Week 13 Fantasy Football Booms and Busts: MyCole Pruitt and the touchdown trolls

I try to stay away from the “weirdest week, weirdest year” NFL tropes. It’s a game built on variance, funny bounces, physical collisions, even nebulous officiating. Strange things happen as a matter of design. It’s one big snow globe, a reshuffle league.

Disclaimer aside, I still know when I’m being trolled. And the early slate of Week 13 games, it was one big troll job to the fake footballers.

Maybe the reaction carries extra emotion because we know the stakes go up in December. In Week 13, many of us are playing for playoff berths and bye-week security. As the poker players would say (inelegant as might be), you want to run good at this time of year. You want a smooth ride, a reasonable run.

You could probably fill the troll card every week, but that early window sure had some beauties.

Jets-Raiders

Let’s start with an easy one. Raiders RB Devontae Booker had a start lined up against the hapless Jets. Should be good for game script, with maybe a touchdown or two thrown in. Not so fast: the Jets controlled the game (but had the decency to blow it in the final minute), and Booker was held to 16-50 on the ground. The only Vegas rushing touchdown came from Derek Carr, of all people.

You’d think a Jets lead would be good for Frank Gore, bless his leather helmet. The team finds double-digit carries for him every week. Alas, Gore took a blow to the head on his first carry, opening the way for Ty Johnson (22-104-1) and Josh Adams (8-74-0) to run to daylight. Imagine that, the Jets hiding talented players.

Everyone who finally cut the cord on Jamison Crowder this week, raise your hand. (I’m raising my hand.) Crowder had two touchdown catches before the game was 18 minutes old.

Browns-Titans

Fine, get me to another game. How about Cleveland and Tennessee? They have running backs we can rely on. I see a lot of points, 76 in all. Maybe that box score will bring peace and harmony.

Nah, it’s another fantasy ambush. Baker Mayfield broke out of his game manager mode and tossed four touchdowns, three of them to non-startable fantasy entities: Rashard Higgins, Donovan Peoples-Jones, and offensive tackle Kendall Lamb. At least the other spike went to Jarvis Landry, part of a playable 10-8-62 afternoon.

Nick Chubb had 80 yards and a touchdown; we’ll take it, but given the Cleveland raced out to a huge first-half lead, it felt like more was there. Kareem Hunt was held in check (14-33-0, though he did have 24 receiving yards).

The real fantasy angst from this game came with the Titans. Normally, Tennessee is a fantasy friendly unit. They’re pretty good in the red zone and they have a condensed ball distribution. We know where the ball is going and we plan accordingly.

Tennessee finished with five touchdowns in the 41-35 loss, four of them coming in a second half of garbage time. If you needed Ryan Tannehill, you were rewarded by the surprising game script: 389 passing yards, three touchdowns. But not everything ended so tidily.

Derrick Henry was abruptly stopped: 69 total yards, one fumble lost, no touchdowns. Not what we expected from everyone’s No. 1 or No. 2 back this week.

If you dialed up Corey Davis, you got the game of his life: 11 grabs, 182 yards, one score. He’s this year’s DeVante Parker. He’s figured it out, and the Titans have figured him out. But the other prioritized pass-catchers — A.J. Brown, Anthony Firkser, and Adam Humphries — were kept out of the end zone.

Brown at least landed on 87 yards (though the team refuses to pepper him; a modest 7-of-45 targets) and Firkser clawed up to 5-51-0. Humphries was a bust in his return: one catch, nine yards. But consider where the touchdowns went. Jeremy McNichols and Cameron Batson had touchdowns late in the fourth quarter, the heart of garbage time, and the other two scores went to reserve tight end MyCole Pruitt.

Do it Pruitt, indeed. He was targeted just once, but he made the most of it — a 22-yard scoring catch. His second touchdown came on a heart-breaking fantasy play — Brown fumbled one step from the end zone, and Pruitt recovered it and tumbled into the end zone. Sometimes it’s just not your day.

Other strange odds and ends

Some of the other early window bricks were at least semi-predictable. Todd Gurley (nine touches, 20 yards) has been inefficient all year, and New Orleans has a nasty defense. Tyler Boyd managers had to accept a first-half ejection, but at least he had a 72-yard touchdown catch before the toss. Parker (8-4-35-0) continues to struggle with Tua Tagovailoa, though Tua got cooking with others in the second half. Kyle Rudolph went catchless on two looks, but we always knew he was behind three other options in the Minnesota offense.

