Knowing when to react and when not to is crucial in fantasy football. It’s important to distinguish what is truly significant and what is not. This article aims to clarify what requires our full attention and what can be disregarded.
FIVE THINGS THAT MATTER FROM WEEK 5
A GOLD HELMET OR A ROUNDED CROWN?
In 2022, the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns played in the NBA Western Conference Semifinals. After four games where the winning team had won each contest by an average of 11.5 points, the series was tied 2-2. Phoenix won Game 5 with a commanding 30-point victory. Then, Dallas took Game 6 by 27. Finally, the Mavericks put the series away on the road in Game 7 with a 33-point blowout to advance to the Western Conference Finals. These teams had the same coaches and players facing seven times in less than two weeks. How can we explain such dramatic swings from night to night?
That’s the thing about sports. The analysts on the midday panel shows, and the blistered fans that call the local sports radio stations, have trained us that someone must always fall on the sword. But the reality is that, in any game of statistics, there can be wild swings due to nothing other than variance. We can go on a run of coming up snake eyes or a streak of busting in blackjack. The cards don’t fall. The dice roll cold. The stripes aren’t kind.
Then again, sometimes you tangle with Doyle Brunson over three nights; the first, you’re down to the felt; the second, you’ve made a couple more trips to the ATM; and the third, you’re turning over the keys to your car and the deed to your house. Sometimes, you’re simply punching above your weight.
That’s what we saw Sunday night. San Francisco and Dallas could have played a seven-game series this week, and San Francisco would have swept by Thursday. It isn’t that Dallas was suddenly revealed to be poor — just entirely out of their league. This is because San Francisco is simply the best team in the NFL. This certainly matters in real life — where the 49ers established themselves on Sunday as the prohibitive favorite to hoist the Lombardi Trophy this winter. But it matters in fantasy football because the 49ers’ players are matchup-proof.
Simply stated, you should be starting Brock Purdy by now. I understand the hang-ups with his being a pocket passer, or it’s possible you got him as a second arm late in drafts or off the waiver wire. If you have a better option, consider yourself #blessed. Otherwise, he’s no longer a streamer but an every-week starter. The Christian McCaffrey, Brandon Aiyuk, and Deebo Samuel trio are in lineups no matter what. George Kittle might offer you a paltry line for consecutive weeks, but there is no TE on this side of Kelce who can nuke your opponent the way Kittle can. Suffering twos while your opponents rack up sixes most weeks may be worth it when Kittle can offer you a periodic auto-win as he did this weekend. All four of San Francisco’s marquee skill guys are elite players, among the best at their positions, held back only by the fact that they have to share.
ANOTHER NOTE FROM SANTA CLARA
At a point on Sunday, the Cowboys were revealed to be a team without an answer. The run failed. Short passes failed. Long passes failed. Reeling without solutions, Dak Prescott finally flailed and started doing things that didn’t make sense, inviting further disaster. These incidents struck me as the desperate acts of a desperate man who felt the weight of the moment and had no keys to the locked gate before him.
Cris Collinsworth noted on the broadcast that Prescott came into Week 5 having only thrown two near-interceptions all year, marking a dramatic improvement in the carelessness he demonstrated a year ago when he lofted a league-leading 15 picks. But a waterfall of interceptions came on Sunday. Prescott handed a platform to the Pardon the Take shock jocks that fail to recognize 31 teams leave every season disappointed, that there is only one Patrick Mahomes, and 31 other teams left trying to figure out how to beat him without him (maybe Kyle Shanahan deserves to be held up in the same way), or for all his warts, Prescott is still better than half of the starting QBs in the league.
But . . . is he?
He has been. He probably still is. Anecdotally speaking, we remember him flailing in the playoffs a year ago against this same 49ers squad. Still, we forget he had the best game of his career one week prior in a playoff game against the GOAT and the Bucs, whose championship rings were still shiny, in a high-pressure environment when many believed he would crumble.
But in 2023, Prescott has not been very good. He has been transitioning from Kellen Moore’s modern scheme to a more traditional West Coast Offense, which McCarthy plucked right from the source when he worked under Paul Hackett (Bill Walsh’s OC in San Francisco) with the Joe Montana-led Chiefs. In it, Prescott’s advanced stats have suffered as he is having the worst season of his career.
Until Prescott puts it together, everyone suffers. The time to acclimate to a new system has passed for a QB of his reputation and salary, and he and McCarthy are smack dab on the hot seat, side-by-side. For fantasy and reality football, this has not been the Dak you think you know, and there are indicators that no regression may be coming to save the day.
