These fantasy football sleepers for Week 16 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 twilight of the 2018 fantasy football season has long descended. What has felt like an eternal struggle to stay consistently above the floor has devolved into nothing less than an all-out, prison-yard fight to the death – and the guards aren’t coming to break this one up. In this final hour, take stock of these past four months and realize the hard work that has granted you a chance at seizing an entry into the halls of fantasy immortality. Remember, there can be only one.

Rounding third base, attempting to charge the plate, tends to narrow one’s focus. It would be a mistake this late in the season not to continue playing the waiver wire chess game, thinking your roster is locked. Remember denial of service is very much alive in Week 16, even if you have no intention of starting anyone you pick up. Limiting of options is a particularly nasty weapon when there is an all or nothing feeling attached. Weaponized hopelessness has led to many a poor decision when the whole season comes down to one final matchup.

Follow the Plan: play the smart matchups, watch out for bad weather, pay attention to volume, deny outs to your opponents. This is the best you can do, the only say you have. The deciding majority of the rest of your season rests in the hands of powers and malevolent intentions you can’t control. Dumb luck has been deciding fantasy champions since season No. 1, it will most certainly crown a champion by Monday night.

This is the undeniable truth about fantasy football – no amount of planning, talent or research can account for the sometimes unbelievable outcomes on any given Sunday. The Plan provides consistency; the beer provides the sacrifice to the fantasy Gods for good winds and fair weather. This is why it is better to be lucky than good in fantasy football.

Thank you for joining me this season on this journey. I hope you were entertained, and I look forward to reconnecting next year in time to talk about the draft. In the meantime, any questions, comments or suggestions for next year can be sent to: matthewjjillson@gmail.com. Thank you again for your season long support. Victory is life!

Week 16 NFL Sleepers

Elijah McGuire (RB, New York Jets, 34% owned)

It’s tough to imagine yourself in a position where you are going for a title and are seriously considering starting Elijah McGuire. I see a dream like sequence: McGuire driving your new Maserati off a cliff, Larry Wildman style, when confronted with this desperate roster play. Absolute scary stuff! The reality is, though, he’s got a great matchup against a Green Bay defense that has essentially rolled over and died in the last two weeks. If you are looking for a volume play at the flex and absolutely love taking a wild chance that could pay off, you might have a winning ticket in McGuire.

Jamaal Williams (RB, Green Bay Packers, 19% owned)

One last kick to the gut, that’s how The Curse treated Aaron Jones’ roster hodl’rs this week as he was put on the IR. As one season story ends, another rages on: Jamaal Williams looks to have an unthinkable season finish by possibly delivering a fantasy title to whoever has the best waiver priority. Green Bay is in shambles, a withered shell of its once formidable self, but there is still enough life left for Williams to see a ton of volume while running down the clock Sunday.

Cleveland Browns (DST, 12% owned)

The Browns are reinvigorated. They are not going to win a Super Bowl but they have quite the chance at making the playoffs and if you watch the games, you can feel this electricity – it’s awesome. You can bet they are going to play hard and because of their “lovable loser” mystique — they have a chip on their shoulder with something to prove. This is a great formula for a defense about to face a Bengals team that has been decimated by injuries. That the Browns get to face off against Hue Jackson again is merely icing on the cake.

DaeSean Hamilton (WR, Denver Broncos, 23% owned)

Volume is king at the wide receiver position. DaeSean Hamilton is seeing massive volume over the past two weeks and faces a weak Raiders secondary that is sure to be chewed up. I’m not a big believer in Courtland Sutton’s ability to take looks away from Hamilton at this point, making Hamilton a sneaky flex play. Look, it’s the finals, or at the very least you are battling not to be last place — you should be playing the studs you can trust. If, however, you’re a desperate, fly by the seat of your fantasy pants type manager, you have a volume machine that is merely one touchdown away from a breakout performance in DaeSean.

Jason Myers (K, New York Jets, 13% owned)

I’m pro Jets this week, it’s true. I know injured prey when I see it and Green Bay is looking to end their season as quickly as possible whereas the Jets are playing like they have something to prove. Jason Myers has booted some serious games this year and I think he’ll be in for another double-digit performance this week. With an over/under total of 44 points I expect this matchup to far exceed that number, with a large portion of the points being drilled in by Myers.

Crypto Corner (NOT Financial Advice)

*With the end of the football fantasy season here I have realized how fun reporting on the happenings and important developments in the Blockchain and decentralized ledger tech sphere is. The drama is thick and the fortunes are tall in crypto. My aim is to develop the Crypto Corner into more of a full weekly column where I can continue to share with you what I think are interesting develops or pieces of news you should be paying attention to. As always, feedback is key, and I welcome yours as we blaze a very fresh trail in the frontier of this developing technology. Thank you for your continued support.

1. A war is raging over the unlicensed status of security ICO tokens. As previously mentioned, the SEC has come out and begun a possible domino effect where ICO issued tokens that were considered a security and have seen massive valuation losses might have to refund the money they raised to investors. To complicate the matter more, most of these projects collected this capital through accepting Etherium as payment while it was trading at near all-time high levels ($500+ per coin). Do you refund the Ether (currently down 75%+ from all time high) or do you refund the cash value at the time of the purchase? Many questions are still lingering on this sticky subject that is sure to dominate the ICO market headlines for some time to come.
2. Continuing on with the ICO token storyline that has now run headlong into Stable Coins that you have heard me discuss in the past. Basic, a stable coin project, announced this past week that it would be shutting down operations and returning money to investors. This was a project that garnered a lot of attention, positive following and even more cash investment at its inception. While not unthinkable, this announcement came as quite a surprise to many in this field and highlights that there is no safe haven in the Wild West of Crypto – trade carefully friends.
3. Recently, South Korea’s biggest bank began a program to do record keeping on the blockchain. This doesn’t sound sexy, why are we talking about this you must be asking. When you distill blockchain down to its core it is basically an unalterable spreadsheet. This is very simple concept that is put on display in a simple manner, taking a problem most people understand — data storage — and solves it perfectly. This is what blockchain can do for efficiency and accuracy. Easy to digest and understandable projects such as this will lead to more of a mass adoption than some flashy decentralized application ($DApp) most people don’t want or need.