It's too early to say whether Drew Lock is the future for the Broncos, but we're going to get an extended look here at the end of the season. His first game was a bit of a mixed bag overall — two early touchdowns, but only 134 yards on 18 of 28 passing in a Week 13 win over the Chargers. The Broncos will use the next four weeks to begin to evaluate their No. 42 overall pick to see whether he might be the quarterback they've been looking for.
Fantasy players can use the final month of the season in much the same way. With the playoffs starting or about to start in all leagues at this point, there's a chance you might be out of it already, but that doesn't mean you should just ignore everything that happens in December. Whether you play in a dynasty or keeper league or will be starting next summer from scratch in your re-draft league, there's plenty you can learn from the final month of the season.
Just think, if you checked out last November, you would have missed Derrick Henry's incredible close to the 2018 season. While many (including myself!) were skeptical he could keep it up, it turned out that Henry's seven-touchdowns-in-four-games run to end last season would be a prelude to his breakout this season.
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We've been doing winners and losers from every week of the Fantasy season all year long on Mondays, but for the final four weeks of the season, we'll be taking more of a long view. Each Monday through Week 17, I'll be looking at players who are helping their Fantasy value in both the short and long term, beginning with the guy catching passes from Lock.
Week 13 Instant Reaction
Winners and Losers
Winners
The numbers — he's on pace for more than 1,200 yard and eight touchdowns despite playing with a rookie in Lock, Brandon Allen, and Joe Flacco — are impressive enough. But it's how Sutton is going about his production that makes it truly impressive. Sutton ranks third in the NFL in yards per target among 22 players with at least 89 targets, and he is making the absolute most of each one. His first touchdown Sunday was one of the best plays of the season, as he beat Casey Hayward down the sideline to make a diving, one-handed catch for the score. Those kinds of highlight reel catches are becoming the norm for the second-year pro, who has also been one of the most effective deep ball receivers in the league, ranking fifth in yards on passes traveling at least 20 yards downfield despite ranking 22nd on deep targets. If Lock can prove to be the QB of the future for the Broncos, Sutton will probably have to be a top-10 WR in both re-draft and Dynasty formats next summer; he might not be far off even if Lock flops.
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It's going to be fascinating to see where Parker ends up going in Fantasy drafts next summer. He was absolutely incredible in Week 13, leading all wide receivers with 27 Fantasy points on seven catches for 159 yards and two touchdowns, and is now up to WR20 in PPR scoring for the season. He is averaging 81.6 yards per game since the Dolphins bye in Week 5 and pretty much has to be viewed as a must-start Fantasy option down the stretch. But what about next summer? Is Parker truly emerging as a reliable Fantasy option after four largely disappointing seasons with the Dolphins? Is he just benefitting from Ryan Fitzpatrick's gunslinging ways and a lack of other options in the passing game? He might be a sell high in Dynasty formats, but with the Dolphins likely to invest in a QB early in the draft, he could be the stabilizing force for a young offense on the upswing next year.
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Guice still has to split time with Adrian Peterson for the rest of the season, so it's hard to say he is a huge short-term winner coming off his breakout performance in Week 13. Even in Sunday's game, Peterson had 13 carries to Guice's 10, while Chris Thompson still had three carries and two targets, so Guice probably won't be much more than a flex option down the stretch. Looking ahead, however, Guice looks like a clear winner right now. Washington is in rebuild mode, and you have to imagine they'll go into 2020 with Guice as the unquestioned leader of their backfield. He has shown big play ability in both the running and passing games, and you have to hope the offense around him will be better. It can't be worse, right?
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That Moore is a top-10 Fantasy wide receiver this season is impressive enough, but we can make it even more impressive with some context. Obviously, the fact that he's been playing with a backup all season is one of the chief things that makes it impressive, but how about this: He won't even be 23 years old until two weeks before next year's draft. That's younger than Jalen Hurd and Deebo Samuel, two top-70 WR picks last season, were when they got drafted. Moore will have 2,000-plus career receiving yards under his belt while being younger than some of the players being drafted in the first round next season. Moore is a target hog who should only see better quarterback play moving forward, whether that's from Cam Newton or someone else, and he's only getting better as the season goes on. We're probably talking about Moore as a top-20 Fantasy selection at this point.
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Losers
This time a year ago, Mahomes looked like a historically valuable Dynasty QB asset, in the midst of a massive season in just his first as a starter, surrounded by similarly youthful weapons and paired with a coach as adept at any at creating an efficient offense. However, he looks to have been surpassed by at least one quarterback in the 2020 field, and just hasn't been the same guy this season. Knee and ankle injuries have obviously played a part, but he still wasn't great coming out of the bye in Week 13 against a soft Raiders defense (admittedly in some windy conditions). Mahomes has really only had one truly massive game over the last seven, and his 16-game pace in that span (4,565 yards on 7.54 Y/A with 24 TD when removing his injury-shorted Week 7) looks positively pedestrian. You're probably not benching Mahomes for Week 14 against the Patriots — Deshaun Watson penalized anyone who considered that in Week 13 — but after he was the unanimous top QB off the board and a borderline second-round pick in many leagues before this season, Mahomes' stock has clearly taken a hit, and he hasn't done much to turn things around of late.
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We're nearly two seasons into his career, and it's hard to know exactly what to make of Darnold at this point. We've basically seen one month of sustained good play from him at the end of his rookie season. Even with a schedule primed to make things as easy as possible for him of late, Darnold just hasn't been able to find his footing consistently this season. Even when things looked to be turning around recently, Darnold responded with an absolute dud against the Bengals this weekend. Blame the coach, or the supporting cast, but neither figures to get much better between now and 2020. It's on Darnold to improve, and he hasn't shown he has.
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All of a sudden, it's not even clear Jones is the best back in his own backfield, something that didn't seem to be a question for anyone at the start of the season. Jamaal Williams has been the more efficient runner of the two, and with 45 touches over the last three games to Jones' 41, he's been getting more volume of late, too. For a while, it looked like Jones was emerging as a clear No. 1 Fantasy running back; at this point, it's not even clear he is the obvious top option in his own backfield.
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The Buccaneers backfield is a good reminder that the things Fantasy players care about don't often align with what actual football coaches care about. Jones is clearly the most dynamic option in the Bucs' backfield, but he missed a blitz assignment early Sunday and was thereafter relegated to a backup role behind Peyton Barber, who, in typical Peyton Barber fashion, rushed for 2.6 yards per carry on 17 attempts. Making things even more painful for those of us who started Jones is the fact that Barber ended up scoring a pair of touchdowns, ending up with a big Fantasy day despite his inefficiency. Jones has had flashes, but is averaging just 3.9 yards per carry himself, and if he still can't convincingly beat out Barber, what reason do we have to think the Bucs will finally commit to him as an every-down player in 2020?
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Brady ended up with 300-plus yards and three touchdowns Sunday, but it was a pretty laborious process to get there, with much of his production coming late on two drives that weren't quite garbage time. Brady averaged 6.9 yards per attempt in Week 13, his best total of the last four games — he has still been below 7.0 in five of six games. Brady is at or near career-worst marks in pretty much every rate stat across the board, and it's fair to wonder how close to the end of the line the 42-year-old is. I'm not sure there is anyone in this offense I want to rely on for Fantasy besides Julian Edelman and James White in PPR — and outside of N'Keal Harry, there probably isn't anyone worth actively targeting in Dynasty or keeper leagues for 2020 and beyond.
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