Is it more frustrating when yesterday’s pick becomes today’s unused star? I waited about two months for Laviska Shenault to pop; he rolled up 68 yards and a lucky bounce on a score at Minnesota. One of my opponents picked up Crowder after my drop and used him on me; wicked game we play. T.Y. Hilton busted loose for 110 yards and a score, his first 100-yard game since December 2018.

Eddie Felson tried to tell us, “The balls roll funny for everybody, kid.” Hopefully, your playoff ticket was already punched or will survive this week. And then we’ll go back to doing what we do; trying to make the calmest, smartest, most unemotional +EV decisions we can. This is the fantasy life we have chosen.

Speed Round

• The two best PPR games of David Montgomery's career: This week (27.1) and last week (25.3). The rest of the schedule is gettable: Houston, Minnesota, Jacksonville. Mitch Trubisky may never be a long-term solution (and his fourth-quarter fumble was a killer), but he at least gives the Chicago offense some hope. There was no upside with Nick Foles starting.

• The Texans didn’t use their tight ends in Week 13, but Deshaun Watson made fantasy relevance out of Keke Coutee (8-141-0) and Chad Hansen (5-101-0). Watson also ran for 38 yards and a score. With so many things crumbling around him, Watson still shows up most weeks.

• Miami needed a bell cow in the backfield and Myles Gaskin was up to the task, handling almost all of the rushing attempts and finish with 141 total yards. Gaskin had a fumble at the end of his longest play of the day, but he nonetheless has Circle of Trust privileges for the rest of the year, health permitting.

• I still think Sam Darnold has a future, it just can’t be with the Jets. He doesn’t turn 24 until June.

• Keep an eye on Quintez Cephus (2-63-1), who showed NFL potential in his final two years at Wisconsin. Marvin Jones has quietly scored five touchdowns in six weeks.

• Steady James Robinson sits at RB5 for Week 13 as we put this to press. If that holds, it’s his fourth Top 5 showing in six weeks, and no matter what it will be his ninth game inside the Top 20. Upside, floor, minimal acquisition cost — Robinson is a fantasy dream. And he’s been effective every week, no matter what game script is thrown his way.

• D.J. Chark had two problems in his first game back — he wasn’t efficient (just 2-of-7 targets were completed), and he wasn’t heavily featured (although he led the team in targets, his market share was a marginal 16.7 percent). Every Jacksonville quarterback this year has focused on spreading the ball around.

• The Saints still haven’t unlocked Alvin Kamara’s passing usage, but he did get 15 rushing attempts and the team’s only rushing touchdown. He had to share with athletic Taysom Hill (14 carries, 83 yards), but Latavius Murray was scaled back (5-17-0).

• I’m not changing my opinion on Justin Herbert simply because the Chargers laid an egg against New England; Bill Belichick against Anthony Lynn never felt like a fair fight, and we know Belichick has an extensive history of confusing inexperienced quarterbacks. The same coaching mismatch applies to Sean McVay versus Kliff Kingsbury; the Cardinals offense has collapsed the last three weeks, with Kyler Murray reluctant to run.

• The Giants defense was the star of their shocking win at Seattle, along with a grasp of what’s really important. New York hid Colt McCoy on offense, and shrugged when Seattle ran the ball (111 yards, 5.0 YPC). But the scrappy and underrated Giants defense held Russell Wilson to 6.1 YPA, not to mention five crippling sacks that totaled 47 yards. Unless Washington or Dallas springs a surprising upset, the Giants will have the NFC East lead to themselves come Tuesday evening.

For as great as DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett are, the Seahawks don’t have a notable third passing option, and it caps their upside.

• A late touchdown run was salvation for Aaron Jones managers, though the Green Bay backfield was back to its normal split (18 touches for Jones, seven for Jamaal Williams). Jones gets a cushy rushing schedule for the fantasy playoffs: Detroit, Carolina, Tennessee.

• Doug Pederson is probably coaching for his job the rest of the way, and I don’t see any alternative — they need to play Jalen Hurts. Carson Wentz protected the ball in his abbreviated stint, but he took four sacks and completed just 6-of-15 attempts. Hurts had hits and misses, but the moment didn’t seem too big for him, either. His receivers let him down a few times; Alshon Jeffery took a sloppy pass interference penalty (wiping out a completion), and Travis Fulgham dropped an accurate pass.

But sometimes there are no right answers. Philly hosts sizzling New Orleans next week.

Listen to the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast