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Fantasy Football Booms and Busts, Week 13: Lions continue to prove their worth

It's been a year where so many fantasy quarterbacks busted on us. Russell Wilson has been awful, Tom Brady ordinary, Aaron Rodgers mediocre. Matthew Stafford got hurt. Lamar Jackson hit a rough patch after a fast start, and was injured in Week 13.

Jared Goff is nobody's idea of a savior, but perfect is the enemy of good. And let's accept it, Goff is pretty good. So are the Detroit Lions.

Detroit had its best day of the year in the Lions' 40-14 pasting of the Jaguars, rolling up 31 first downs and 437 yards of offense. Goff was the triggerman for most of that, with completions 31-of-41 passes for 340 yards and two touchdowns. He was almost perfect when targeting go-to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown — 12 passes went to the Sun God, and they were good for 11 receptions, 114 yards and two touchdowns.

Make it four wins in five starts for Detroit, with the only loss a respectable defeat to the Bills at the buzzer. Dan Campbell has a competitive football team.

Goff was the first pick in his draft class, and we like to imagine a superstar career when a quarterback is tabbed that early. He’s fallen short of that, obviously. But he did get the Rams to one Super Bowl, and this year Goff is above league average in most of the base metrics — YPA, touchdown percentage, interception percentage, sack rate, quarterback rate. Only his completion percentage falls below the mean, and it’s only trailing by four percent.

Jamaal Williams needed touchdown deodorant to save a 11-35-1 day; he wasn't targeted as a receiver. But perhaps the Lions are finally ready to give D'Andre Swift a meaty role in the offense. Swift lugged the ball 14 times for 62 yards and a score, and he also had four catches for 49 yards. That's an 18-touch afternoon, the first time since opening day the Lions have leaned into Swift.

Maybe the signs were there during the practice week, with Swift finally free of the injury report. I’ll call myself out here — I ranked Swift carefully and said I wanted to see a prove-it game before he reentered my circle of trust. His touch counts for the five prior weeks were underwhelming: 9, 8, 7, 5, 10.

I figured either Swift wasn’t ready to handle a heavy workload, or perhaps the team has soured on him a little bit. Guess it’s the former.

Back to Goff. He has some fantasy juice remaining on the schedule. The leaky Minnesota pass defense — a unit that's been ripped by Mike White and Mac Jones, of all people — comes to Detroit in Week 14. The Lions also have the Bears waiting in Week 17, another home game against a poor defense. Those two dream draws sandwich two tougher opponents, both on the road — Detroit visits the Jets in Week 15, and the Panthers in Week 16.

St. Brown is going to show up on a lot of league-winning rosters. D.J. Chark is at least worth a look in Week 14; he's coming off a 5-98-0 line on six targets. Everyone else in this passing game can stay on the wire. Jameson Williams was targeted just once in his NFL debut, playing a limited number of snaps.

Editor's note: More Week 13 fantasy reaction come after the rest of the Sunday slate.