Big Blue View
Welcome to Week 14, which for most leagues is the final game before the fantasy playoffs begin. If you need a win to get in, keep reading. If you’re already in, keep reading. If you’re out of it but just can’t get enough fantasy football, keep reading.
Stranger Things is back for another season on Netflix, and it’s fitting, because the NFL is living in the Upside Down. Is a changing of the guard happening? The playoffs will tell us, but for now it sure seems so. There were four featured games across Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday (thank you very much, NFL), and in each one, a defending division champ from last season was favored, and lost. The Lions, Chiefs, Ravens, and Eagles – all preseason Super Bowl favorites — got beaten with the whole country watching.
The Chiefs and Ravens are 6-6 and in danger of missing the playoffs. KC trails the Broncos by four games, and the Chargers by two. The 7-5 Lions find themselves in third place in the tough NFC North, battling for a wild card. The 8-4 Bills are looking up at the 11-2 Patriots, winners of 10 straight. The Bucs and Texans are in dogfights for divisions they won by two full games last season. Up is down.
On the flip side, down is up. If the season ended today, the Bears (who endured a ten-game losing streak and finished last in the NFC North in 2024) and the Patriots (who went 4-13 and finished last in the AFC East in 2024) would be the Conference #1 seeds. Read that sentence again. It feels like a wide-open playoff is coming, and most of the teams that came into the 2025 season with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations have work to do just to punch a ticket.
Stats of the Week:
No team in the AFC North is above .500.
Three of the six teams with at least nine wins on the season are in the NFC West.
In their upset loss to Carolina on Sunday, the Rams ran just three plays in the third quarter (the lowest total for any team in any quarter this season).
Davante Adams has 11 TDs in his last six games.
The Vikings are the first team in NFL history to have two different QBs throw a pick-six in their first NFL start in the same season. This stat is brought to you by Justin Jefferson.
The Bills’ 249 rushing yards on Sunday were the most by a visiting team in Pittsburgh since 1975.
Lamar Jackson hasn’t thrown or run for a single touchdown in the Ravens’ last three games.
Drake Maye leads the NFL in passing yards, despite not having a single 300-yard game on the season.
Fantasy Stat of the Week:
