Fantasy Football Week 15 Booms and Busts: Is Jerick McKinnon the answer in the KC backfield?
We’ve been searching for an answer to the Kansas City backfield all fantasy season. Clyde Edwards-Helaire, the draft-capital pick, hasn’t worked out. Isiah Pacheco, the surprise rookie, has given us moments. But maybe the right answer all along was the old guy in the group, the journeyman, the man forgotten about — 30-year-old Jerick McKinnon.
McKinnon had the last word in Sunday’s surprisingly competitive overtime win at Houston. McKinnon’s 26-yard touchdown run ended the game and pushed McKinnon to the top of the Week 15 running back board. He finished the day with 52 rushing yards and that score, eight catches for 70 yards and another score and, just for fun, a two-point conversion catch mixed in.
Welcome to the 30-point club.
We often think of rookies as late-developing Polaroids in a fantasy season, but McKinnon fits that frame, too. He didn't have a double-digit score this season until a respectable 13 points in Week 13. Then last week, McKinnon exploded for 28.9 points, vaulting to the top of the running back board. Unless someone goes off in the final two island games of Week 15, McKinnon just recorded back-to-back RB1 weeks out of nowhere.
Some regression is reasonable, of course, but McKinnon's fantasy value is unlikely to crater. He's clearly in Andy Reid’s Circle of Trust. You’ll find McKinnon playing plenty on passing downs, sometimes as a blocker. Obviously, if Patrick Mahomes goes down hard, the Chiefs go down hard. Mahomes was sacked just twice against 41 attempts Sunday and was not intercepted.
It’s crazy that the game at Houston needed overtime, when you consider that the Chiefs racked up 502 total yards against 219 for the Texans. A couple of Kansas City fumbles didn’t help, but that doesn’t explain the game being competitive.
One of the fumbles came from McKinnon’s running mate in the backfield, Pacheco. Otherwise, Pacheco looked fine — 15-86-0 rushing and one catch for 11 yards. The Chiefs seem reluctant to involve him much in the hurry-up or third-down package. But it didn’t seem like Reid put Pacheco in fumble jail after the rookie’s miscue.
The rest of the offense was business as usual. Mahomes was 20-for-20 when targeting his two primary guys, cheat code Travis Kelce (10-105-0) and JuJu Smith-Schuster (10-88-0). Smith-Schuster did lose a fumble, and the other Mahomes touchdown pass went off the board to Marquez Valdes-Scantling, but we'll gladly take 10 catches from anyone in a PPR or half-PPR format.
The Chiefs have a mixed-bag schedule moving forward. Seattle’s reeling defense comes to Arrowhead Stadium next week; that’s an obvious bonanza. But Denver’s defense is on the Week 17 menu. Granted, the Chiefs and Broncos did have a shootout back in Week 14. But that’s not the defense you want to draw in championship week.
But we’ll worry about championship week when we get to it. McKinnon and Pacheco are both approved for work against the Seahawks, and given McKinnon’s edge in the passing game, I’ll probably rank him higher. You have to figure the Chiefs will give a bunch of fantasy points as a holiday present.
Speed Round
• The only good thing Desmond Ridder did was pepper Drake London with targets. Otherwise, Ridder was terrible in his first pro start: inaccurate, skittish, and lucky to escape a couple of interceptions. He also took four sacks against just 26 pass attempts. Sure, it’s a first start, but against an ordinary New Orleans defense and coming off a bye week, I expected something better. Atlanta finishes with Baltimore, Arizona, and Tampa Bay.
• Maybe it would take an Act of Congress to get Mike Evans another touchdown. Tom Brady isn’t completely washed to my eye, but he needs the infrastructure around him to be above code. That no longer is the Buccaneers.
• Joe Mixon was better than Samaje Perine at Oklahoma, but he sure doesn’t look better than him right now.
• The season-long metrics will tell you Detroit’s run defense is a joke, but it’s shut down several notable backs of late, including Saquon Barkley, Dalvin Cook, and Zonovan Knight on Sunday. Knight’s poor game comes with caveats — he left early with an injury, and the Lions were routinely stacking the box because they weren’t afraid of Zach Wilson torching them (Wilson, it should be pointed out, did post a juicy 9.1 YPA). But it’s not like box-stacking automatically stops any running game; too many running backs in league history have run well despite opponents knowing what was coming.
If you use metrics that equally weight Detroit’s early-season defensive woes with the current version of the team, I’ll maintain you’re making a grave error. Systems shift during the year, sometimes jelling, sometimes falling apart. Detroit’s obviously on the right path, and that improvement needs to be baked in as we make weekly decisions.
• Trevor Lawrence gets better almost every week, and he’s doing it with a pass-catching group that has everyone slotted one spot higher than their true talent level. If Calvin Ridley is back to No. 1 receiver status next year, the Jaguars could be a carnival all season. I’m remain mystified at the inability — or disinterest — in making Travis Etienne a major part of the passing game.
• Maybe the Giants were going to win anyway — Washington needed a touchdown and a two-point conversion in the final minute merely to force overtime. But the lack of a pass-interference flag on the final snap was embarrassing, and it also appears the official screwed up when he flagged Terry McLaurin on the previous snap for a ticky-tack alignment penalty. I didn’t have a major stake in the outcome — I could have used the wiped-out Brian Robinson touchdown, but I also had a NYG +4.5 ticket. Mostly, I just want the officials not to obtrusively muck up the game. They failed in this regard Sunday night. I just want th purest, most authentic results, man.
• Latavius Murray moves pretty well for a 32-year-old back, and Denver’s problems in the passing game didn’t hold him back much. He has a chance to be fantasy relevant against the Rams, Chiefs, and Chargers.
• Give the Steelers 27 or 28 coaches around the league and they’d probably be something like 4-10 right now. Mike Tomlin has four underdog wins this year, and Pittsburgh’s other two victories came when the team was a modest -1 favorite. He could coach my team anytime.
• Take out a couple of kneel downs from the stats, but Jalen Hurts is still running too much for the Eagles. Too much risk, too much wear-and-tear. The running needs to be an appetizer, a garnish, an addition to the passing game. It shouldn’t be treated as an entree.
• In his last six games of full health, Juwan Johnson has scored seven touchdowns on 21 catches. We all know what regression means, but the Saints have found their designated scorer at the goal. It’s not Taysom Hill, it’s surely not Alvin Kamara, it’s undrafted tight end from Oregon. Cleveland and Philadelphia aren’t easy tight-end matchups the next two weeks, but when something works this well, an offense is likely to stick with it. Johnson is free to grab in 80 percent of Yahoo leagues.
• Wake me up when Deshaun Watson has a good game for Cleveland, or even an average one. The Browns were mildly outplayed Saturday (the Ravens had 41 more yards and better per-play stats), but Baltimore was sunk by two turnovers and, shocker of all, two botched field-goal attempts. Baltimore is paying for its inability to assemble a bonafide wide-receiver room.
• In the last two Indianapolis games, the Colts have allowed 55 points in the fourth quarter. If you back it up four games, they’ve been outscored in that period, 77-3. You can’t make this stuff up.
Success has many parents and so does failure — these problems run much deeper than Matt Ryan. But after watching Indianapolis try veteran retreat after veteran retread in recent years (Ryan, Carson Wentz, Philip Rivers, and Jacoby Brissett by default), it will be refreshing for the team to start from scratch with a new plan next year, presumably with a first-round quarterback in the draft.
