WEEK 8: START OF THE WEEK

START 'EM

Michael Carter, RB

Cincinnati Bengals @ New York Jets

Seeing as both Devontae Booker and Tyler Lockett had not very good weeks when I discussed them in each of their respective articles, I'd say we (Maurice and I) are on a bit of a hot streak. Hopefully that streak continues, and I believe it will given the different factors in play for this week’s pick and their matchup. It is somebody who you might be on the fence about given the team they're on; however, in his recent transformation into a being of empathy and open mindedness as a part of his character progression, Maurice has moved from the 80s with his love of Donkey Kong into the 90s and early 2000s where he has discovered the musical genre of Rap/Hip Hop. Some of his favorite artists are Jay-Z whom he refers to as Jay-Zed (he's going through some type of British phase like Madonna and it's kind of annoying but we just play along with it) and Lil Wayne. Therefore, this week, he fittingly wants me to talk about Michael Carter, so here's why you should start Michael Carter this week.

I know it's an incredibly daunting matchup against the white hot Cincinnati Bengals, but I think we saw a precedent for what's going to happen in this game just last week. Upon getting absolutely blown out by the New England Patriots, it seemed that the running game was to be lost to the sands of time. However, there's a thing that surpasses player's abilities, matchups and any other factor that goes into a game, and that wonderfully awful aspect of fantasy football is garbage time points. That's right, Michael Carter ended up with only 37 yards on the ground but had eight catches for 67 yards with most of that coming late in the game when it was definitely out of reach. This can happen again, especially with Mike White as the quarterback because White was the very same QB throwing him the ball at the end of last week's game. They're going to abandon the run early, but we saw that Carter can be used as a passing down back which will probably be what they do a majority of the game. If not throughout the game, they’ll definitely go to him in garbage time because this game has around a 90% chance of being a blowout that forces the Jets to try and get some late points; they'll use Michael Carter to do that. Michael Carter is a decent running back in general who has shown some flashes of potential, but he is still a rookie that should maybe not be started every week just yet. However, because of the garbage time possibility for this week, Michael Carter is my week 8 Start ‘Em player of the week.