East Coast Offense

This article is part of our East Coast Offense series.

RIP Team Of Destiny

I wrote about the Team of Destiny losing on the Cardinals yesterday, but as I woke up today, I've almost put it out of my mind. I'm not sure whether I've acquired some kind of super power to lose $260K (well, my half) in equity and still be rooting futilely for the Bears to cover in order to keep my season-long ATS record over .500 as if nothing happened, but that's what I was doing. In fact, losing in the Circa pool gave me unreasonable equanimity in the face of my NFFC playoff teams essentially getting eliminated through one week of the three-week playoffs. It's odd, something that was the focus of my football life for 15 weeks is gone, and the only side effect is having less enthusiasm for guessing the lines of the upcoming slate.

NFL Covid Rules

The NFL had to change its rules if it wanted to salvage the season, so it did. It was strange asymptomatic players ever had to test -- people who work in other industries aren't testing, and many of them, e.g., waiters who work in crowded restaurants, have far more contact with the public in the course of their jobs. You have to wonder though, whether a star quarterback, with a mild case of the sniffles, will choose to test (and risk missing a crucial game -- or even a playoff game) or just keep it to himself. I would bet against it. 

Extreme Parity

There are 13 teams out of 16 with at least seven wins in the AFC and no one with more than 10. Put differently, only the Texans, Jaguars and Jets are eliminated from the playoffs in Week 16. Moreover, the team with the NFL's best point differential is the 8-6 Bills with +151, and no one in the NFC is above 110. The league's worst team by record just beat its best (Lions-Cardinals), and the league's best team by record, the 11-3 Packers, has outscored its opponents by only 57 points. Three weeks ago, I made a foolish bet with Jeff Erickson -- he offered me four teams of my choice to win the Super Bowl, and he got the field. I took the Buccaneers, Packers, Patriots and Chiefs, and so far those are holding up, but the field in this environment was the plus-EV bet. 

Week 16 Sporcle Quiz

Apropos of Travis Kelce's 191-yard receiving game Thursday night, can you name all the receivers who have eclipsed 150 yards receiving this year?

Guessing The Lines

At first glance, I like the Colts getting points in Arizona, the Panthers at home against the Bucs and the Team getting 10.5 in Dallas. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind in Beating The Book. 

 Week 15 Observations

• Justin Fields passed the eye test for me in previous games, but I'll give him an "F" for this one. He didn't just take sacks, he took deep ones. He threw passes behind receivers, he fumbled and he didn't get rid of the ball. Matt Nagy's play calling – deep-drop short passes on 4th-and-1! – didn't help, either.
• Kirk Cousins (87 passing yards, 51 net after sack) did nothing. Dalvin Cook (28-89-0, 3-2-2-0) did nothing, and Justin Jefferson (10-4-47-1) scored an early TD and not much else.
• Nick Chubb (23-91-1, 1-1-2-0) had a decent game, but it could have been better but for a hold that nullified a second TD. I don't know why the Browns always taking Chubb out on passing downs, but they do it even with Kareem Hunt out.
• The Browns have no passing game whatsoever, irrespective of the quarterback.
• With Darren Waller out, the Raiders have no one, either. Hunter Renfrow (5-3-32-0) is a good slot man, but he did little, and Derek Carr's top targets were Zay Jones (9-6-67-0) and Foster Moreau (9-7-65-0.)
• This is the least I've had to say about two games that I can remember. The NFL would have been better off postponing or cancelling them after all.
• Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are money in the bank during your fantasy playoffs, and by "money" I mean those 100 trillion dollar Zimbabwe notes. This happened to me in the fantasy playoffs two years ago too. At least Godwin caught six short passes before leaving.
• The Saints always play the Buccaneers tough, and they finally had their full defensive line back.
• Leonard Fournette might have set the record for running back receptions had he not left with a hamstring injury.
• Tyler Huntley did a pretty good Lamar Jackson impression with 73 rushing yards, two rushing TDs and two passing TDs. Like Jackson, his favorite receiver is Mark Andrews (13-10-136-2) who apparently didn't like seeing Travis Kelce overtake him for TE1 Thursday night.
• You have to love when you have the 4.5-point underdog (Wednesday line), and they go for two instead of kicking the PAT for overtime.
• I say this every week: Aaron Rodgers is the real MVP, but the voters won't give him the award because they'll want to send a message about his choices. Unless Matthew Stafford or Tom Brady step up huge down the stretch, that means it could be Jonathan Taylor or long shot Cooper Kupp.
• The Falcons play hard, but against decent teams they are always exposed.
• The Bengals are the best team in the AFC north, but I have a hard time seeing anyone from that division doing damage in the playoffs.
• These tweets aged well:

