Quarterbacks
Moving Up
Cam Newton, Panthers
After a lackluster season, Newton is getting hot at just the right time for his fantasy owners. Over his last two games, Cam has piled up 538 passing yards and five touchdowns to go along with 130 rushing yards and a pair of touchdowns. Up next are the Falcons, Chargers and Raiders.
Tony Romo, Cowboys
Dez Bryant is heating up and so is Jason Witten and those factors are helping propel Romo’s fantasy production. The return of Demarco Murray this week also helps. Romo has thrown three touchdown passes in each of his last two games (giving him nine in his last four games) and 744 yards.
Moving Down
Michael Vick, Eagles
Benched for the season barring injury. Let me go on record as the first to predict that his new home in 2013 will be Arizona.
A dud against the Saints in Week 13 have Ryan owners concerned.
Matt Ryan, Falcons
Ryan was looking like a potential top five fantasy quarterback over the first half of the season but the wheels have fallen off lately. Over his last three games, Ryan has just two touchdown passes to go against six interceptions. The yardage totals are decent over those games (301, 353 and 165) but his dud against a soft Saints defense this week has to be cause for concern.
Running Backs
Moving Up
Bryce Brown, Eagles
This week, Brown proved that his Week 12 performance of 178 rushing yards and a pair of touchdowns against the Panthers was no fluke as he gained 169 yards and scored another pair of touchdowns against the Cowboys. He gets a stiffer test this week against the Bucs top ranked run defense but is likely to top 20 touches once again with LeSean McCoy unlikely to return to the line-up and Nick Foles now entrenched as the Eagles starting quarterback.
BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Bengals
The Law Firm is on a roll with three straight 100-yard rushing games to go along with a pair of touchdowns in those games. Prior to that, he was looking like a low-end RB3 since he had scored just once in six games and hadn’t topped 82 rushing yards in those games. Up next are the Cowboys, whose injury problems at linebacker and at nose tackle have caused them to give up plenty of yards to Bryce Brown and Alfred Morris in their last two weeks.
DeAngelo Williams, Panthers
Jonathan Stewart will likely miss at least another week or two with an ankle sprain, leaving Williams to shoulder the load for the Panthers running game. While Williams is on pace to finish with career lows in rushing yards removing his injury shortened 2010 campaign, he has a chance to finish the season strong as the Panthers face the Falcons (20th ranked run defense), Chargers (6th), Raiders (28th) and Saints (32nd).
DeMarco Murray, Cowboys
Despite it being readily apparent that Murray was not 100% percent healthy, he still looked solid this week against the Eagles, gaining 102 yards on 27 touches and finding the end zone once.
Moving Down
C.J. Spiller, Bills
Spiller had 15 touches to 27 for Fred Jackson so I guess Spiller isn’t the clear-cut number one guy after all. He was still decent with 84 total yards but Spiller owners were clearly hoping their guy was going to load up on touches and that didn’t happen.
Chris Ivory, Saints
After a pair of nice efforts in his first two games of the season in Weeks 9 and 10, Ivory has slowed down with just 75 yards in his last three games, including a three carry, four-yard performance this week against the Falcons.
Wide Receivers
Moving Up
Pierre Garcon, Redskins
Moving Up two weeks in a row. Last week, he got the nod based on solid health and his production during his two healthy games (nine receptions for 202 yards and a pair of touchdowns). This week, Garcon was dynamite again, catching eight of his 11 targets for 106 yards and a score and helping ice the Redskins win over the Giants.
Danario Alexander, Chargers
Sure, having Alexander Moving Up is getting repetitive but the kid is on fire. Removing his first game of the season (a one target cameo in Week 8), Alexander is averaging 93.4 receiving yards and 0.6 touchdowns per game. That’s WR1 territory, folks. This week, he caught six of his 10 targets for 102 yards against the Bengals and it is now clear that he is the team’s top threat at wide receiver, having led the team in receiving yards in his last five games. The only downside to Alexander is a tough schedule over the next three weeks.
Chris Givens, Rams
Almost exclusively a big play threat for the first part of the season, Givens emerged as a threat all over the field this week, catching 11 of his 14 targets for 92 yards.
Moving Down
Larry Fitzgerald, Cardinals
Ryan Lindley is putrid. Despite attempting 31 passes, he failed to top 75 passing yards and he’s absolutely killing Fitzgerald’s fantasy value. In Fitz’s last three games, he has five receptions for 65 yards. With Kurt Warner at quarterback, he could post those numbers and more in a quarter.
Denarius Moore, Raiders
I never quite understood the fascination with Moore. He has ability, yes, but in two years, he has been remarkably inconsistent and he has failed to catch a high percentage of his targets. Last year, he caught just 33 of 76 targets, a woeful reception rate of 43.4%. This year, he’s caught just 38 of 87 targets, upping his completion percentage to 43.6%. And he’s slowing down as the season comes to a close, catching just four of 19 targets over the last three weeks for 60 yards and a touchdown.
Eric Decker, Broncos
With Demaryius Thomas clearly emerging as the Broncos top threat at wide receiver, Decker has been a bit of a forgotten man over the past three weeks with just 15 targets after averaging 8.1 targets per game over the first nine games of the season. He had 23 yards and a score in Week 11 but has followed that up with 64 and 17-yard performances, making him a risky play in the fantasy playoffs.
Tight Ends
Moving Up
Brandon Myers, Raiders
Entering the season, you couldn’t have found a football fan who felt the Raiders had a starting caliber tight end on the roster. Turns out they may have a Pro Bowl quality tight end on the roster. Myers caught 14 of his 15 targets this week for a career-high 130 yards and a score. He is now on pace to finish the season with 92 receptions for 961 yards and five touchdowns.
Jason Witten, Cowboys
So much for a lacerated spleen slowing down the Cowboys 30 year-old tight end. Witten is on pace to finish the season with 117 receptions which would shatter the league’s record for most receptions by a tight end in a single season (currently held by Tony Gonzalez with 102 during the 2004 season). Unfortunately, he’s only caught one touchdown.
Moving Down
Scott Chandler, Bills
Last season, Chandler was basically a touchdown play, finishing the season with 389 receiving yards and six touchdowns. At the outset of this season, he was accumulating decent yardage totals (215 yards in his first five games) while continuing to find the end zone (four scores in those games. However, he has reverted to form over the past seven weeks with just 215 receiving yards (31 yards per game) and the touchdowns have dried up (just two in those games).
Dustin Keller, Jets
The quarterback situation isn’t helping and Keller now has to deal with an ankle injury but at least it isn’t of the high ankle sprain variety. Yeah, the good news isn’t exactly good and neither is his production over the last three weeks (nine receptions for 97 yards and a score).
