Fantasy football managers love awesome Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry and for good reason: not only might Henry be the top fantasy football option right now, but we are in the December fantasy playoffs and Henry sure appears to thrive just a little bit more in the final weeks. After all, Henry followed up his 36.2-point effort in PPR leagues from Week 14 with another 25.2 points in Sunday's resounding win over the hapless Detroit Lions, and we recall last December when his four performances yielded a per-game average of 138 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns.
Then again, these Titans are far from merely the "Derrick Henry Show" and little else, as evidenced by the fact they entered Week 15 as the lone NFL team with more than 3,000 passing yards and 2,000 rushing yards. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill has been a bit inconsistent in fantasy football this season but came through Sunday with a season-best 37.02 PPR points, wide receivers Corey Davis and A.J. Brown combined for 36.4 PPR points, and even tight end Jonnu Smith registered his seventh game with double-digit PPR points.
Indeed, the Titans have become a bit of a stunning fantasy juggernaut and at exactly the right time in the fantasy football world. After all, few NFL teams can boast truly relevant fantasy football producers at quarterback, running back and tight end (Smith is among the top 10 for the season), along with multiple wide receivers, but the Titans can. The question for fantasy managers is whether they can trust all these Titans on the road versus the Green Bay Packers in the Week 16 Sunday night affair, and then for what figures to be a relevant game for playoff seeding during Week 17 -- if it matters to you in fantasy -- in Houston against the division-rival Texans.
The Packers are one of the easiest defenses for opposing running backs to accrue fantasy points against, and quite the opposite versus quarterbacks, wide receivers and tight ends. While Henry and Brown are obvious starters for every fantasy league, Tannehill and Davis, despite worthy statistics, remain available in more than 25% of ESPN standard leagues and in the ones in which they are rostered, they were on the bench in more than 60% of those. However, that seems odd because Tannehill entered Week 15 as the No. 8 quarterback for fantasy in season scoring, then he accounted for five touchdowns on Sunday, including a pair of short touchdown runs that had to leave Henry investors bitter.
Davis is perhaps the real surprise of the offense, for he surely frustrated fantasy managers during his first NFL seasons, but he should soon soar past 1,000 receiving yards for this season and right in time to earn a lucrative contract, since the organization declined his option this past summer. Davis, the No. 5 pick in the 2017 NFL draft, entered the 2020 campaign with few expectations in the real and fantasy world, falling outside the top 50 wide receivers selected in ESPN average live drafts. Now he is firmly among the top 20 wide receivers in PPR scoring for the season despite missing two games and going scoreless in another. The Packers have not faced an offense with this combination of weapons, so do not shy away from Titans at the most important time!
An unusual Week 16 schedule: The first game of the penultimate weekend of the NFL regular season is scheduled for Friday afternoon, also known as Christmas Day in 2020, as Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints host the Minnesota Vikings. Brees returned from a month absence after breaking half his rib cage and scored a solid 19.36 PPR points in Sunday's loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, though he completed only 15 passes. Running back Alvin Kamara, not surprisingly, was his most targeted receiver, and two of the Brees touchdown passes went to running backs Kamara and Latavius Murray. Now that Michael Thomas, the disappointing fantasy first-round pick, is on injured reserve, who will step up?
Nobody really did versus the Chiefs, which was part of the problem. Emmanuel Sanders led the team with 76 receiving yards, with 51 of them coming on one play, but Tre'Quan Smith caught only one pass before leaving with an ankle injury, leaving Lil'Jordan Humphrey and little else. Thomas is done for the regular season, but it would aid Brees and Kamara if the Saints' wide receivers posed a threat, even against a Vikings defense that is far easier to accrue wide receiver fantasy points against than most.
Injury updates: The Carolina Panthers are long eliminated from a reasonable playoff run, though speculation about star running back Christian McCaffrey returning to play continues. It seems to make little sense for McCaffrey, the well-acknowledged top pick in most every fantasy football draft, to suit up again from shoulder and thigh maladies. He has played in three games. Mike Davis would be a strong RB2 option for the road game in Washington should McCaffrey sit again. Other running backs who missed Week 15 but deserve attention include Washington's Antonio Gibson, Tampa Bay Buccaneers starter Ronald Jones II and Dallas Cowboys star Ezekiel Elliott.
The other important difference maker in fantasy to watch this week is Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones, as he claims he will play again this regular season through a hamstring injury, even though his team is also not going to be winning the Super Bowl. Jones needs 229 receiving yards in the final two games to reach 1,000 for the seventh consecutive season, so perhaps this personal achievement drives his comments. Fantasy managers would likely unilaterally activate him in Week 16 versus the Kansas City Chiefs, but it would be nice to have clarity well in advance, especially with four games coming prior to Sunday.
Monday Night madness: The AFC East champion Buffalo Bills travel to New England to face the eliminated Patriots on Monday, and it is safe to say the players in this contest -- and football fans in general -- are hardly used to those qualifiers. Hall of Famer Jim Kelly quarterbacked the last time the Bills won the division (1995). Matt Cassel quarterbacked the Patriots the last time they missed the playoffs (2008). Still, the Bills are playing for important AFC seeding, and the Patriots ... well there could be some changes in store for them. Cam Newton is probably not the team's quarterback next season, so perhaps head coach Bill Belichick takes a longer look at backup Jarrett Stidham. Newton averaged a meager 120 passing yards over his past four games. Not a misprint, not good. Perhaps wide receivers Jakobi Meyers and Damiere Byrd would prefer Stidham.
For the Bills, quarterback Josh Allen has been a statistical revelation this season and, in a normal year, perhaps a leading MVP favorite. He and wide receiver Stefon Diggs have carried fantasy managers, but the running backs remain unreliable for fantasy, though each showed promise in the Week 15 rout of the Denver Broncos. Second-year man Devin Singletary scored 17.4 PPR points, though most of it came on a 51-yard touchdown run in the closing minutes with the outcome not in question. Rookie Zach Moss boasts five consecutive games with single-digit PPR points. The Bills are great, but after Allen, Diggs and surprising Cole Beasley, not as great in fantasy.