I spent Thanksgiving Day in London and had dinner at a party where they were re-filling your champagne glass before you were halfway done with it. I caught the tail end of the Lions-Vikings, a good deal of the Redskins-Cowboys last night and virtually all of the Steelers-Colts this morning. I'm actually writing this at 7:45 am London time because I woke up with a hangover and can't yet get back to sleep.
(An old church behind our friends' house.)
• I don't have much to say about the early game because I didn't watch much of it, can't bring myself to get through even the condensed version on Game Rewind and not a lot happened.
• Eric Ebron was disappointing - he had been coming on of late but saw only one target which he failed to catch.
• The part of this game I caught was the Vikings giving up the game-tying FG, fumbling and the Lions winning it with another FG. I had the Vikings plus 2.5.
• Sam Bradford's average depth of target apparently was 3.5 yards. Cordarrelle Patterson had five catches for 15 yards. Adam Thielen and Kyle Rudolph combined for 21 targets, 17 catches and 117 yards.
• Jerick McKinnon led the team with 76 YFS, but had only 31 yards on nine carries.
• The Lions split things roughly evenly between their three receivers, Anquan Boldin, Golden Tate and Marvin Jones. Jones did the least with the most targets (11), Tate the most with the least (7) and Boldin (9) got the TD.
• The Cowboys offense is unstoppable. Teams should onside kick every time they score against them.
• Dak Prescott always gets his. Even though he threw for only 195 yards and one TD, he ran for 39 more and scored on the ground.
• There's nothing new I can say about Ezekiel Elliott that you don't already know. He's even contributing a bit as a receiver (two catches, 23 yards.)
• Jordan Reed returned after separating his shoulder, but went 12-10-95-2.
• Kirk Cousins is dealing, and now that DeSean Jackson's back, his weapons are top shelf with an elite deep threat (Jackson), elite slot man (Jamison Crowder), elite TE (Reed) and quality pass-catching back (Chris Thompson.) Of course, we'll have to see if Reed misses time.
• Dez Bryant got into it with Josh Norman and finished with 5-for-72 on seven targets (10.2 YPT.) Bryant's completely back, and it's only game flow that holds him back.
• My biggest mistake was doing the Japanese whiskey tasting after so much champagne and wine.
• Scott Tolzien looked okay. He threw two picks, one of which was in late-game desperation and had only 5.7 YPA, but T.Y. Hilton dropped a would-be 70-yard TD, and Tolzien was under pressure most of the day. Tolzien also scrambled ineffectively, but courageously, giving up his body while failing to get extra yards near the goal line, and he made a nice tackle after his first pick.
• Hilton hurt his back after taking a big hit on a catch, so Donte Moncrief saw 11 mostly ineffective targets. Moncrief did score the team's only TD, though. He's the AFC's Jordy Nelson.
• Dwayne Allen showed a pulse - he caught five passes for 49 yards and could be useful once Andrew Luck returns.
• Game flow hurt Ben Roethlisberger's fantasy totals - despite 11.1 YPA, he threw only 20 passes. Three of them were TDs to Antonio Brown at least.
• Le'Veon Bell ground out 120 yards on consistent five-yard runs and scored. He also caught four more passes, giving him 53 in seven games, a 120-catch pace over 16 games.
• Ladarius Green caught two of his three targets for 67 yards and looked reasonably healthy. He has upside for your fantasy playoffs.