The team that I handed off to my girlfriend at the beginning of the season was looking pretty heading into MNF in the first week of the playoffs. She was up by 4 with DeAngelo Williams to play. Her opponent had Antonio Bryant. D-Lo has been on fire lately and Bryant just didn't look that scary. I didn't turn the game on the 3rd quarter. When I did, Emily's team was in trouble. Bryant was having a career night, D-Lo had only 43 yards on the ground and Jonathan Stewart had gotten the only rushing score. During the remainder of the 3rd quarter, Bryant continued racking up receiving yards, but D-Lo also got rolling. In fact, Williams carried Carolina all the way to the goal line so that Stewart could punch it in with 12:21 to go.
At this point, Emily is down 9 and I'm worried. Particularly with Stewart getting the goal line carries. But with 8:30 to go, Williams wraps up a nice drive with a 16 yard TD scamper. Emily is up by 1 and Carolina leads 23-31.
On the following drive, Bryant grabs a 15 yard pass and pulls the fantasy score even at 91 apiece. With 2:29 remaining, Garcia throws a strike that Bryant snags in the end zone with one of the most ridiculous one-handed catches of the year. Fantasy score 91 - 99. Not looking good.
On what will likely be Carolina's last drive, I'm looking at the field and wondering if D-Lo rips off a TD run, are there enough yards left to regain the lead. Turns out that yes, there are. Williams broke right and evaded a couple tackles for a 36 yard TD. Fantasy score 101-99. Tampa was shut down on the their final drive, and that was the ball game.
What really struck me is in the middle of the Williams' final run, I realized that he should kneel at the 1. Given the score, the right move was to run out the clock in the red zone. The smart football play was the same one that caused Westbrook owners to rise up in rage and disgust when he pulled that stunt last year. But DeAngelo Williams is NOT Brian Westbrook. And as a result, there are a lot of grateful fantasy owners out there.
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