The fantasy playoffs can be cruel. Sometimes it's losing to that one team you were better than all year long who goes off in one week (facing Kyle Rudolph, perhaps). Sometimes it's having a monster Week 16 that doesn't matter because of your Saints-heavy lineup in Week 15. I say it every year: getting to the playoffs is the challenge. Winning in the playoffs takes a lot of luck.
Washington at Titans, Ravens at Chargers: Quickly on these offense poor games, which fittingly both ended with defensive touchdowns. Titans and Ravens stated their cases for a playoff spot with defense. Titans somewhat less impressive (anyone can play defense against Washington at this point), but it's a good defense and a running game that's playing well, just need to sort out that passing game thing. Titans get the Colts at home next week with a playoff spot on the line. Ravens defense was all over Philip Rivers, I kind of felt bad for him. Melvin Gordon and Keenan Allen healthy, at least. Baltimore now the team no one wants to face in the playoffs, here's hoping it will be New England. Except if they win the AFC North it could actually be the Chargers.
Giants at Colts: Weird how much more competitive and high-scoring the Giants have been on the road this year. Mentioned it in the Weekly and it panned out. Nice games for Evan Engram (main beneficiary of Odell Beckham being out) and Sterling Shepard (too late for those of us who drafted him, alas). Giants took a lead, but Colts battled back with Andrew Luck needing to do more than expected. Eric Ebron left with a concussion. Nice games for Mack, Hilton.
Jaguars at Dolphins: Dolphins scored early on in this one, and that was it for their offense. Maybe they heard the pregame report that Adam Gase's job was in jeopardy and thought, OK, sounds good. Leonard Fournette at least got his early touchdown before disappointing. Dolphins let Brandon Bolden score a touchdown, pretty sure no one started him. On the bright side we won't need to see either of these teams in the playoffs.
Falcons at Panthers: Speaking of teams out of the playoffs. Taylor Heinicke in fact helmed a better passing game than Cam Newton had in recent weeks, and was usable...as long as you didn't get negative points for his 3 interceptions. Hurt his elbow which may have been a factor but toughed it out. Christian McCaffrey put up huge numbers, albeit without scoring, but set the RB receptions record and will go over 2,000 next week. Matt Ryan had a nice game, with all three of his wideouts scoring, very democratic of him.
Bengals at Browns: C'mon guys let Nick Chubb score a touchdown. Sorry, selfish of me. Nice game for Baker Mayfield, helped by a couple of spectacular touchdown grabs by his receivers, especially Rashard Higgins. Bengals did have a respectable rally to make things interesting. Strangely pulling for the Browns to finish over .500, even though I don't care for Gregg Williams who hopefully won't get any credit, it's the offense which has really turned things around free of the Jackson/Haley control.
Bucs at Cowboys: Fittingly, Dallas made a bunch of big defensive plays in this one, including a fumble six (yeah that's not a thing) and then another turnover leading to a score. Consequently it wasn't quite as big a game as you'd like from the offense, which has had some nice games along the way but isn't one of the league's top groups or anything. Little chance this team goes on the road and wins a game. But six weeks ago nobody would have figured they'd win the division, so kudos to them.
Vikings at Lions: Game went about as expected. Lions offense kind of checked out a while ago, in part because it's a pretty talent-thin group, with their best players hurt. Bounce-back potential next year if Jones, Golladay and Johnson all healthy. But a tough division. For the Vikings, would have been nice to get a little more from the players anyone actually started. Funny story, I had Kyle Rudolph in my lineup in the Super Bowl of a friends and family leagues strictly because 1) I didn't care much about winning and 2) really didn't have another option available. So I left him there, and 33 points later... And yeah, tomorrow is Christmas.
