Well, there weren't a lot of major injuries yesterday. So that's good. And important since six teams are on bye next week, and glancing at my lineups I'm going to need to add players just to field full lineups. As for yesterday, it was a week when some perennial favorites -- Patriots and Seahawks -- started to look like we'll be watching them play deep into January again.
Bucs at Bills: Boy I picked the wrong week to bench Jameis Winston. Clearly the shoulder injury wasn't a big deal as he had a huge day throwing the ball against one of the league's better pass defenses to this point. LeSean McCoy was also huge, except for a late fumble that nearly cost his team the game. Bucs got big numbers out of Mike Evans (not surprising) and O.J. Howard (a little more surprising, but team is doing a nice job bringing him along). One of the scores was a little play action deal where they spun him off the line for a score. Cameron Brate still fine (6 for 60), though. Lousy game for Doug Martin, Bills seemed to expect a run-heavy game plan. The Nick O'Leary recommendation hurt by 2nd tight end Logan Thomas catching a touchdown. ... Bucs tried a crazy multi-lateral play at the end that lasted a couple of minutes but kept going backward. My son asked if such plays are ever successful, and I remembered the Saints-Jaguars one from a dozen years ago (and quickly found it on YouTube) where New Orleans, down 7, completed a crazy multi-lateral play for a touchdown, and then John Carney shanked the extra point. (Saints announcer: "NO!!!! NO!!!! He missed it!!!! How could he do that?" Classic.)
Panthers at Bears: Only the Bears can win a game 17-3 and have the defense they're facing record 16 fantasy points. The passing game is comically inept and the running game struggled even with Luke Kuechly out for the Panthers. Another sorry outing by Cam Newton, forcing some throws and making a couple of poor choices. But not his fault on a fumble-six that Curtis Samuel flat-out dropped in the backfield. More bad rushing numbers for Carolina, which did about as well as you'd expect a team scoring only 3 points to do.
Titans at Browns: Frustrating watching the Titans play offense at times. On one goal-line sequence they let a banged-up DeMarco Murray carry twice for nothing, rolled their banged-up quarterback out so he could underthrow a wide open Delanie Walker (also banged-up entering the game and later suffered an ankle injury), then finally let the healthy Derrick Henry get a carry, but he was stopped. Browns quietly have a good run defense, but I think Henry would have punched that in with multiple chances. Titans very fortunate to escape with an overtime win, winning thanks to a mistake-prone Browns team that once again benched DeShone Kizer, this time for Cody Kessler (which went exactly as well as you'd expect). I don't think Hue Jackson is going to last the season -- he's lost the team. Injury to insult, Joe Thomas tore his triceps.
Saints at Packers: So maybe this will be the week the Packers mull bringing in a veteran quarterback? Brett Hundley looked pretty bad throwing the ball, enough so I'm going to have to think long and hard before I put Jordy Nelson into a lineup again. This pretty much applies to other members of the Packers passing game, too. On the bright side, Aaron Jones rewarded those who started him with an early long touchdown run, and gotta figure he'll continue to lead that backfield (which should also dominate game plans going forward). Ty Montgomery looks like a handcuff; that's it. ... Brandon Coleman gets a lot of red-zone looks for a very marginal NFL wideout. Michael Thomas did get an end-zone look, at least, but Green Bay got away with a hold.
Jaguars at Colts: Ten more sacks for the Jaguars, which is pretty much the big story in this game. They've got a good defense, the Colts have a lousy, talent-thin offense, no contest. Missed on the Jaguars D a week ago, but they're pretty much a start-every-week type of group. Another Marcedes Lewis touchdown, I guess those will happen every 3-4 weeks. Decent game from Chris Ivory and even T.J. Yeldon, but it should be Leonard Fournette back after the bye. For the Colts, well, Jacoby Brissett didn't have much of a chance with that pass rush. I bet Andrew Luck's shoulder hurt just watching it.
Cardinals vs. Rams: Carson Palmer gets hurt, surprise. Adrian Peterson carries 11 times for 21 yards, that's what I get for believing he'd follow up last week's big game with another one. Rams offense continues to impress, with more good numbers from Todd Gurley and more heady plays by Jared Goff. Cooper Kupp solid in this one (4 for 51 with a touchdown), getting end-zone and red-zone targets on a regular basis; another near-miss touchdown. Sammy Watkins at least did get an end-zone target, but it was overthrown. No Arizona receiver reached 40 yards. But at least they've got Drew Stanton. Look for Blaine Gabbert to be starting here in a week or two.
