These fantasy football sleepers for Week 14 are players to keep an eye on and maybe even add to your list of waiver wire pickups and free agent adds this week. Follow Matthew J. Jillson on Twitter at @eatcookcryptos. 

The Great Reset Button has been pushed. The fearsome, ‘roided out record you’ve boasted about to nobody who cared means nothing now. You are going to have to prove why you are here, again, every week until only you stand victorious over the bodies of your slain buddies. Remember, there can be only one. Welcome to the first round of the fantasy football playoffs, where everyone is dangerous.

Molto Fantasy. It’s an intensification of fantasy football that can only be realized when the stakes are real, the safety is off and there is no net that’s there to catch you. Every decision or roster move is life or death at this point, and you start to feel it. Worse yet, you know every wrong move will haunt you during the off season either by yourself, in the middle of the night, or by these great “friends” you’ve aligned yourself with while you’re trying to relax and drink a beer. The emotional cost of possible missteps at this level send far reaching ripples and can affect sound decision making, be wary.

Emotional decisions will kill your chance at immortality, especially in the most emotional time of the season. I’ve said this before and it has now become more important than ever that you heed this sage advice. Following the plan you have laid out for yourself since Week 1 is an effort to resist the seductive temptation to be cute. Being cute has ruined many a championship caliber fantasy team. Will it ruin yours? What we know for certain is that the Fantasy Gods are cruel masters.

We’ve developed a season-long plan to position your roster to face favorable matchups when it came to crunch time. We know the kicking and defensive roster positions will make or break our chances. We know weather will be important. We know grabbing key backups will save your season potentially. We just need to tune out the noise and the nay saying and execute this plan. Steady your beer gut and prepare to be tested, we are not yet at the final battle.

Week 14 NFL Sleepers

I hope you were able to take advantage of what turned out to be potential season-sealing waiver steals in Spencer Ware and Jaylen Samuels, who both made this column last week. We still have yet to see how these picks play out, but you have great matchups and your actions, most importantly, denied Kareem Hunt or James Conner roster holders the chance to bounce back from tragedy. Nice work. On this note, without being an addition but an honorable mention to Week 14 Sleepers, you need to pick up John Kelly as a hedge should similar tragedy befall Todd Gurley. Don’t say yee wasn’t warned, again.

Jaylen Samuels (RB/TE, Pittsburgh Steelers, 12% owned)

I can’t say that Jaylen Samuels is much of a sleeper anymore; hopefully you heeded my advice last week to speculatively add him. Official word is James Conner is out at least a week with what appears to be an ankle injury. I suspect it will be more than just this Sunday since this is an early in the week announcement. That being said, Samuels can be played in both the running back and tight end positions in Yahoo leagues — the raw and terrible power he wields this late in the season! Empowered by the Devourer of Worlds, Galactus himself! Samuels is a must own.

Jeff Wilson Jr. (RB, San Francisco 49ers, 5% owned)

We’ve talked about The Curse striking out of nowhere and turning rosters upside down. It’s certainly had a hell of a week, San Francisco being just one of the many injury casualties. Matt Brieda has been ruled out for Week 14, giving Jeff Wilson a great shot to showcase his talents. Minus a costly fumble last week Wilson appeared to run hard and should be on your radar to pick up. The 49ers’ schedule down the stretch is a bit tough (DEN, SEA, CHI) and it’s the playoffs so barring catastrophe he is sitting on your bench, but he is going to get volume work and has value. Maybe a good play to ensure others needy at running back can’t grab him.

Zay Jones (WR, Buffalo Bills, 2% owned)

Whoa doggie, haha, we’ve come to this: recommending a Bills player. I might be crazy… like a fox on this one, though, as Zay Jones has seen a huge 50% boost in targets these last six games. Averaging 6.6 looks per game in this period, Jones faces the Jets and Detroit over the next two weeks. With Kelvin Benjamin being released, I suspect his targets will increase over this span against opponents who are beatable. It’s just, yeah, Zay Jones plays for the Bills and it’s the playoffs, but check out the points opposing wide receivers have racked up against the Jets defense before you make a final decision on this one.

Curtis Samuel (WR, Carolina Panthers, 18% owned)

I am having a tough time believing Curtis Samuel is still available in a whopping 88% of leagues. A solid performer over the season, Samuel is someone to target and start in the flex with reasonable confidence down the season stretch — Cleveland, New Orleans and Atlanta —oh my! It is worth noting with Greg Olsen going down last game, Curtis’ targets ballooned to 11. I think you have a volume-based play with a respectable 12-point floor for the remainder of the season in Curtis Samuel. Buy with confidence.

Giants (Defense, 10% owned)

We had a nice view of what the Giants defense can do to a backup quarterback last week against Chicago. Facing off against the Mark Sanchez-led offense in Washington this week the Giants are going to try and terrorize a division rival. I can’t imagine the locker room in New York isn’t eagerly rubbing their mitts together with a sinister laugh in anticipation for this showdown, it could get nasty. There is a sizable floor for the Giants defense this week that should not be ignored. If you are a member of the Stream Team, this is one of the stronger plays you have a chance of picking up this week.

Crypto Corner (NOT financial advice)

1. The Nasdaq exchange announce this last week that they would start to sell Bitcoin ($BTC) futures sometime in 2019, possibly in the same time frame as when Bakkt begins selling their similar product. Yes, if you look at a candle chart, Bitcoin has taken a few running kicks to the groin in the last two weeks, but this is an extremely bullish statement on the future of the Bitcoin market. The 2nd largest securities exchange in the World (NYSE #1) is going be transacting Bitcoin, let that sink in for what that means for liquidity. I’ve said it before, scoff at the notion that Bitcoin is dead, Wall St. isn’t going to pour this kind of money into the space if they weren’t expecting to make a handsome return.
2. Amazon has gotten into the disturbed ledger tech ($DLT) aka Blockchain game. Amazon Quantum Ledger Database service is the company’s attempt to set up basic cryptographic ledger where transactions are posted, tracked and are immutable. What they are essentially selling here is cloud computing based security which is the underlying value of DLT type products. Another massive company is essentially confirming Blockchain tech going to be adopted.
3. ETCDev, a company focused on developing the Etherium Classic ($ETC) network announced earlier this week that they would be shutting down operations due to lack of funding. This is obviously bad news for the $ETC network as a whole, but it will continue to live on and is by no means dead. What is significant here is that this could be the beginning of many similar type businesses closing up shop who were funded via ICOs using Etherium as payment. The price of Etherium ($ETH) and $ETC has plummeted in the time since I started writing this column Week 1 off the NFL season with the current trading price of Etherium being $109.79, the all time high range in 2018 being $1100+. Ouch, but why does this matter? We could quite possibly see a lot more pain in the streets for Etherium value as more of these projects are forced to liquidate their stock piles in order keep the employees paid. Nobody said Bear markets were pretty friends.