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Week 15 Need to Know: Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet

Despite losing Thursday night, Justin Herbert is emerging as an elite QB.

In case you didn’t read about it, the talk for much of the season was how Patrick Mahomes was seeing more and more two-high safety coverage. The long and short of what that is, in case you don’t know, is a lack of blitzing, a pass rush limited to four, dropping seven back into coverage and frequently using two safeties in deep looks to limit the big play. This isn’t a new defensive strategy. But it does tend to force a certain style of play by offenses since you have to often settle for what the defense gives you, whether it’s check downs or short-to-intermediate pass plays. By disguising which four players are coming in the pass rush, it can take an extra beat for blockers and the quarterback to identify pressure and where to deliver the football. And even more simply, it means defenses don’t blitz and if they do, it’s infrequent.

Mahomes vs. Justin Herbert made the headlines, but this was more a matchup of Mahomes vs. Brandon Staley, the Chargers head coach. Staley, coming into this season, was to the modern NFL defense what guys like Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan were to the modern NFL offense in recent years. Staley was the innovator, the young guru. He made the Rams defense something special a year ago. And it all boils down to taking away a defender from the box to better cover the pass. From there, finding creative ways to use permutations of that general idea to disrupt offenses. We saw that Thursday night in a topsy-turvy game that went all the way to overtime. Multiple missed fourth-and-short situations by the Chargers, monster performances from Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill and the post-game headlines probably say something about how the Chargers should’ve won this game a few different times and let it slip away.

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A lot of that blame is going to the aforementioned Staley, but he made the right call. The Chargers failed to execute and it led to three turnovers on downs. This L.A. loss also wildly swings the playoff picture, giving the Chiefs a two-game lead in the division (if they were tied in the standings, the Chargers would have had the tiebreak had they won Thursday). Kansas City, for now, holds the No. 1 seed in the AFC. If the Patriots or Titans win, they will move ahead in the standings. Tennessee holds the tiebreaker over K.C. thanks to a Week 7 win and New England holds the best record in conference.

That’s enough big picture NFL talk, let’s get into fantasy football with the Week 15 need-to-knows!

1. How good is Justin Herbert to you?

You know, in an era of offenses taking what the defense will allow. For example, you watch a guy like Mac Jones and you see a quarterback making a lot of simple reads, a lot of high-low, “Door No. 1 or Door No. 2” sorts of decisions. Or you watch Tua Tagovailoa and see so much read-option and quick short throws. Tagovailoa actually is tied for the league-lead with Mahomes in pocket time, which is the time between the snap and the QB throwing the ball. The end-goal for most quarterbacks nowadays seems to be to shorten play, shorten the read, simplify the decision-making to get the ball out.

Herbert isn’t all that different, but it’s the throw difficulty the offense can ramp up because his arm talent is just so good. The Chargers challenge him to really take the fight to the defense. When you consider the kinds of throws he can make, it’s all the more impressive that Herbert sports a 13.7 bad throw percentage, fourth-best among the league’s regular starting QBs.

Another guy considered to have a big arm is Matthew Stafford. He has 2,172 completed air yards, tops in the league. Who’s No.2? Herbert. So sure, a lot of his passing yards come from little dumpoffs to Austin Ekeler, but you can also count on him to attack downfield.

Just look at this throw from last week vs. the Giants:

So what’s the fantasy takeaway here besides Herbert being good? I think we all already knew that. Well, like last week, I’m starting to formulate my opinions for next year. Maybe I end up somewhere different by late August, but I already made my 2022 tight end sleeper call on Bears TE Cole Kmet. Going by points per game, Herbert is a top-three QB. His ADP this season often placed him as the eighth QB off the board. Maybe you had him higher, I had him slightly higher but not by much.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but Kyler Murray was the third QB drafted this past year in what has been his third season. In that same vein, 2022 will be Herbert’s third year and I think you have to rank him fourth among QBs—Mahomes, Josh Allen and Murray ahead of him. I could even understand an argument for leapfrogging both Allen and Murray given Herbert’s size and durability over Murray and because I just prefer the Chargers’ offensive playmakers over Allen’s in Buffalo.

2. Ghost of Christmas Present

We all know A Christmas Carol and all its many iterations, from Bill Murray’s Scrooged to The Muppet Christmas Carol and so on. I’m no scholar but I do try to appreciate literature. Published 177 years ago, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is one the most frequently adapted, satirized, redone, overdone and well-done pieces of literature ever. But why? The themes, of course.

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A nearly one-dimensional, contemptuously selfish, myopic and greedy man is taken on a journey to see the error of his ways—past, present and possible future. Redemption, one of the most recurring and impactful themes in Western civilization, takes center stage and climaxes with Ebenezer opening his window on Christmas morning to ask a passing boy, “What day is it?” And the boy responds, “Why, Christmas Day!” Ah yes, indeed it is.

If there’s one grumpy, no-good, bump-on-a-log goon who needs to be whisked away by spirits to see themselves for what they truly are, it’s the villain we’ve all grown to hate: Urban Meyer. The man needs no introduction, but he will likely have one again soon enough as head coach of some college football team—maybe not next year, but eventually. From drafting Travis Etienne in the first round to getting grinded on at a bar despite being 57 years old to kicking a kicker, it’s been one eye roll after another. I suppose all could be forgiven if the Jaguars were any good, but they’re not at all.

Fantasy managers have endured disappointing seasons whether it be inconsistent play, reduced role, injuries and more from every player worth a damn on the roster: Trevor Lawrence, James Robinson, Laviska Shenault, D.J. Chark, Marvin Jones Jr., Dan Arnold and Etienne. It’s gotten so bad, Laquon Treadwell is a starting receiver for them at this point. I have reached a point where I have very little faith, institutionally, in the Jaguars. In the same way I’m skeptical of all things Jets and Lions, Jacksonville can add themselves to the list. Team owner Shad Khan clearly does not know what he’s doing and is out of his depth.

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Unfortunately, the character of Scrooge and his overnight reformation is just a story. Meyer is just one person and like football, one man doesn’t win or lose a game. This is a franchise under serious duress. I see no silver lining other than the fact that they’ve already got the stadium built and a few young players who have their whole careers ahead of them.

I wish them well, though. God bless the Jaguars, every one!

3. Week 15 SI Fantasy Must-Reads

Before setting your lineups, make sure you check out some of the world-class fantasy lowdown from our SI Fantasy analysts:

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