
Ian Hartitz breaks down the near-misses for NFL players who came oh so close to fantasy glory in Week 3, including Rashid Shaheed and Devin Singletary.

Week 3 has come and gone. Sixteen NFL games brought joy, laughs and tears to football fans and, of course, fantasy football faithful.
Today, we’ll focus on the latter sadness and break down just how close some came to achieving fantasy football glory. Critics might call this unnecessary cruelty, while supporters could claim it helps with understanding the full context of what exactly happened last week.
Either way: Welcome to the Sheesh Report.
What follows is a breakdown of all the tilting, near-miss moments from Week 3 that left fantasy managers and fans alike saying, "Sheesh." I’ve watched hours of film and combed play-by-play data to help determine instances when:
First: The single-most sheeshy moment of Week 3 goes to…
Singletary has had a solid start to his tenure with the Giants, racking up 255 total yards and a pair of scores to go along with a league-high 0.4 missed tackles forced per carry. This comes out to 14.2 PPR points per game — the 20th-highest mark among all RBs through three weeks of action.
That said: The 27-year-old veteran's decision to prioritize his real-life team's success ahead of loyal fantasy managers made for one helluva sheeshy end to Week 3. Roll the tape.
Annoyingly popularized by the likes of Brian Westbrook, Nick Chubb and Todd Gurley over the years, the technically smart and selfless decision to ice the game instead of putting another TD on the board is just about as brutal of a feeling that fantasy managers can experience as they hope for just a bit more production before the clock hits zero.
Of course, Singletary wasn't the only player to finish a mere three feet away from finding the end zone…
Getting all the way to the 1-yard line but failing to score a TD is objectively a sheeshy feeling — particularly when fantasy managers are forced to watch someone else vulture away the score that was SO CLOSE to belonging to them.
Here’s the full list of Week 3’s players who managed to get the football within three feet of the goal line, but not quite across the plane, and ultimately didn’t score later on the same drive:
Plenty of these guys still put up solid numbers, but fantasy managers can certainly imagine what it would've been like had they manage to gain just one single yard more on those respective runs. Sheesh.
Speaking of productive performances that were nearly so much bigger…
The presence of Andy Dalton under center helped lead the previously dormant Panthers offense to 437 total yards and 36 points — easily more than the group managed in two games of the Bryce Young experience (13 points, 352 yards) to start the season.
Arguably nobody benefited more from the presence of The Red Rifle under center than WR Diontae Johnson, who caught eight of 14 targets for 122 yards and a TD. Pretty, pretty, pretty good stuff from the ex-Steeler, although Johnson realistically could have added not one but TWO additional TDs to his box score.
Maybe next time, Diontae, but rest assured you weren't the only pass-catcher to leave some production on the field last week…
We can help quantify sheeshy plays like Johnson's aforementioned near misses and (especially) missed downfield opportunities using “unrealized air yards,” which are derived by subtracting yards after the catch from every player’s receiving yards total before taking the difference with total air yards to pinpoint exactly how much opportunity through the air (not including potential YAC) a player failed to come down with for one reason or another.
We're essentially measuring the total distance of everyone's incomplete targets. A high number indicates a player had lots of fantasy-friendly opportunities but didn't capitalize on them for one reason or another. Cool? Cool.
ANYWAYS: 10 players racked up at least 85 unrealized air yards in Week 3 (including penalties):
Shaheed's missed opportunities were especially sheeshy to deal with considering a bunch of those unrealized air yards came on a specific target that coulda, shoulda, woulda resulted in six points with better hands…
While drops are a somewhat subjective stat, you know one when you see one — and I unfortunately saw the following five dropped TDs with my own two eyes:
Also note that Panthers WR Xavier Legette did his best Jonathan Mingo impression when the rookie seemingly jumped for a ball that he didn't have to and then failed to get two feet down inbounds on what should have been a fairly routine two-point conversion.
Of course, sometimes sheeshy non-TDs should be blamed a bit more on the person throwing the pass in the first place…
You know the moment. The receiver got open, the QB had a reasonable pocket to work from, the pass was there, the crowd stood up … and sheesh: Overthrown, underthrown, too high, or too low, and all that goes into the box score is an incompletion.
Below are roughly 13 of these unfortunate sequences (sheesh-quences?) that occurred during the last week of action with varying degrees of needed YAC:
Man, these sucked. Of course, arguably the only thing sheesh-ier than near-miss TDs are scores that were initially counted … until they weren't.
TDs usually get nullified by a penalty for a good reason, but that doesn’t make the roller coaster of adrenaline any less sheeshful for fantasy managers to deal with.
There was technically only one instance of this in Week 3: Vikings WR Jalen Nailor hauled in a 30-yard TD that was nullified on offensive pass interference on Aaron Jones who was attempting to set a pick without technically setting a pick. Probably a good call, but still: Sheesh.
However, another play was even more sheeshy albeit technically not a nullified TD: Lions QB Jared Goff seemed to initially get the snap off just before the two-minute warning, only for his pass to get tipped and taken back the other way for six points. While the live viewing made it look like a true bang-bang situation, slow-motion seemed to clarify that the ball was indeed snapped with the game clock at 2:01. Say it with me, Cardinals fans and brave Arizona DST fantasy managers: Sheesh.
Our final category of sheesh is another decision left at the digression of the zebras.
Defensive pass interferences can be finicky and don’t always occur in instances when the targeted receiver would have FOR SURE made the catch.
That said: They are very annoying for fantasy managers to deal with when the result could’ve, should’ve, would’ve been a chunk gain — and maybe even a TD.
The top nine players in most yards gained courtesy of drawing DPI flags were as follows:
Also note that 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk drew a 14-yard DPI and a defensive hold on a bomb down the middle of the field that best-case scenario could have been a 75-yard house call — or at least a 40-plus yard chunk gain — without the foul and/or a more accurate pass.
I think I speak for all of us when I say for one last time: Sheesh.
Thanks for stopping by. We're on to Week 4.