Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffery's Post-Week 13 Fantasy Reaction

Despite a pair of fourth-quarter turnovers, Jay Cutler managed to turn in a serviceable performance for his fantasy owners on Thursday afternoon.

A big reason for that was Alshon Jeffery, who hauled in two early touchdowns in the red zone:

In what turned into an ugly game for the Chicago Bears, though, it wasn't helpful performances from all members of the passing game. Brandon Marshall, in particular, struggled to make a huge impact:

Player	Com/Att	Yds	Avg	TD/Int	Fan Pts
Player	Tar	Rec	Yds	TD	Fan Pts
Jay Cutler	31/49	280	5.7	2/2	15.2
Alshon Jeffery	13	9	71	2	19.1
Brandon Marshall	11	6	42	0	4.2

Cutler has so many weapons at his disposal, but his erratic play has him right on the fringe of QB1/2 status. As NFL writer Benjamin Allbright joked, his sheer number of turnovers can sometimes be mind-boggling:

Still, remember this shaky performance was against Detroit's stingy defense, which is ranked No. 1 overall by Football Outsiders' DVOA metric. Although he is difficult to fully trust, he's going to approach must-start status in the next two weeks at home against the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints.

As for Marshall and Jeffery, they both remain high-end WR2's but don't climb much higher because they tend to eat into each other's value.

As both are nearly even in targets, Jeffery is rated slightly higher in my rankings because he is more of a big-play threat (13.5 yards per catch vs. Marshall's 11.9 prior to Week 13) and gets slightly more targets near the end zone (11 targets inside the 10 vs. Marshall's eight, per Rotowire.com, entering the week), as was evident on Thursday.

Either way, both are obvious starts in the fantasy playoffs.