Jets at Dolphins: While watching this game I literally lamented Austin Seferian-Jenkins lack of involvements seconds before he was left wide open in the end zone to catch a touchdown from Josh McCown, the quarterback's 4th total touchdown of the day. Worth mentioning that the Browns, McCown's last team, have cycled through three different quarterbacks the last couple of weeks, including benching their rookie second-rounder twice. But Jay Cutler got hurt, and that was the launching pad to Matt Moore coming in and rallying the Dolphins to a comeback from a 28-14 deficit. Nice games from Landry and Stills, not so much Jay Ajayi. Called the running back situation pretty accurately for the Jets, a Forte-Powell committee. Can drop Elijah McGuire (at least until somebody gets hurt again).
Ravens at Vikings: Baltimore's offense is hopeless enough that you wonder what they're going to do about Joe Flacco. Ravens only touchdown in this game was a meaningless score on the game's final play involving two players nobody was starting anyway. I guess the big story here was Latavius Murray's huge game; he did look pretty good. Although Baltimore's defense, apparently, isn't any good against the run even after getting lineman Brandon Williams back. Mike Wallace came in hurt and left with a concussion. Javorius Allen had his usual solid PPR day. Game flow, with the Vikings leading throughout, probably biggest reason for the quiet day from the passing game, plus Baltimore better against the pass. But they're not going to be able to get by with this offense.
Cowboys at 49ers: When I started previewing this game, Ezekiel Elliott was suspended. If you have him on your team, thankfully he wasn't. If you were facing him, the opposite. Monster Elliott game, the reason why he was a top-3 pick (pre-suspension) in the first place. If this was his last game for the next seven weeks, well, pretty awesome. Rest of Dallas offensive players you should have been starting also did great, including Prescott, a cool one-handed touchdown by Jason Witten, and a good Dez Bryant game, too. For the 49ers, hey, not terrible by C.J. Beathard. Did OK as a passer and helped himself as a runner. Nice game for Carlos Hyde, Matt Breida barely touched the ball, I guess Kyle Shanahan has recognized that featuring the better running back is a decent plan.
Bengals at Steelers: Ben Roethlisberger looked good in this game. That was my major takeaway from watching him heave it up to his receivers, covered or not, and letting them make plays. And when they weren't covered, like JuJu Smith-Schuster (Schuster-Smith? I have to look it up every time), it was an easy touchdown. Good game for LeVeon Bell, too. Steelers are the class of the AFC North and it's not remotely close right now. For the Bengals, uh, nothing good to say. Tyler Kroft scored again. Three different running backs split 14 carries -- no fantasy appeal there.
Broncos at Chargers: My son is a Broncos fan, so he's not enjoying their past month or so. The offense has been dead in the water for most of that time -- is this really the team that looked so good against Dallas way back in Week 2? Anyway the offense is a mess, and the Chargers by the way are a pretty good team. Just 3-4, but remember they could be 5-2 with a couple of successful field goals earlier in the season. Rough game for Melvin Gordon, though, and looked like Anthony Lynn wasn't happy with Gordon's goal-line running early on (when he was stuffed on 3rd and 4th down from the 1). Just something to keep in mind later on. If you have Gordon, maybe add Austin Ekeler, who caught a little swing pass touchdown and touched the ball 11 times.
Seahawks at Giants: Kind of a crazy game. Seattle moving the ball up and down the field for much of it but stubbing their toe at the goal-line. Jimmy Graham dropped a touchdown, Russell Wilson missed on a couple of short throws, the running game continued to be just plain awful. But a couple of Wilson's daring heaves to Paul Richardson worked out, including a bizarre dual-possession end-zone play that called to mind the Seahawks-Green Bay game of a few years back. Good game by Doug Baldwin and ultimately good numbers for Wilson, Graham, with a late, meaningless score. Giants offense is Evan Engram and nothing else.
Falcons at Patriots: Atlanta's offense just looks broken. Most notably, the Patriots appeared to have a way better sense of what Atlanta was going to do on each play. If you started Matt Ryan, as I did, you should feel fortunate to get the 230ish yards and 1 TD you got, because even that was essentially garbage time. Worst was an early fourth-quarter goal-line sequence where the Falcons ran four fruitless plays, none of which seemed to have much of a chance, the last an endaround to Taylor Gabriel that lost 5 yards. Anyway, all this was also bad for the Patriots offense, which didn't need to do as much. Lousy game.
Monday, Monday: These games are usually fun and often feature a defensive or special teams touchdown. Couple of talented quarterbacks and franchise tight ends, too. Neither running game particularly exciting. Should be a good game, but I'm done betting against the Eagles. Which means they'll probably lose. But I'm calling it Philadelphia 27, Washington 24.