It's championship week, which means a little bit of everything for your title matchup. We have it all in this edition: streaming defenses, unknown running backs, quarterback spot-starts and "Homeland." So let's start with that last one. If you are in a "Homeland"-only fantasy league, well, I told you on Twitter to drop Brody last week. And I'm projecting Peter Quinn to become the show's 2014 breakout player. Now to the rest of Higher/Lower.
2: Defense I'm picking up and streaming this week. Over. With no EJ Manuel, it'll be Thad Lewis in for Buffalo on Sunday after weeks of inactivity. The first time around, he had just over seven fantasy points against Miami. Grab the Dolphins defense and put them in your championship lineup. They're available in over 85 percent of all NFL.com leagues, so they're most likely there for the taking. If not, then I like the Lions (vs. NYG) and Rams (vs. TB) as good plug-and-plays. I favor the Rams a little bit more because their defense plays out of their shoes at home. St. Louis is available in almost 70 percent of NFL.com leagues and Detroit isn't owned in over 80 percent. Don't sleep on these units.
2: Quarterbacks I'll draft ahead of Nick Foles in 2014. Under. Taking everything into account: if a player is on a team on the upswing; will he have his weapons intact; is his age a factor, etc. The only guy I'm taking ahead of Foles right now is Drew Brees, and even that's close. I love Peyton Manning, who's done incredible things in 2013, but you can't look at the stats and expect a repeat. He's another year closer to 40 and for the second straight year his stats have decreased the closer we get to the end of the regular season. This doesn't mean I'm not drafting him, this just means I'm taking Foles ahead of him. He'll have his first off-season as the number one starter to get even better. He won't have to worry about the offense changing (which hurt Colin Kaepernick earlier this season), or the team running the football more than they did this season (which can hurt almost any other QB's stats).
Targets/Touches: Wright. Now.
Jason Smith likes what Kendall Wright's future holds. He's also pretty big on Wright's current fantasy value. More ...
7: On a scale of 1-10 how much I'll trust starting an unknown running back if he's the team's true number one for that game. Over. Look at what Jordan Todman and Matt Asiata did this week -- and what Zac Stacy, Rashad Jennings, Bilal Powell, Marcel Reece, Mike James, Bobby Rainey, etc. have done earlier this season when getting their chance to fill in. If a team's starting running back is out, and you know the backup is going to get the majority of the carries, you can ride them as long as the matchup is a favorable one. While the number of bell-cow running backs in the NFL is at an all-time low, running back depth in the NFL has never been greater. Plenty of teams can plug in their backup - or even their third-stringer -- and still get production. Don't be afraid of it. But only if they're getting all the carries.
10: On a scale of 1-10, how upset I am over critics ripping Homeland for its 'implausibility' over the last two seasons. Over. Every time I read someone's opinion about the show it invariably includes how the show needs to get back to its roots and away from the shark-jumping moments from the past season and a half. To this, I tell everyone: It's a television show. It's not real life. Homeland never claimed to be Zero Dark Thirty, which was based on a true story. Homeland is fiction, but no one seems to get that. Like all television shows, it creates moments of drama that tend to stretch plausibility without breaking it. Dear Critics: I'm sorry if Homeland didn't have the specific plot turns you wanted them to have, but they've never said they're recreating history. The criticism the show gets is very similar to that of Gravity, whom plenty of people delighted in pointing out factual errors because they wanted everyone to see how smart they are. "This is ridiculous. The turbo thrust at that height was completely misinterpreted. That can't happen in space." Except with Homeland it's things like "The C.I.A. would never give someone a promotion with a spotty mental history. See how much I know about stuff?" Relax.
80 percent: Chance I'll start Kirk Cousins or Ryan Tannehill this week. Over. Look at this from a true football perspective. If the Redskins are showcasing Cousins in the hopes of getting a first-round pick for him in the off-season, aren't they going to let him throw the football 45 times a game? Of course they are. Cousins has shown he has the ability to sling it, and with a great matchup at home against Dallas this week, he's a low-end number one fantasy QB. The same is true for Tannehill, whose fantasy points have increased in each of the last four weeks. He has eight TDs in the past three weeks and before you say "Well, there could be snow in Buffalo this week," Tannehill had 23.60 fantasy points in the white stuff two weeks ago in Pittsburgh. Unless I have an elite starter at QB, I would be more than confident playing either Cousins or Tannehill in Championship Week.
Jason Smith writes fantasy and other pith for nfl.com. You can see him as the host of NFL Fantasy Live that airs Sunday through Friday on NFL Network at 5pmET/2pmPT and also at 1amET/10pmPT. Listen to him on the NFL Fantasy Live podcast available at nfl.com and on itunes. Reach out to him on Google plus or Twitter @howaboutafresca, and listen to his Fantasy Podcast with Michael Fabiano and Elliot Harrison every week on nfl.com. He only asks you never bring up when the Jets play poorly.