Week 15 Bay Area fantasy studs and duds: Both teams win, fantasy heroes abound

In the fantasy playoffs, you need your players to step up and have big games. That's exactly what happened for certain players on the Raiders and Niners this week. First we'll look at those who stepped up:

STUD: Raiders defense. They recorded a few sacks, an interception, but most importantly a shutout. Those are massive in defensive fantasy scoring. Despite playing against the hapless Brady Quinn, the defense had a completely dominant performance and utterly shut down Jamaal Charles.

STUD: Sebastian Janikowski. He hit five field goals, which itself is impressive, but many leagues give extra bonus points for field goals over fifty yards, of which he made two. Huge day for a kicker.

STUD: Colin Kaepernick. Bill Belichick's defense didn't seem to faze him at all, as he never seemed confused or like the game was too much for him. He played at an extremely high level and consistently made huge play after huge play. He has, at least for fantasy pur;poses, totally justified his continuing to start over Alex Smith and will be a top-1o fantasy QB in next season's drafts. He finished the night with a paltry 216 passing yards, but four touchdowns and one pick. Those are big numbers for the fantasy playoffs.

STUD: Michael Crabtree. Crab had one of his best games as a Niner with 107 receiving yards and two huge touchdowns. On the last one, he totally burned the coverage on a curl route and went 38 yards for the touchdown. On the first touchdown he split the safety coverage down the field and held on to a Kaepernick bullet for a 37-yard score. He is completely beyond the inconsistency that plagued him early in his career and appears to be Kaepernick's favorite target.

And now to the guys who flopped:

DUD: The Raiders offense. While Darren McFadden broke 100 rushing yards, he didn't score and nobody else did anything. Carson Palmer was ill and couldn't really get into a rhythm. The defense bailed them out this week.

DUD: The Niners defense. This was a tough call, because for the first half they totally dominated. In the end though, they gave up 34 points and couldn't get to Tom Brady when it mattered due to the loss of Justin Smith.They very nearly choked the game away. The high point total negates this as a good fantasy performance even with the turnovers.