The Judge's Verdict:
football 2019 Week 15

Occasionally circumstances fall right into place around a certain guy, opening up the opportunity for him to emerge from obscurity into greatness. That happened for two NFL gentlemen this week, Tampa Bay WR Breshad Perriman and Arizona RB Kenyan Drake. The Bucs had already lost Mike Evans due to injury and Chris Godwin was also sidelined, leaving dynamic QB Jameis Winston (who had another fantastic game, 458 yards + 4 TDs) in need of a new target. Perriman only had 5 catches, but 3 of them were for TDs and he totalled 113 yards, on his way to 32 fantasy points (1/2 PPR), good for the #1 spot among WRs this week. Drake, who was traded from Miami earlier this year, came into the game with just 1 TD all year, scored 4 times Sunday and racked up 137 yards, good for 38 fantasy points. The Fantasy Judge loves identifying fantasy experts who foresaw big breakout performances from underappreciated players. Perriman and Drake certainly fit that description. But both were so overlooked, there's simply no way to expect anybody anticipated performances like the ones we saw Sunday. Drake's debut performance with Arizona in Week 9 was strong, 110 + 1 TD, but he had not scored since and his highest yardage total was just 67 yards. Through the first 13 weeks, Perriman had just 1 TD all season, then he caught the game winner a week ago, and now 3 this week. Drake was ranked between #20 and #29 by every analyst that the Judge follows, mostly between #20 and #25. And Perriman was ranked lower than #40 by all the analysts, with 2 exceptions, noted below. After Drake, the best RB days came from Christian McCaffrey (175 total yards, 2 TDs, 8 catches) and the Eagles' Miles Sanders (172 total yards, 2 TDs, 6 catches). McCaffrey is the unanimous #1 ranked RB. The Judge doesn't deny his greatness, but comparing his rankings among various analysts is a moot point, as he is #1 everywhere. Sanders, however, is a surprise, this was his first 100-yard rushing game of the year and he had just 3 TDs so far this year. Julio Jones also had a spectacular performance, just 0.2 points behind Perriman (1/2 PPR) with 13 cathces for 134 yards and 2 TDs. Of course, that second TD came with 5 seconds left in the game and required a reversal of the on-the-field call that he did not cross the end zone. Typical Jones day, perhaps? Actually, Jones came into Sunday's game with a 9-game streak without a score, and only two 100-yard games during that span. Sunday was absolutely Jones's best game of this season, and best since 2017. While Jones is easily considered an elite WR, his scoring drought and less-than-typical yardage numbers has caused him to slip among fantasy rankings.

The Judge was somewhat surprised to see the resiliancy of Julio Jones' rankings. As great as Jones is, there's no question he has had difficulty scoring and putting up stats typical of his Hall of Fame career. Seeing him still listed in the Top 10 of multiple ranking lists was higher than anticipated. Opinions regarding Miles Sanders were like a bellwether of the analysts' season so far. The leading analysts, TheHuddle and Fulltime, correctly ranked him high. FFToday, whose predictions have been quite strong the past few weeks, also ranked him highly. Meanwhile many of the sites who tend to be middle of the pack, who are less likely to make risky or bold predictions, were the ones who unremarkably placed him near the consensus.