Week 14 Booms and Busts: George Kittle, DIY Superstar
There are countless ways to illustrate the greatness of George Kittle, and I’m in on all of them. The stats. The raw athleticism and SPARQ score. The splashy highlights and must-see video.
But to truly put a bow on it, consider who Kittle is doing this all with. It’s one thing to reach stardom through a great system and a star quarterback — but Kittle is dragging his offense along with him, not the other way around.
Kittle threw 210 receiving yards at the Broncos on Sunday, sparking the Santa Clara upset. Kittle gained all of his yards in the first half, in part because the Niners went into a second-half shell. No matter. Kittle was a man at the top of his game, breaking off long gains (including an 85-yard touchdown), showing the speed of a wideout and the power of a tight end.
And Kittle authored that 210 signature with Nick Mullens at quarterback; undersized, undrafted, unwanted Nick Mullens. And for five other starts this year, C.J. Beathard was the San Francisco quarterback. Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t even make it through his third start.
Kittle comes from good stock — his father was a co-captain on Iowa’s 1982 Rose Bowl team, and his cousin Jess Settles was a basketball star at Iowa in the 1990s. You can see why Andy Behrens loves Kittle so much. Kittle was hurt for much of his college career, and didn’t become a full-time starter until his senior year. His catches by college season — 5, 1, 20, 22.
Some guys need more time to put it all together. At least Kittle scored 10 times in his last two Iowa seasons. If his favorable NFL health continues, we’re looking at a superstar. And imagine what’s possible when Garoppolo is back in the saddle.
Kittle might ascend to the second round of fantasy drafts next year. Heck, you could take him first at the position, though I’m likely to slot Travis Kelce and Zach Ertz a little bit higher. Rob Gronkowski? Still useful, but he’s yesterday’s news. I can’t think of anyone else who belongs in the discussion. (Fill in your own Jaylen Samuels joke here.)
• Week 14 was a week about fantasy survival. The Rams had their worst showing of the year. The Saints won, but they’ve been in a two-week funk. New England somehow lost in Miami, with James White on a milk carton. The Steelers stubbed their toe in Oakland, of all places. The Chiefs probably should have lost to Baltimore, but escaped.
The NFL is a league based on variance and funny bounces and occurrences, but this week felt more random than usual. This is why I like to have rules that smooth out variance, like total-point prizes and starting lineups that are large. Let’s iron out flukes if we can. That said, if the best players always crushed it and the best fantasy teams always won, the game wouldn’t have the wide-ranging appeal that it does. Any Given Sunday needs to be a thing, and we need to accept it, even embrace it.
• Is there a lesson to be gleaned from what Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley have done this year? Both are crushing it despite teams that won’t make the playoffs, and both are exploding despite obvious forces against them (McCaffrey’s undersized; Barkley is tied to a mediocre line and a lousy quarterback).
Perhaps the key to the kingdom here is how both backs consistently get theirs in the passing game, albeit they also handle the lion’s share of the goal-line work as well. Then again, it’s not like McCaffrey and Barkley types are falling out of trees. For all the proponents of the Zero RB draft strategy — and sure, we all want to find some cheap, breakout backs as often as we can — the three-down back is an uncommon thing in the NFL. There’s no way I’ll leave the room without one or two shots at this unicorn in the early rounds.
• I’m not sure what the takeaway is with the Amari Cooper trade. He was a mess in Oakland, and now he’s crushing in Dallas — the No. 1 PPR receiver since the trade, in fact. Did I underestimate Jason Garrett (and why isn’t he clapping anymore?) and Scott Linehan? Is Dak Prescott better than I realized? Did Cooper simply need to get away from Derek Carr, or Jon Gruden, or something in Oakland?
The other big-name receivers traded around the deadline have been flops; Golden Tate and Demaryius Thomas have one good game each, sandwiched by washout performances. System, chemistry, familiarity, these are important things, they matter. Of course, there’s one other difference between Cooper and the Thomas/Tate duo; Cooper was brought to Dallas to be the primary downfield target, while Thomas and Tate clearly were added for secondary roles. And perhaps the high cost Dallas paid to acquire Cooper also clued us in to a possible, maybe even likely, spike in production.
All that said, I never could get to Cooper being the No. 1 fantasy wideout for a five-game segment of 2018. And that’s what he’s turned into. You win, Hey 19.
Quick Hitters
• Mitchell Trubisky looked like a guy who hadn’t played since the middle of November. But with the Bears defense smothering the Rams, it didn’t bother Chicago at all. Trubisky’s athleticism, and his rushing, is a boost for his fantasy value, obviously. But you wonder if it comes at the expense of the consistency of the downfield passing game. Baltimore, Buffalo, and even Carolina have to wonder if they’re better or worse if their quarterbacks want to be proactive with their scrambling.
• To be fair, Carolina’s offense is hard to lump in with anyone else’s. Cam Newton’s last six games: 164 rushing yards, no touchdowns. He does have five games with multiple touchdown passes over that span, but he sure looks like a guy playing hurt. We salute that, but we fear it, too.
Say this for rookie TE Ian Thomas, he was ready for his second opportunity. The tight end position comes with a steep learning curve, but this deep into the year, you should know a few things. WR DJ Moore is still more athlete than receiver, but he has a chance to be special. And Curtis Samuel has stepped up nicely in his second year. (As a Wolverine fan, I’ve never been able to get this Samuel run out of my head.)
• Sure, Antonio Brown looks like he’s probably past his peak, but that isn’t some shocking headline; this is, after all, his ninth NFL season. But in dynasty leagues, JuJu Smith-Schuster is my No. 1 receiver (and I said this three months ago). I suppose the JuJu endorsement makes the assumption that Ben Roethlisberger will hang around, and/or the Steelers will figure out a new quarterback. But what JuJu is doing at age 22 is ridiculous.
• You can’t tell me Harold Baines was anywhere close to as good as Dwight Evans. Dewey is The White Shadow of outfielders, so far ahead of his time.
Evans’s offense was never fully appreciated; the OBP generation hadn’t taken over yet. The best Evans season was muffled by the strike, and a relief pitcher — albeit a great freaking relief pitcher — won the MVP. And then there’s the defense, all those Evans Gold Gloves. For all the talk of left field at Fenway, right field is the impossible assignment: the contours, the acreage, the sun field.
Maybe they’ll get it right someday.
• Several of my teams had middle-round quarterbacks, a strategy that looked fine at midseason but not so good now. Andy Dalton lost A.J. Green, then got hurt himself. Matt Ryan lost his mojo. Everything collapsed around Matthew Stafford in Detroit.
It’s possible all three will be in new systems next year. Ryan’s still around plenty of difference-making pieces, and if a discount applies, I’ll probably dial him up again. Dalton has a shot if Green is healthy; otherwise, you head for the hills. Fantasy Twitter doesn’t want to deal with this, but Kenny Golladay has been a major disappointment. Production before nickname, kids.
Did Theo Riddick score? No. Did he get near 100 total yards? No. I’m glad we can set our watch to some reliable standards.
• I’m glad the Dolphins finally found something for Kenyan Drake to do.
• We lost Chris Chase last week, a Yahoo alum and one of the most prolific writers on the Internet. Although Chris usually wrote about sports, music was another of his passions. For an insight into what made him tick, here’s the quintessential Chase piece, a ranking of every Bob Dylan song.
You’ll love some of the list, you’ll dislike some of the list — heck, you might not like Dylan to begin with. But I want you to love anything in your life as much as Chris loved writing, music, and mostly, his wife and his baby girl. Please keep them in your thoughts. And go out and seize the day, while you can; tomorrow is likely, but never guaranteed.
