Week 16 fantasy football was the conclusion of the season for most owners. If you were fortunate enough to come out on top, LWOPF offers its congratulations. Plenty of the usual suspects helped lead teams to a fantasy title, especially at the running back position. All eight of the top-scoring running backs boasted ownership rates above 90 percent. MVP candidate Lamar Jackson and the unguardable Michael Thomas also put up healthy numbers.
But, per usual, there are also the players who put up monster fantasy numbers despite very few having them on their roster. In fact, of the skill players who finished top-five at their respective positions each week, 21 of them had ownership rates of five percent or lower. Six of them weren’t owned by anybody during that given week. So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that our final column of the year features more players who didn’t get a lot of love from the fantasy community but who balled out anyway.
Let’s take a look.
Note: all references to ownership rates (including those mentioned above) are based on data from Yahoo Sports league.
Week 16 Fantasy Football Surprise Sensations
Andy Dalton
The era of the “Red Rifle” in Cincinnati looks all but certain to come to an end. With the Bengals officially guaranteed to pick first in the 2020 NFL Draft, most expect them to take LSU superstar quarterback Joe Burrow when they’re officially on the clock. It’s certainly been a whirlwind of a season for Dalton who got benched in favor of rookie Ryan Finley only to return to the starting lineup in the wake of Finley’s ineffectiveness.
In Week 16, he showed flashes of the high-quality quarterback play that made Cincy a regular playoff contender earlier in the decade. Dalton went 33 of 56 for 396 yards and also threw four touchdowns in what inevitably was a 38-35 loss to the Miami Dolphins. And he was one of just three quarterbacks to cross the 30 fantasy point threshold in Week 16. His nine percent ownership rate in Yahoo leagues was small, but not microscopic by any means. So there probably were a few fantasy players who were bold and rode his impressive performance to a fantasy title.
Steven Sims
There really weren’t any running backs with minuscule ownership percentage numbers that scored a boatload of fantasy points. So in Week 16, we’re featuring two wide receivers. The first one up is Sims who likely left Terry McLaurin owners fuming as he scored nearly 10 more PPR points than the rookie out of Ohio State. We’re all well-aware that many fantasy championships come down to less than a single point. And given McLaurin’s ownership rate in Yahoo leagues was 79 percent compared to Sims’ one percent, it certainly played a factor in whether quite a few players won or lost this week.
Tajae Sharpe
We briefly referenced Michael Thomas and his standout performance in the intro to this column. And, yeah, it wasn’t really a shocker (he sure backs up his @CantGuardMike Twitter handle). But another receiver who played in Sunday’s contest between the New Orleans Saints and Tennessee Titans certainly caught most fantasy owners by surprise. That man is Sharpe who came into the game having caught just two touchdown passes all season. He equaled that mark in Week 16 and finished with 23.90 PPR fantasy points. And much like those who started McLaurin above, many A.J. Brown owners were undoubtedly miffed as he managed just 15.30. Especially since nobody in Yahoo leagues had Sharpe on their roster.
Kaden Smith
A lot of New York Giants fans were skeptical when they took Daniel Jones instead of Dwayne Haskins in the 2019 NFL Draft. But the rookie out of Duke has sure shown flashes of franchise quarterback potential since taking over for Eli Manning. This despite missing quite a few pass-catchers due to injury, including tight end Evan Engram. Smith embraced the “next man up” mentality, though. In the Giants 41-35 win over the Redskins, he hauled in two touchdown grabs and was one of five tight ends to finish with at least 15 non-PPR points in Week 16. Very few, however, benefited from his big day as his ownership rate in Yahoo leagues stood at a paltry two percent. Engram is clearly the man at tight end for the Giants moving forward. Still, much respect to Smith for outscoring both Travis Kelce and George Kittle on the week.
Sam Ficken
It’s been a trying season for both teams who reside in Gotham. But there does seem to be cause for optimism for both the Giants and New York Jets. Like Jones, Sam Darnold appears to have made legitimate strides this season. But the focus for this section of the column is Ficken, who’s been fairly consistent recently. He’s totaled double-digit fantasy points in five of his last eight games, including Sunday’s 16-10 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers which could ultimately give them the status of spoiler should Pittsburgh miss the playoffs. In addition to an extra point, Ficken hit field goals of 37, 42 and 54 yards. It made him the highest-scoring kicker of Week 16, a tremendous accomplishment given his two percent ownership mark in Yahoo leagues.
Arizona Cardinals Defense
It’s the result that likely raised the most eyebrows in Week 16. The Arizona Cardinals went on the road to face a Seattle Seahawks team that still had a chance to clinch the top seed in the NFC and knocked them off by a score of 27-13. The team continued to ride a red-hot Kenyan Drake who rushed for two touchdowns a week after finding the end zone four times against the Cleveland Browns last week. But the defense deserves a ton of credit for keeping Russell Wilson and company at bay. They sacked the Super Bowl-winning quarterback five times and also recovered a fumble. And their 11 fantasy points were tied with the Green Bay Packers for the fourth-best this past week. It’s a pretty impressive feat given the Cardinals unit was on the rosters of just one percent of Yahoo fantasy owners compared to Green Bay’s 47 percent.
