throw away the ball inches short of the goal line for what should have been (initially appeared to be) a long touchdown to put the Colts up 20-7. Then, after Denver went up 17-13, the Colts tried a trick play double pass with Adonai Mitchell floating one across the middle of the field that was easily intercepted and run back for a Pick Six to put Denver up 11. So while they again couldn't run the ball and didn't really pass the ball well for most of the game, Denver moves to 9-5 and the Colts are pretty much cooked. Weird one.
Bills at Lions: While it wasn't perhaps as bad as Taylor's botched touchdown run or the trick play Pick Six, Dan Campbell's decision to try an onside kick after pulling within 38-28 with 12 minutes left in the game was a weird one. Not only was it unsuccessful, but the Bills returned it down to the 5, setting up the score that made it 45-28 and all but ended the game (gave the Lions some nice garbage points, anyway). Lots of fantasy playoff games were won or lost with this one. (Back to Campbell's gamble: It would have been more defensible if onside kicks could still surprise the other team, which the NFL's new "dynamic kickoff" has made literally impossible.) Anyhoo, big fantasy games for most key starters (except David Montgomery...), with both teams putting up over 500 yards of offense, which I'm assuming doesn't happen very often. Hope more of these guys were on your side this week, and not on your bench.
Bucs at Chargers: Pretty good butt-kicking by the Bucs, perhaps taking control of the NFC South. Close for a while, but too much Baker Mayfield and Mike Evans and too much running game (Bucky Irving, healthy!) for the Chargers to keep up with. We'd kind of been saying for a while that maybe the Chargers defense wasn't as good as it's shown with a favorable schedule, and this was indeed one of those games. Decent numbers for the Chargers passing game, but not much else. Short week before facing Denver on Thursday in an important one for AFC playoff positioning.
Steelers at Eagles: The Eagles have kind of been inexorable in some games. Kind of like the Tush Push. They just keep wearing away at you with the run and short passes and gradually pulling away. It helped that the Steelers offense without George Pickens is not too threatening. Impressive actually that they were close for a while, without doing very much on offense. Good game for Hurts, Brown and DeVonta Smith, not so good for Saquon Barkley's 2,000-yard push. There's also a potential leg injury of some kind there to monitor.
Packers at Seahawks: It's been hard to take the Seahawks fully seriously despite their recent four-game win streak and move into first in the NFC West, and the Packers dominated this one from the get-go. And then Geno Smith left with a knee injury, and things got even worse. Strength of the NFC is the Eagles and the North right now. Good game for Doubs, Love and Jacobs, with Smith-Njigba about it for the Seahawks.
Monday, Monday, times two: Couple of Monday games, with some small playoff implications for the Vikings and Falcons. Bad defenses in the Atlanta-Vegas game, better in Bears-Vikings, but they did play a higher scoring game not too long ago. Someone is no doubt counting on Bijan, Jefferson or maybe even Sincere McCormick, but hopefully not too many Bears or Raiders. Two score predictions: Vikings 24, Bears 17, and Falcons 26, Raiders 20.