Week #13 of the NFL season is behind us, and it’s time for another of daily fantasy football busts and diamonds. Hopeful you had the diamonds on your team this week, and none of the busts. Hopefully our analysis here can help you to improve your roster moving forward into the last portion of the football season.
Busts Come This Way
Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans Saints
Last week, Brees was a diamond. This week, he was a bust despite all of the positive buzz (including some from us) that the experts were giving him. What’s going on with him? This was one of his worst games of the season as he threw 0 TDs despite his 326 yards in passing. He was also sacked once, and had 3 interceptions. He also recorded a fumble. Brees might have entered the week with the largest amount of passing yards in the NFL, but he emerges from Week 13 as one of the most underwhelming QBs that played. We expected better from him, and will continue to as the season progresses.
Mark Ingram, RB, New Orleans Saints
The Saints were unimpressive all around, and it wasn’t just their passing game. Ingram usually is a large contributor for the team, but on Sunday he only was able to rush for 37 yards on 5 attempts. He did have 5 catches on 5 targets and 16 receiving yards, which helped boost him out of the basement when it came to fantasy point contributions, but he was capable of much more for this particular game. 0 TDs also dropped his worth quite a bit.
Travis Benjamin, WR, San Diego Chargers
Benjamin has recorded a few great fantasy weeks so far this season and has often been a high value receiver, especially when you are able to pick him up for mid-tier prices, but this was not one of those weeks. He had 24 yards on 2 catches, and that was about it for Week 13. He was targeted 4 times, for a 50 percent completion rate. If he had had more targets, he likely would have had a bigger fantasy impact this week, and in the future we expect him to.
Diamonds Were Shining
Golden Tate, WR, Detroit Lions
Tate had 1 touchdown on Sunday, and chalked up 145 yards in completions along the way. Tate was targeted just 10 times, but had 8 catches for an 80 percent completion rate. The only real negative aspect to Tate’s game was the fact that one of his receptions was for 66 yards. Plays like that are hard to repeat, but one nice play like that for a player can lead to a breakout game, and that’s exactly what we have here. We don’t expect Tate to perform at quite this level again this season, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have potential.
Jordan Howard, RB, Chicago Bears
Howard had 3 TDs Sunday, leading the Bears to a nice 6-26 victory over the 49ers. He had 117 yards in this game, which is pretty low considering the amount of TDs he was able to contribute for his team. Howard was targeted once for a pass, but it was incomplete. He didn’t need that pass or any of the yards he might have seen to be a huge fantasy producer this week. Howard has picked up a lot of the slack that the Chicago passing has missed out on, and although this was an exceptional game from him, he will continue to be a strong RB.
Breshad Perriman, WR, Baltimore Ravens
Perriman is typically the number 4 receiver on the Ravens, but this week he saw 59 yards passing and a TD. This, coupled with his bargain fantasy salary in pretty much every league, made him one of the highest valued players you could have drafted this week. Unfortunately, we aren’t likely to see such a strong game out of him again this season. He was targeted just 3 times and had 2 catches.
