hope. It is the last thing left in Pandora’s box. It’s an underlying theme throughout “The Shawshank Redemption.” And that’s what NFL teams and fans cling to when a young quarterback is drafted. Give us reason to believe that tomorrow will be better than today.
It’s been an up-and-down season for the starting quarterbacks, to be expected. But the two biggest tickets showed improvement in the initial Week 12 window.
Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams didn’t get real wins on Sunday, but they helped a lot of fantasy managers. When the early window closed, Daniels was atop the scoring charts (32.4 ppg) and Williams was third (26.9 ppg). A clever comeback week when one was desperately needed.
Both players were in catch-up mode in the second half, which may be the nectar of the fantasy gods. The Commanders scored 23 points at halftime against Dallas (including 17 in a chaotic final period), and the Bears used 17 fourth-quarter points and a rare fumble recovery to force overtime against Minnesota. We can’t call it trash when the comeback actually works. Washington would have tied Dallas late if not for a missed extra point.
Daniels had a better fantasy game than his real life game. He was intercepted twice and had just 57 yards at halftime. The most encouraging sign was the return of his running game (7-74-1); he had been an ineffective and sometimes reluctant runner the previous two weeks. I have openly speculated that maybe his rib injury hasn’t fully healed, but he looked good against Dallas.
The Daniels score was boosted when the Cowboys allowed Terry McLaurin to give up 86 yards in the final minute of the game; you could write a book on how bad Dallas defended this game. However, the fantasy managers will not apologize or return the points. After scoring around 13 points on the week through five games, Daniels was back in business.
The next schedule is middling — Tennessee, a bye week, then New Orleans to open the fantasy playoffs in Week 15. The Titans and Saints are in the middle of the pack in terms of QB points allowed. Daniels gets the call in Week 16 against Philadelphia, then closes it out with a home game against Atlanta. Bottom line, if he’s willing to run, we’re willing to play him.
Daniels was needed more on Sunday when Brian Robinson Jr. (5-13-0) suffered early wounds. We credited two touchdown passes to fantasy staples McLaurin (5-102-0) and old reliable Zach Ertz (6-38-1).
Williams had a better real-life game than Daniels — throwing for 340 yards and not turning the ball over against a respected Vikings defense. He took a modest three sacks against Minnesota’s blitz-happy scheme, though one of them was a possession-killer in overtime. There were two touchdown passes, Williams’ first since Week 6 — and 33 resourceful yards.
I don’t know where the Thomas Brown story is going, but he seems to be much more in sync with Williams than the late OC Shane Waldron ever was. And as usual, the Bears kept the target tree beautifully compact — 42 of 47 targets went to the big four of Keenan Allen (15), Cole Kmet (10), Rome Odunze (10) and DJ Moore (seven). Fantasy being the silly game it is sometimes, Moore had the best return (7-106-1 for 23.4 fantasy points) despite the lightest workload. He also caught a two-point conversion. But it’s fun to see this offense be credible again.
The buzzkill for Williams fantasy managers is the upcoming schedule — it’s a sea of red. There are three daunting road games on the road – Detroit on Thanksgiving, San Francisco and then Minnesota in prime time. The Lions rematch follows in Week 16 and the Seahawks in Week 17. Hopefully, fantasy managers have a safer option to dial in at QB. But if Williams can just show his competence, it makes us more comfortable running critical pass catchers in this offense. And wouldn’t that be nice?
Note: I’ll add more Week 12 analysis as Sunday develops.