And this clip:

• I guess the Jaguars didn't hate Urban Meyer as much as we were led to believe. (BTW – this clip has to be seen to be believed.)
• Davis Mills or Trevor Lawrence – who has the better career?
• Sorry if like me you had Steelers going in your fantasy playoffs. It was worse than Bucs-Saints.
• Saquon Barkley (15-50-0, 8-4-24-0) lost the first fumble of his career, and Devontae Booker (8-74-0, 2-2-8-0) outplayed him. Barkley still seems a little sluggish off the ankle injury.
• I don't see why the Giants bother starting the abominable Mike Glennon, when they have Jake Fromm on the roster. Fromm isn't likely to pan out, and he finally got some run in the second half, but why not take a longer look?
• The Cowboys offense still isn't right.
• I know it was against the Jets, but Duke Johnson (22-107-2, 1-1-20-0) looked pretty good. Strange after so much hype and disappointment, he's suddenly relevant out of nowhere in the 2021 fantasy playoffs.
• I obviously watched the entire Lions-Cardinals game, and the Lions killed them. I've rarely seen a double-digit favorite come out that flat and not close the gap for an entire 60 minutes.
• Kyler Murray looked compromised by his ankle – he didn't avoid the rush very well, and he rushed for only three yards. He never got into a rhythm, and there was never a sense he had figured out the Lions defense.
• Christian Kirk (12-9-94-1) had a good fantasy game, but also some key drops.
• Craig Reynolds (26-112-0, 1-1-5-0) looked good for the second straight game, breaking tackles and falling forward for extra yards.
• Jared Goff played an almost perfect game and did the Rams a huge solid in the process by taking down the Cardinals.
• I didn't watch much of Bills-Panthers, but I had the Bills in the SuperContest and Gabriel Davis (out of desperation) in one playoff matchup.
• I thought my NFFC Primetime team with Diontae Johnson, Mike Evans, Rob Gronkowski, Michael Pittman, Rhamondre Stevenson and the Cardinals defense was drawing dead after one week, but looking at how many duds there were around the league, who knows?
• Carson Wentz was bad. He missed a wide-open Pittman on a deep throw early in the game and threw a senseless pick while protecting a lead. He is good at QB sneaks, though.
• Jonathan Taylor (29-170-1) didn't catch any passes, but 23 points will do. This was also a good game for his MVP futures, in large part because the Colts improved their playoff chances.
• Mac Jones threw a couple picks, but I thought he looked okay. The Patriots are not a great come-from-behind team, though – while they were able to get back into this one, it was too little too late, and they rarely strike for big plays.
• Hunter Henry (8-6-77-2) was the fantasy star of the game. Jakobi Meyers (12-6-44-0) got plenty of targets but did little and dropped a perfectly thrown deep ball from Mac Jones. N'Keal Harry (5-2-52-0) made a nice catch on a deep ball in traffic.
• Rhamondre Stevenson (10-36-0, 1-1-4-0) ran hard, but there wasn't a ton of room, and Brandon Bolden (4-3-0, 5-4-31-0) was in on third downs and for much of the second half when they were in hurry-up mode.
• When it was 17-0, I thought I was in trouble with Nick Folk, but a false start penalty netted him a field goal, and five points from your kicker isn't the end of the world.
• Patrick Mahomes wasn't sharp for much of the game, throwing one pass on fourth down into the turf, but he hit Travis Kelce for big plays down the stretch and in overtime to put up a massive line.
• Last week Kelce (13-10-191-2) yielded the TE1 title to Mark Andrews, but after this massive line, he (briefly) took it back. It's funny because he was quiet for most of the game.
• Tyreek Hill (13-12-148-1) had a monster game, and while he hasn't been Cooper Kupp, he's still got 102-1,178-9) through 14 games, numbers you'd have snap-called had you taken him in the first round.
• Justin Herbert had a solid stat line, but it could have been so much bigger had the Chargers not stalled out in the red zone on fourth down a few times.
• Austin Ekeler (12-59-1, 4-4-23-0) did enough, despite playing through an ankle injury.
• Keenan Allen (10-6-78-1) got his, but Mike Williams (9-3-49-0) had his chances, but couldn't cash too many of them in.
• Brandon Staley is playing blackjack by the book, and I admire the resolve to stick to his numbers, irrespective of popular opinion. But NFL teams aren't playing cards, and too much rigidity can be a liability.