Here are my off-the-cuff fantasy football reactions to several of today’s early games:

If you listened to my advice on Tom Brady, I’m sorry. At least you can take some solace in the fact that I dropped Brady in two leagues myself, right before he started this two-week stretch of vintage Brady. I certainly never would’ve guessed Brandon LaFell would’ve been the key to unlocking this success, but between that and Brady having a secondary TE option in Tim Wright, there may just be enough here for Brady to turn back the clock for good. I was on record this preseason that I though Brady had a comeback in him, but with a month-long stumble out of the gate against less-than-stellar defenses, I thought I was wrong. Maybe I was right, and just jumped off the bandwagon too soon.

 

Were you, like me, fortunate enough to get the plug-n-play touchdown from Storm Johnson today? If so, its time to start shopping him; to the Toby Gerhart owner, to anyone. At 2.1 yards per carry and with no real hands to speak of and with a terrible offensive line in front of him, Johnson isn’t anyone’s long-term answer at running back. But, there are plenty of desperate fantasy owners out there who need running back help. See what you can get for him. Same for all your Jaguars, while you’re at it—if any are even owned at this point. The return of Cecil Shorts and Marquise Lee threw the entire passing game out of whack from a fantasy perspective. While Shorts is clearly the most talented and could be a regular flex play, his dicey health situation means we’re going to need to see this for a couple more weeks before he even deserves a pickup off waivers in shallow leagues.

 

If you thought this was the week for Bishop Sankey’s coming out party…well, you probably also thought that last week, too. Remember, Ken Whisenhunt doesn’t like you, or your fantasy team. Sure, Sankey’s the best running back in Tennessee. And he may even be a solid second-half fantasy contributor. But when he can only muster 3.4 yards per carry against the Jaguars and gets sniped at the stripe by Jackie Battle, don’t rest all your hopes in Sankey’s eventual rise to prominence. You can hang onto him as a wild card, but make other plans at RB2 or flex.

 

Minnesota’s backfield couldn’t muster much against Detroit’s stellar defensive line, but it’s worth noting that Jerick McKinnon not only got the start over Matt Asiata, but out-touched him 17 to 3, but actually finished with 82 combo yards. This is likely last call on McKinnon, who given this workload against even a mid-tier defense is likely to put up very nice fantasy numbers. You may have already missed your chance at buying low, but it’s worth an inquiry before next Sunday.

 

Tampa Bay’s defense is an embarrassment. If Lovie Smith and/or Leslie Frazier aren’t fired during the bye week, I’ll be quite surprised. And if they aren’t, for the love of all that is holy, start anyone you have when they play against the Bucs. The Tampa Bay offense, meanwhile, isn’t as embarrassing. The running game put up decent yards-per-carry on Sunday, but that’s simply due to the lopsided score. In the passing game, Mike Glennon actually put up respectable numbers, and rookie Mike Evans returned to score a touchdown. Evans is a flex consideration most weeks, and even though Vincent Jackson didn’t score, his 13 targets led the way—keeping him firmly in the weekly WR2 discussion.

 

Jace Amaro had a terrible drop, but he also caught 10 of 12 targets for 68 yards and a score against the Broncos. Geno Smith desperately needs another target in the passing game—Eric Decker did score again—and Amaro looks like he could be it. If you grabbed Amaro as a Jimmy Graham bye week replacement, hang on to him for a couple weeks since it sounds like Graham’s going to be out at least a couple more games.

 

So much for a potential committee in Denver replacing the injured Montee Ball. Ronnie Hillman totaled 27 touches, far outpacing the nine from Juwan Thompson. Hillman can safely be deployed as a starting running back as long as Ball is on the shelf.

 

I was hesitant to recommend Knowshon Moreno as a viable option this week despite his return from an elbow injury and that turned out to be a wise decision. Lamar Miller was still the starter and had 17 touches to Moreno’s seven. We’ll have to see if next week the Dolphins are more confident in Moreno to handle a full workload, but this is probably the time to sell Lamar Miller if you don’t also own Moreno. This could be an even split at best for Miller the rest of the way, if not the short side of a backfield split.

 

Terrence West was a healthy inactive on Sunday, proving that Isaiah Crowell is the No. 2 back in Cleveland. Crowell managed 77 yards and a score on 11 carries, while Ben Tate needed more than twice the carries to get just one more yard, but did score twice. Short term, this is still Tate’s job. But if you’re a Tate owner, do what you can to get ahold of Crowell, because it may not take until Tate’s next injury for Crowell to wrestle this gig away.

 

Look who’s running the football! I’ve noted the past few weeks that it was a matter of time before Cam Newton started to look more like his old self, stating his season-high in carries last week was a harbinger of things to come. Sure enough, Newton finished with 17 carries for 107 yards and a touchdown Sunday to go with his 284 yards and two touchdown passes. It was a much better day than I expected from Cam against the Cincy defense, but perhaps last week’s disappointing showing against New England wasn’t a fluke after all. If I’m a Bengals D/ST owner, I’m certainly scanning the waiver wire for a potential fill-in until Cincinnati figures out what it’s doing.