It’s the final week of the regular season and the championship belt and finalist rings are up for grabs!

As Sunday turned into Monday, the highly anticipated matchup between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals was set to kick off – a matchup that was expected to have major ramifications on the AFC playoff picture and Rumble Rosters alike. The game quickly became an afterthought, with Bills safety Damar Hamlin receiving lifesaving measures in front of our eyes. While the game has since been declared a “no contest”, Hamlin’s condition has continued to improve, owing to the incredible support and capabilities of the medical professionals that helped revive him. From a scheduling perspective, it’s the first time since 1987 that a game was cancelled and not rescheduled and will be the first time since 1935 that teams in the league will finish the season with a different number of games played.

Reactions to Last Week

The unprecedented situation has led to unprecedented solutions. The OTM Team has decided to keep the Week 17 contests open through the conclusion of Week 18. Any Bills or Bengals players that were used in Week 17 rosters will have their Week 18 point totals applied to the Week 17 contests. Because of this, we have yet to declare a winner and will refrain from speculating on final outcomes due to the uncertainty. As it stands, Josh Allen leads all QBs with a 22% roster share, and Joe Burrow is 4^th at 8.23%. Joe Mixon is the 5^th most played RB at 7.53%, while Devin Singletary was played in less than 2% of lineups. The WR spot has large implications, with Stefon Diggs, Tee Higgins, and Ja’Marr Chase all having sizeable market shares that could easily impact the final scores from Week 17.

For the time being, Week 17 was dominated by the reemergence of Tom Brady and Mike Evans, who obliterated the Panthers with almost no roster usage. Brady was rostered less than Gardner Minshew who threw up a huge dud one week after a great outing against Dallas. The only QB that game close to Brady’s output was Daniel Jones, who led the Giants to a dominant victory over the Colts and a playoff berth. While Jones was great, mainly on the ground, Kayvon Thibodeaux stole the headlines for his ill-fated and extremely long snow angel celebration after sacking and injuring Nick Foles. Interestingly, Saquon Barkley hardly figured into the equation for the Giants, which wasn’t great for Rumble Rosters but probably is a good sign for the Giants as a whole, showing they can win without relying solely on their impressive back. While Barkley disappointed, the other two smash plays (and only other RBs with more than a 9.51% roster share), Austin Ekeler and Christian McCaffrey both rose to the occasion, taking home the RB1 and RB2 spots so far.

The always temperamental WR position was dominated by contrarian plays. Even Davante Adams had extremely low usage, just 2.16%, owing to the brutal matchup against San Francisco with backup Jarrett Stidham under center, making his first career start. But Adams rewarded his faithful owners, putting up a huge game, currently only sitting behind Evans for the top slot. From there, Brandon Aiyuk, Amari Cooper, DJ Moore, and Chris Godwin made up the top 6 WRs, not one of them surpassing 1% ownership. While the contrarian plays flourished, the chalk imploded. Justin Jefferson was blanketed all day by Jaire Alexander and the Vikings showed once again why they are the worst 12-4 team of all time. Jefferson couldn’t get open, but Kirk Cousins reverted to typical Kirk Cousins form, getting picked off three times while adding another fumble to his resume. Amon Ra St. Brown had another ho-hum game, but Detroit barely needed him, destroying Chicago at home.

At TE, Mark Andrews finally emerged from the shadows, leading the way as this week’s TE1. After constantly being in the top 2 in terms of market share, Andrews’ poor showings over the second half of the year had relegated him to the 5^th most played TE at just 4.84%, by far the lowest roster rate this season. The TE field was close, without anyone going wild like Evans, and the next four best options, Brock Wright, Darren Waller, Albert Okwuegbunam (finally!), and Taysom Hill combined for less than a 1% total market share. As usual, Travis Kelce was the most played TE, but his 11.3 points only resulted in a TE9 result.

Defensively, Green Bay claimed the top spot thanks to Cousins’ aforementioned implosion, while the surprising Saints stymied the Eagles. Jacksonville, Seattle, and Detroit rounded out the top 5 DSTs, while Minnesota, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Chicago all finished with negative points.

Week 18

The already convoluted narrative of Week 18, one which often sees backups playing, starters pulled early, and all sorts of odd things transpiring, has been made even more complicated due to the scheduling anomaly. Seeding is in flux, the AFC Champion Game may end up being played at a neutral site, and the NFL is having to make things up on the fly. Finding a fair outcome will be nearly impossible, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on how things go down.

