Manic Monday: Week 12

mac jones

Social media giveth and social media taketh away. I’m generally amused at how people handle social media on holiday weeks. For some reason, Thanksgiving food takes seems to be a hot topic and 2021 was no different.

As a dad, I’m quite familiar with macaroni and cheese. If my son could, he would eat it 300 days a year or more. Granted, it’s not the special side that many families enjoy in a casserole dish during holidays, but I expressed my opinion that mac and cheese wasn’t a great side because of the frequency that we eat it.

I want really unique holiday food. Things we don’t eat but once or twice a year that gives these last two months of the calendar that special appeal. Just how I feel….you know….an opinion.

Or not.

Needless to say, I was quickly ridiculed by a Twitter mob, many of which were people I’ve never interacted with and had no followers in common. Miserable people out seemingly searching ‘mac an cheese’ just so they could go tell strangers why their own opinion was, in fact, wrong.

You’d have thought I said Mac and Me deserved the 1988 Oscar over The Last Emperor.

I’ve been dealing with this for years so it was no problem, but slightly annoying. On the bright side, I wasn’t about to be one of those people that make a controversial statement on purpose to drum up attention then paint myself as the victim when I received backlash.

I’m sure your grandma’s extras super duper special recipe is awesome and clearly, all I know is the stuff in the blue box, but I’m entitled to my opinion, as are you. And, I’m owning what I said: Mac and cheese is just ok.

See, I believe in being accountable.

Accountability

ac·count·a·ble –/əˈkoun(t)əb(ə)l/ (adjective) – (of a person, organization, or institution) required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible.
The keyword there is responsible. Whether it’s the rare food take or, more commonly, a football opinion, I always take full accountability for what I write or share on social media.
It’s kinda half the reason I started writing this series every week. I ALWAYS pinpoint where we were wrong. To me, it’s vital to take responsibility when you’re off. Owning your mistakes can help identify what went wrong in the research and help refine the process.
DFS touts have a long history of not taking accountability and only sharing the plays that go right. That’s easy. We’re all wrong, all the time. Just part of the game and what makes this hobby so much fun- trying to navigate the myriad of data to hit the occasional home run.
I made plenty of calls in fantasy that didn’t work out too well this week and some of my game picks were just atrocious. I actually picked the Steelers to win and said to take the UNDER 47 in the Packers Rams tilt. That was toast in the third quarter.
That was so bad, I’m thinking I should just switch to proper food decisions. Stuffing, by the way, is the correct choice.

Where We Were Right

Speaking of correct, we did well with Thursday’s second game. Our projections placed Michael Gallup and Hunter Renfrow inside our top-20 wide receivers for the week and that’s precisely where they are entering Monday. Renfrow, in fact, is WR5 in PPR formats.

Leonard Fournette was our RB8 in PPR projections. After a four-score game, Fournette wound up posting the top overall fantasy numbers from the entire slate but few sources listed Tampa’s starting running back inside their top-12 backs for the week.

It would feel wrong not to talk about the main theme for this week, Mac Jones, who we ranked as our QB15. Jones and the red-hot Patriots continue to get better each and every week, with Jones playing like a seasoned veteran and hitting some impressive throws in each contest.

Where We Were Wrong

Ugh, what an ugly week for quarterbacks. No signal-caller had posted more QB1 performances this season than Jalen Hurts, who seemed poised to have another stellar outing against a Giants defense that ranked in the bottom-10 against opposing quarterbacks. Hurts was awful, throwing three interceptions and having his worst outing of the season.

And Hurts wasn’t the only quarterback we missed on. Cam Newton was even worse, posting an abysmal 23.8% completion percentage and tossing 4(!) picks. Should have known that a guy whose name is Mac spelled backward was going to be a poor choice.

Running back wasn’t much better. Normal every-week studs like Christian McCaffreyDalvin CookDavid Montgomery, and Nick Chubb topped our projections and all finished far lower than that. CMC and Cook could even be sidelined for multiple weeks after exiting their respective games with injuries. That will shake things up in a major way as the fantasy playoffs approach…but maybe that’s precisely what we need after Week  12.


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About Jody Smith 471 Articles
With over a decade of winning experience, Jody is a well-known fixture in the fantasy football community. He was named Fantasy Pros’ **Most Accurate Ranker** previously and was the site’s Top NFL over/under totals picker with a record 65% accuracy in 2020, while also ranking 5th in the country with a 55% against-the-spread hit rate. Jody has written for many sites over the years including Pro Football Focus, FantasyPros, CBS Sportsline, FantasyData, and is a regular contributor to the Fantasy Index magazine expert’s poll, draft, and auction. Jody’s experience ranking and projecting player performance will help prepare the Fulltime Fam for their big draft days as well as answers they can trust on Sunday for those ever crucial Who Do I Start questions.