Jonathan Taylor didn’t just break the slate. He annihilated it. Not that anyone actually considered benching him against Buffalo (at this point, Taylor would be a comfortable start against the ’85 Bears), but Sunday’s rampage against arguably the sport’s top defense should serve as a valuable teaching point for fantasy owners, especially those prone to overthinking. DFS is a different animal, but in season-long leagues, we tend to spend an inordinate amount of time sweating bad matchups when alphas like Taylor—he of five touchdowns (four rushing, one receiving) and 204 yards from scrimmage in Week 11—make that conversation irrelevant.
When your touchdown equity and volume are as strong as Taylor’s, there’s no such thing as a bad matchup (I can just picture Taylor taunting his opponent, invoking Walter White’s famous monologue shouting, “I AM the bad matchup!”). Lord knows how many times I’ve galaxy-brained myself out of wins by making this mistake over the years, playing Russian Roulette with my lineup like Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter. But the Taylors of the world—and let’s also give Austin Ekeler his due after pummeling the Steelers for four touchdowns on Sunday Night Football—make our lives easy, eliminating the agonizing start-and-sit conundrums that haunt us on a weekly basis.
Sure, it's thrilling when the pieces fit, the adrenaline rush of pulling out a victory from the jaws of defeat. There’s a kinship to be had in the Sunday struggle, (in a nation divided, nothing brings us together quite like the shared pain and humiliation of fantasy football), but we can all appreciate the view from Easy Street, a stress-free neighborhood with weekly touchdown parades and fantasy points galore.
Chris Emma and Jordan Cohn join me for a Thanksgiving edition of the Audacy Sports Fantasy Football Show, where we discuss the renaissance of Brandon Aiyuk (finally freed from Kyle Shanahan’s doghouse), Michael Gallup’s newfound opportunity in a depleted Cowboys receiving corps and of course, our favorite streaming tight end, Steelers red-zone god Pat Freiermuth. Enjoy the turkey everyone and don’t listen to a word of Mac Jones’ shameful, anti-pie rhetoric.
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