Week 5 Booms and Busts: Austin Davis, garbage-time hero

The arrow goes up, the arrow goes down. Some players surprise us, some let us down. We boom, and we bust.

The Booms

-- Austin Davis, QB, and Brian Quick, WR, Rams: Two months ago, we thought the Rams would be a boring, ball-control team. Good defense, modest offense; try to play low-scoring games, steal a few.

So much for that narrative.

And then there's the Eagles, a team that scores and allows everyone else to score. Snappy returns and runbacks come into play, too. They're the Silver Linings Gamebook of the NFL.

Philadelphia raced out to a 34-7 lead over the Rams on Sunday, a margin that looked safe as the third quarter neared a close. But the Rams scored right before the period ended, and Davis kept the garbage time points flowing the rest of the day. Heck, with two late touchdowns, the Rams turned "Garbage Time" back into "Regular Time" – they almost pulled off a shocking comeback.

Davis finished 29-for-49 for 375 yards and three scores. A terrific day for someone who was just four percent owned in Yahoo as play began. Quick made good use of his nine targets, collecting five catches for 87 yards and two scores.

The killjoy to the story: the schedule. The Rams play San Francisco, Seattle and Kansas City in the next three weeks, tricky matchups all. But Quick has earned the right to be started in most standard formats, and Davis is at least a solid QB2 for now.

If you're more interested in the Philadelphia carnival, here's the upcoming slate: Giants; bye; at Cardinals; at Texans. Get your popcorn ready.

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-- Brian Hoyer, QB, and Ben Tate, RB, Browns: Hoyer's numbers weren't quite to the Davis level, but his comeback was more impressive given that he finished the job. Hoyer went for 292 yards and three scores as Cleveland overcame a 28-3 deficit in Tennessee. Looks like Johnny Clipboard won't be playing for a while.

Tate has competition at his position, too, but he marked his territory nicely (22-123 on the ground). Meanwhile, Terrance West (7-31) and Isaiah Crowell (6-19) were bit players in the offense. Looks like we have some backfield definition in Cleveland.

-- Vincent Jackson, WR, Buccaneers: He didn't find the end zone, but we will not quibble over an 8-144 showing (on 12 targets). The Bucs outplayed the Saints most of the day, winning the YPA and turnover battle, but somehow lost the game in overtime. Mike Glennon has been solid at QB and deserves to keep this job even after Josh McCown heals up. And with Glennon chucking the rock, Jackson becomes a set-and-forget, no-doubt fantasy starter at WR.

-- Demaryius Thomas, WR, Broncos: Normally we limit this column to 1 pm ET performances, and the big names have to do a ton to push onto the list. Okay, Demaryius, you've earned the nod. Big old No. 88 rolled to 165 yards and two scores in the first half against Arizona, scoring from 31 and 86 yards. When Thomas gets rolling, he's unfair.

Kudos to the entire fantasy world for getting this call right. It's nice when the story falls into line. The Demaryius slump was a short-lived story.

-- Branden Oliver, RB, Chargers: Here's another late-starting gem who forced his way onto the page. Donald Brown left the action in the first half (concussion), but the flashy Oliver quickly picked up the slack, rolling for 165 total yards and a touchdown through the opening three periods. The comparison is plainly obvious: Darren Sproles 2.0. It took a bunch of injuries, but the Bolts might have finally uncovered their most dynamic back.

-- Some Other Boomers: Arian Foster, Dan Carpenter, Philly D/ST, Travis Benjamin, Kendall Wright, Greg Olsen, Justin Hunter.

The Busts

-- Detroit Lions Offense: We don't want to come down too hard on injured players; Calvin Johnson (ankle) had just one catch before leaving the game against Buffalo, and Reggie Bush (ankle) also got nicked up. But these were hard guys to sit into Week 5, even with Megatron's physical concerns, and their poor performances left a definite blemish on the fantasy landscape.

Matthew Stafford didn't cover himself in glory in the loss to Buffalo, finishing with 223 passing yards, one score, one touchdown. At least Golden Tate (7-134-1) was heard from. To add insult to injury, the Lions were beaten by a Buffalo defense engineered by former Detroit head coach Jim Schwartz.

-- Victor Cruz, WR, Giants: Every receiver has quiet days now and then, so we don't want to completely flip out over a 3-22-0 day from Mr. Salsa. But here's the concern: the Giants are finding other options aroud the goal. Rueben Randle converted one of several goal-line looks into a short TD, and Odell Beckham also had a red-zone touchdown. Larry Donnell was surprisingly held off the sheet completely (no catches, one target), but he had four touchdowns before this week.

Cruz doesn't look like a fantasy difference maker right now, though we might feel differently after next week's game against Philadelphia.

-- Roddy White, WR, Falcons: Just a 2-26-0 day on four targets, and it comes on on the heels of a four-reception game where he saw 14 targets. No one expects White to challenge Julio Jones for control of the Falcons passing game, but White might merely be a WR3 or WR4 for fantasy players these days.

-- C.J. Spiller, RB, Bills: He's one of the most frustrating types of fantasy commodities, someone too scary to bench but maybe not good enough to trust, either. Spiller's 10 carries at Detrioit gained just eight yards, and three catches for 25 yards didn't ease the pain much. What the heck do you do with a guy like this?

-- Marques Colston, WR, Saints: You might be okay with a 3-63-0 line, but keep in mind Drew Brees threw 57 passes and Jimmy Graham missed most of the game. Colston is a WR4 (or worse) on my clipboard until further notice. He's leaving plays on the field every week and might have lost a couple of steps at age 31 (and in his ninth season).

- Some other Bust-outs: Montee Ball, Alex Henery, Zac Stacy, Doug Martin, Jordan Cameron, Toby Gerhart and Allen Hurns, Geno Smith (and then Mike Vick was awful, too), Bishop Sankey (damn you, Ken Whisenhunt), Michael Crabtree.