Bills at Patriots: Only problem here was you didn't get quite as much from Brady, Gronk and the passing game, with New England mauling Buffalo on the ground and with defense. They tend to do that at times late in the season. Even the Brady to Edelman touchdown was dumb luck, Edelman tackled by two guys but never actually touching the ground so he went on into the end zone. Bills offense struggled, as expected. Though I wish I hadn't cut Robert Foster in dynasty.
Packers at Jets: Well I guess now we know how Aaron Rodgers will handle a meaningless game. It coming against a really poor defense helped, but virtually everyone you could have started in this wild one put up great numbers, so it feels bad to have benched some of them. Jamaal Williams and Robby Anderson, tagged as really good starts, did put up big numbers, which was nice. Rodgers...Elijah McGuire...Chris Herndon...Davante Adams obviously. All around some nice performances and hope you had them on your side. Maybe not on your bench.
Texans at Eagles: This was a wild one, big for both teams. Had the Texans won this one, which they very nearly did, they'd be in the driver's seat for a bye in the AFC. Instead they're behind the Patriots and I believe need England to lose to the Jets next week. But a pretty awesome game by Deshaun Watson, including an awesome escape and touchdown throw to Vyncint Smith (fantastic catch) for what looked like the winning points at the tine. You can win with game-manager type quarterbacks, but nice to have a guy who can make plays like Watson did in this game when needed. But Nick Foles brought them back for the winning field goal, helped by a debatable roughing the passer penalty on Jadeveon Clowney. But, nice drive by Foles regardless. Eagles still in the playoff hunt, Texans should get there. Torn Achilles for Demaryius Thomas, Texans extra-thin there. Hence Vyncint Smith.
Rams at Cardinals: I wonder if the Rams ever intended to start Todd Gurley in this one. They didn't need him, obviously. Monster game for C.J. Anderson, who no I did not recommend anyone start. It just didn't seem likely he'd be featured with a couple of other backs available, but he was and he had a big game against a bad run defense. Big game also for Robert Woods, not much doing for Arizona although at least David Johnson caught a score. Saints have locked up the No. 1 seed, but Rams will need to win next week to secure a bye.
Bears at 49ers: San Francisco's offense did as little as expected. Decent PPR game from George Kittle (also as expected), not as much as you might like from Tarik Cohen, but game-script ended up favoring Jordan Howard, who scored. Allen Robinson the best receiver. Dante Pettis hurt a knee in this one, looked bad. Matt Breida, trying to play on an injured ankle, re-injured it. Shocker.
Steelers at Saints: High drama in this one, Steelers have played a bunch of games like this lately, kind of feel for their fans. But a really tough loss for them (I was rooting for them, for various reasons), and shockingly they're now a playoff longshot. Big late gamble with a fake punt that came up half a yard short, setting up the winning Saints drive (helped by a key flag that was legit). But Steelers the ball back and made an amazing conversion of their own, looked like they might tie or win it. But JuJu had the ball ripped away for a fumble and that was it. Great game with lots of huge fantasy performances. Too bad Saints-heavy teams got bounced in Week 15.
Kansas City at Seahawks: About as expected. Kansas City has a problem in that it has trouble getting a key defensive stop against tough opponents. They've lost four games, all against good, veteran offenses and quarterbacks and teams: Patriots, Rams, Chargers and now Seahawks. They'll get that top seed in the AFC, probably, but no one will be stunned if they lose at home in the postseason. Gritty, impressive season for Seattle, who at the beginning of the year looked like they were going to be a bad, rebuilding team. Nope. Nice late-season surge for Doug Baldwin, great year for Chris Carson (when Seattle finally committed to him).
Monday, Monday: I understand that not everyone celebrates Christmas, so the fact that this game is being played on Christmas Eve night is not a big deal for all. But, you know, it's not much of a game, between a couple of not much teams. Somebody out there is relying on Phillip Lindsay, the Denver defense, or maybe even Jordy Nelson. Not me, though I do think there will be some points scored, for the small percentage of the population that cares or is watching. Raiders 26, Broncos 23.