In our Week 15 fantasy football start and sit, we let the data give another perspective that likely varies from the expert consensus.
For the final time this season, let’s look at some big picture numbers before getting into the Yays and Nays. Here are four numbers that helped define the fantasy football season as most leagues move into either the playoffs or the final week of the regular season.
1
That is where Joe Burrow ranks in the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns. It’s also where Ja’Marr Chase ranks in the NFL in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns.
That the Cincinnati Bengals enter Week 15 multiple games under .500 speaks volumes about how their defense has performed this season. But here’s the thing, their defense is so abysmal that they have created the perfect environment for an all-time fantasy team. Every year, there’s one team that if you chose to stack multiple players from that team, you are playoff-bound at minimum. This year, it’s the Bengals.
Obviously, Chase, who is well on his way to the receiving triple crown (which as we chronicled during Cooper Kupp’s historic 2021 season is very rare), is the top wide receiver in fantasy. By PPR points per game, Tee Higgins is ninth. Running back Chase Brown took over the starting job for good in Week 9. He’s the RB3 since then, and even without being the undisputed leader in the backfield until then, he’s RB11 on the season.
Burrow, meanwhile, is on a heater. He has five straight games with at least three touchdowns, and four straight games with at least 300 passing yards. There have been 24 games this season in which a quarterback threw for 300 passing yards with at least three passing touchdowns. Burrow, by himself, is responsible for 25% (six) of those games. If we upped the mark to 350 passing yards, there have only been 12 such games. No quarterback has had more than one such game, except for Burrow who has done so four times.
The Bengals, without a doubt, are fantasy’s most productive 5-8 team ever.
51.9
That’s how many fantasy points Josh Allen scored last week. He was superhuman. He threw for three touchdowns and ran for another three.
Here’s the thing about Allen: His pure advanced statistics like well-thrown percentage don’t jump off the page. But no player in the entire NFL makes more “wow” plays than he does. There is no quarterback you’d rather have entering the playoffs than Allen.
Oh, and that shouldn’t be any surprise. From 2020-23, here are Allen’s finishes by season in terms of total fantasy points: first, first, second, first.
He is the heavy favorite to win his first MVP award, and it is well deserved. Allen has been the best fantasy quarterback for essentially five years running.
0
That’s how many receiving touchdowns Trey McBride has scored this season. That he’s still TE3 on the season is remarkable.
How unlikely is it that McBride hasn’t found the end zone through the air? There are 56 players with at least 510 receiving yards this season. McBride is the only one to have not scored. There are 50 players with at least 47 receptions. Once again, McBride is the only one that hasn’t recorded a receiving touchdown.
This week, McBride and the Arizona Cardinals play the New England Patriots. The Pats have allowed a tight end to score a touchdown in four of their last six games. We’re calling our shot: McBride finds the end zone this week through the air!
18
That’s how many times Bijan Robinson (seven), Joe Mixon (five) and Josh Jacobs (six) have surpassed 20 PPR points in a single game since Week 6. That is out of a combined 24 games.
This has been the season of Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry, two veterans on new teams who are performing at career-best levels. But don’t let that distract you from the fact that the running back position at large has been phenomenal.
Robinson only has one game since Week 6 without scoring at least 20 PPR points. It’s no coincidence that one game was also his only game during that stretch with fewer than 18 touches. Mixon and Jacobs, meanwhile, are two of the eight running backs already with at least 10 rushing touchdowns this year. Why is that a notable number? There haven’t been more than eight running backs with that many touchdowns in a full season since 2009.
Robinson is not one of the running backs with at least 10 rushing touchdowns. He’s at eight, with a very good chance to join the double-digit group. So do a few other running backs. For years, we’ve highlighted the importance of the wide receiver in PPR leagues. But this year, it’s the running back position that’s driving teams into the playoffs. Alas, it turns out there were options other than Christian McCaffrey at the top of the draft.
The Yays: Week 15 Fantasy Players Projected to Overperform Expert Consensus
Note: We’re comparing our rankings to the expert consensus rankings (ECR) from Fantasy Pros. These rankings update throughout the week (we pulled these numbers from Thursday). Once again, we are using PPR unless noted otherwise.
Anthony Richardson, QB (IND) vs DEN (ECR: 18, Our Rank: QB11, Projected Points: 17.86)
There are intriguing matchups all throughout the slate of Sunday games, but they’re mostly battles between teams that are essentially guaranteed playoff spots. This game, between the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos is the game with the most riding on it. A Colts win puts them squarely back in the playoff hunt, while a Broncos win all but seals the seven teams that will be representing the AFC.
Why is that important from a fantasy perspective? Because with the Colts playing for their lives, they will leave no stone unturned. Which includes the quarterback being heavily involved in the running game. In his 10 career games before being benched earlier this season, Richardson only had three games with at least nine rushing attempts. In the three games since being re-inserted as the starting quarterback, he has nine or more rushing attempts in all of them.
