Roundtable: Fantasy Playoff Heroes And Zeros

Photo: USA Today Sports

Welcome to Week 14 of the 2022 Footballguys Roundtable. Our intrepid panel of fantasy pundits discusses and debates four topics every week. Topics are now split into separate features.

This week's roundtable features these four topics:

• Fantasy Playoff Heroes And Zeros (see below)
• 2022's Most Shocking Developments
• Demise Is Greatly Exaggerated
• Fantasy Fill in the Blank

Fantasy Playoff Heroes and Zeros

Matt Waldman: In a 12-team PPR format, look at the overall positional rankings and pick two players who are no lower than a QB1, RB2, WR2, top-5 TE, DE1, or LB1 at this point of the season and...

• Tell me which one you think has a shot at being a playoff hero in Week 14.
• Which one do you worry has a shot at being a playoff zero in Week 14?

Go!

Gary Davenport: Hero: DE Maxx Crosby, Las Vegas (at Los Angeles Rams): Low-hanging fruit said what? Crosby has been outstanding all season long, pairing solid sack numbers with ridiculous tackle production. Now he gets a Rams team in Week 14 that leads the NFC in sacks allowed and leads the league in fantasy points per game allowed to defensive ends.

Zero: LB Josey Jewell, Denver (vs. Kansas City): Jewell is the best fantasy linebacker that no one talks about—he's third at the position in fantasy points per game this year, ahead of the likes of Bobby Wagner and Roquan Smith. But from just about the moment that Patrick Mahomes II became the starting quarterback in Kansas City, the Chiefs became an awful fantasy matchup for linebackers. As in bottom-three in points allowed in two of the past three years awful.

Jordan McNamara: Derrick Henry has all the markings of a player who can go on a run down the stretch. He has the best matchup schedule of any running back remaining and should get a full workload against the likes of the Chargers and Houston in weeks 15 and 16. Henry wears teams out at the end of the season and will get two defenses that are already porous units against the run in two of the weeks that matter most.

Daniel Jones is a QB1 by season-long points, but quarterbacks who rely on running without a consistent ability to win in the passing game leave me skeptical. Jones lacks the passing resume of a top-12 quarterback, and the Giants have an undermanned set of passing weapons.

Sam Wagman: Chris Godwin looks like he is all the way back at this point in the season. He is now on a nine-game streak of having at least six receptions during this season, and he had a touchdown reception in last week's game ripped away from him by a bad holding call on an offensive lineman. He is clearly Brady's favorite target and this week draws the mighty San Francisco 49ers defense -- except the 49ers struggle immensely at guarding slot receivers, giving up the third-most fantasy points per game to the position in the last six games at 17.1 FPPG. Godwin should be in store for a massive game this week in a game where the Buccaneers could be throwing a ton.

James Conner sticks out to me as someone that is almost too easy to make a case to avoid, but most especially this week since he is going up against the second-best fantasy defense against running backs this season in the Patriots. Bill Belichick's squad simply does not give up points on the ground, and they have only allowed a single 100-yard rusher all season long to this point. A lot of defensive attention will be paid to DeAndre Hopkins, as Dave stated above, but don't underestimate how many walls Conner might run into in this matchup.