We’ll have two games impacted by the Thursday Night Wrinkle this week, although it’ll be the Saturday Night Wrinkle this time around. Kansas City squares off against Las Vegas at 4:30pm ET, followed by Tennessee vs Jacksonville at 8:15pm ET. Both games are in play, with Kansas City now in the driver’s seat to lock up the #1 seed in the AFC. Typically, Patrick Mahomes and especially Travis Kelce have huge ownership numbers, and we’re likely going to be facing something of a zero-sum game in that regard. If Kelce has a good to great showing, expect that he’ll dominate more than 60% of the total TE shares, especially if he outperforms Evan Engram, playing later that night. But if Kelce has a poor showing, it will really open things up at the TE spot. In Jacksonville, the AFC South is up for grabs, which means the usual suspects will all be watched closely. Derrick Henry has made a career out of torching the Jaguars, but the teams are going in opposite directions. Tennessee has sputtered while Jacksonville has emerged, with Trevor Lawrence playing the part in a revitalized offense that has relied heavily on Engram down the stretch. Zay Jones, Christian Kirk, and Travis Etienne will all be on the radar for what should be a fun game.

If Kansas City wins on Saturday, most of the drama around seeding will be moot. But if they lose, it places the ball back into Buffalo’s court. A game against New England could be sluggish – we all remember what happened last year in the Wind Bowl, but Buffalo could come out scorching hot riding the wave of emotions coming from increasingly positive news about Damar Hamlin’s recovery and a ravenous home crowd. Regardless of what happens there, Cincinnati needs to take care of business at home against Baltimore, which would wrap up the AFC North. The Bengals have been irritated about the league’s handling of the Bills game but beating Baltimore would go a long way in ensuring their spot is solidified. Joe Burrow has been on fire lately, and the Week 5 loss to Baltimore seems like ancient history, especially with Cincinnati hitting their stride and Lamar Jackson still sidelined. After a strong showing in Week 17, Mark Andrews should be back on the menu, especially if Kelce doesn’t go off. The rest of the AFC is a bit of a cluster. Normally we’d be looking at Miami, but their QB situation makes it tough to trust their big guns.

Over in the NFC, homefield is still on the line, but an Eagles win against a Giants team that is likely going to be sitting their starters would remove most of the drama. From there, Green Bay, Seattle, and Detroit are left vying for the #7 seed. If Seattle wins, Detroit is eliminated, but could still play spoiler in their late game against bitter rival Green Bay. If Seattle loses, whoever wins the late game gets in. There are a lot of moving pieces here, but it’s likely Detroit will have the most action in Rumble Rosters. Amon Ra St. Brown hasn’t scored or gone over 100 yards in four straight games, but Green Bay could produce a solid matchup, despite what they did to Minnesota last week. D’Andre Swift could also be in play after a big game, but he has been feast or famine this year.

Last Week’s Grades

Before we get into who we’re keeping an eye on this week, let’s take a look at our prognosticator last week:

Trevor Lawrence/Christian Kirk/Evan Engram – Bust City! Jacksonville did exactly what we all thought they would, dominating the Texans, but it was mainly done on the ground. Lawrence was the QB21, while Kirk and Engram were simply not needed. Grade: F

David Montgomery – Chicago got off to a hot start, with both Fields and Montgomery having strong opening drives. Then the bottom fell out, Detroit went wild, and that was that. Oof #2. Grade: D-

Leonard Fournette – Strike 1! Strike 2! Strike 3! Maybe this one was a bit of a foul tip, but still not good. Fournette had a TD overruled at the goal line, and he was abandoned in the passing game as the Buccaneers revived the aerial assault and Mike Evans exploded. Grade: D

Jerry Jeudy – Jeudy was heavily targeted, racking up 7 grabs. Unfortunately, Russell Wilson relied on the proverbial dink-and-dunk, as Jeudy finished with just 38 yards. Grade: C

Drake London – After some big games, this one just never really got off the ground, with two bad teams playing bad football. London wasn’t awful, but he didn’t go off, finishing with 5 catches for 47 yards. Grade: C

Plays to Consider

As always, we’re avoiding the obvious plays, because where’s the fun in that?

Here are some plays to keep an eye on this week:

Joe Burrow/Ja’Marr Chase – This one isn’t nearly as off the board as I normally go, but with the Bengals fired up and the division on the line, now is the time for Chase to bring back that rookie magic.

Amon Ra St. Brown – We saw it with Mark Andrews last week. When a player puts together a string of duds, they fall out of favor. It’s possible Detroit will be eliminated by the time they take the field on Sunday, but their hatred for Green Bay and ability to at least play spoiler and try to wrap up a winning season means Detroit will likely be playing their starters all night no matter what.

Raheem Mostert – Mostert was played in a whopping 0.09% of lineups last week, but currently occupies the RB4 slot for Week 17. The team might try to open things up with Skylar Thompson playing QB, but Mostert’s speed and ability to catch the ball could be heavily relied upon, as Miami tries to salvage a once promising season.

Dallas Goedert – Jalen Hurts’ status is still up in the air, but it looks like the Giants are mailing this one in. Opposing TEs have torched New York this year, and the Eagles might try to work Goedert back into the fold to get ready for the postseason after missing a lot of time this year.