In the last three weeks, Richardson is QB6 on the strength of 32.1 fantasy points accumulated on the ground. He’s third among quarterbacks in projected rushing attempts and second in projected rushing yards. Because of that, he’s a borderline top-10 quarterback this week.
Rhamondre Stevenson, RB (NE) vs ARI (ECR: 23, Our Rank: RB10, PP: 15.90)
We’re not here to convince you that Stevenson is having an underrated season or has been performing well above expectations. He hasn’t been.
But our models also suggest that most of his struggles have come down to having a poor offensive line. In fact, no other high-volume runner averages fewer yards before interacting with a defensive player like Stevenson does. And this week, he faces an Arizona Cardinals rushing defense that is merely average, coming off a game in which they allowed 134 rushing yards and two touchdowns to Zach Charbonnet.
In four of his last six games, Stevenson has surpassed 20 touches. He remains the workhorse in the New England Patriots backfield, and this week, that potential volume carries the day. He’s a fringe top-10 RB in Week 15.
Calvin Ridley, WR (TEN) vs CIN (ECR: 18, Our Rank: WR5, PP: 16.66)
The Cincinnati Bengals have allowed eight pass catchers to record at least 18 PPR points in their last six games. On the season, the Bengals allow the sixth most yards per game and the fourth most points per game. As we highlighted at the top of this article, facing the Bengals means you’re going to face little resistance from their defense, while also needing to score a lot of points because of the Bengals’ potent offense.
Since having zero catches on eight targets back in Week 6, Ridley is averaging nine targets per game, 5.1 receptions and 74.6 receiving yards per game. Despite the exploits of Nick Westbrook-Ikhine and his eight touchdowns on a mere 21 catches, Ridley is still the clear No. 1 option in this Tennessee Titans offense. In 32 career games with at least nine targets, he has 21 touchdowns. Our model is projecting him for 9.5 targets. He is a must start this week.
The Nays: Week 15 Fantasy Players Projected to Underperform Expert Consensus
Baker Mayfield, QB (TB) vs LAC (ECR: 15, Our Rank: QB24, PP: 12.99)
We have mentioned the strength of the Los Angeles Chargers defense on more than one occasion lately and this week is no different. The Chargers are fourth in yards allowed per pass play, and they remain comfortably in first in total points allowed.
Meanwhile, over the last three weeks, the New York Giants, Carolina Panthers and Las Vegas Raiders are the three defenses that Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have faced. Over that span, he has four passing touchdowns and four interceptions.
This week is a serious uptick in competition, and the model is skeptical that Mayfield can turn around his recent lackluster fantasy production. He is projected for the fifth fewest passing yards of any quarterback, and with a higher interception projection than touchdown projection, he is merely a borderline, low-end QB2.
Rico Dowdle, RB (DAL) vs CAR (ECR: 15, Our Rank: RB26, PP: 11.45)
If the Chargers have repeatedly shown up in this article as a difficult team to face in fantasy, the Panthers have been the opposite, particularly for running backs.
Just two weeks ago, back in Week 13, we wrote this:
We’re not trying to convince you that the Panthers are all of the sudden good, because they’re not. But they’re competent, particularly against the pass. Against the rush? Not so much. They are dead last in the NFL in rushing yards allowed per game (160.5) and 31st in rushing touchdowns allowed (17).
Well, over the last two weeks, the Panthers have allowed at least 200 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown in each game.
That should make Dowdle’s inclusion in the Nay section a head-scratcher. But what if we told you that for as many yards and touchdowns as the Panthers allow on the ground, Dowdle is similarly not particularly strong at finding the end zone? There are 36 players with at least 100 carries this season, 35 of them have scored at least three touchdowns. That group of players have scored an average of 6.7 rushing touchdowns this season.
If it isn’t obvious, Dowdle is the outlier. He has one rushing touchdown this season. He is 47th among running backs in projected rushing touchdowns. It’s possible that the Panthers make this projection look foolish, but finding the end zone is a skill and Dowdle only has one rushing touchdown in his last 15 games.
A.J. Brown, WR (PHI) vs PIT (ECR: 6, Our Rank: WR32, PP: 12.81)
More than even the fact that Brown is on the list, the shocking part might just be where he ranks for our model this week. WR32 is essentially a Flex player. For a player who is fourth in the NFL in receiving yards since the beginning of 2022.
But there are some distressing trends for Brown’s fantasy managers this season, particularly recently. He has no games this season with more than six receptions, after hitting that mark nine times last season. Since coming back from injury in Week 6, Brown is averaging 6.2 targets per game. Right now, there are 40 players in the NFL averaging at least 6.3 targets per game. He is being treated like a decoy, like a normal player, rather than the elite WR1 he was last year.
This week, against a Pittsburgh Steelers defense that hasn’t allowed a single player to record 100 receiving yards and a touchdown in a game, Brown isn’t receiving the volume to suggest he may even come close to being the first. And until he sees an uptick in opportunities, which may not happen as long as the Philadelphia Eagles rushing attack continues dominating games, it’ll be hard to trust Brown in the fantasy playoffs.
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