For many NFL fans, Week 14 marks a special time of the year where the stakes get a little bit higher. For many leagues, the fantasy football playoffs start now.
If you’ve been fortunate enough to make the cut, congratulations. A couple of key decisions stand between you and the promised land, where either a nice prize pool or a heap of bragging rights await. If you missed out on the playoffs once again, that doesn’t give you an excuse to pack it up and go home, especially if a humiliating punishment awaits the last-place finisher.
So as you prepare for the first round of the postseason, some major roster decisions lie ahead of you. There’s one question we have in particular, and it doesn’t come with an easy answer:
Are there any players on the Washington Redskins that you can trust in Week 1 of the fantasy playoffs?
Adrian Peterson? Maybe in extremely deep leagues, but his limited roll in the passing game and work in the red zone caps his ceiling pretty low.
Terry McLaurin? He may have gotten your team off to a great start, but as of late it’s more of a crapshoot trying to figure out when he’s going to put up numbers in a streaky Washington offense.
Derrius Guice? Bingo. It may take some guts to click ‘Save’ on a lineup with Guice either in your RB2 or FLEX spot this weekend, but of any fantasy-relevant Redskin, he undoubtedly has the highest chance of making you look like you know what you’re doing. The fact is, though, that since his return from injury in Week 11, Guice has found some pretty impressive fantasy success. Here are his numbers in the three games since his return from the IR:
Week 11 vs. NY Jets: 8 touches, 69 yards, 1 TD (13.9 FP)
Week 12 vs. Detroit Lions: 11 touches, 38 yards, 0 TD (4.8 FP)
Week 13 vs. Carolina Panthers: 12 touches, 138 yards, 2 TD (27.7 FP)
That Week 12 dud is a bit concerning, but even with it in there, he is still averaging over 15 points per game. This week, as the Redskins travel to Green Bay to take on the Packers, a relatively easy matchup awaits for Guice and the Redskins rushing attack. The Packers’ defense as a whole is near the middle of the pack, and they allow over 22 fantasy points per game to opposing running backs, which is the 24th best in the NFL.
Guice’s workload split with Peterson is at times a cause for concern, but any rational person would have cause to believe that Washington would start to give him more touches as they hope to grow him as a player. He’s proved so far that he has the talent to get the job done when given the chance, he just simply needs more chances.
So if you’ve got him, feel free to start him. It may be on a wing and a prayer, but Guice has shown over the past few weeks that he is a dynamic runner who has a nose for the endzone. It may be a risky play, but it has a definite chance to pay off in the end. If you ever find yourself doubting the decision, just remember this:
Nobody ever won a fantasy championship by playing it safe.
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