Week 15 Fantasy Football Recap
We are officially heading into Week 16, aka the fantasy football semifinals. If you’re reading this, congrats on still being alive. This is an incredibly busy time of year, so let’s get right into the top takeaways from Week 15.
Top 10 Fantasy Football Takeaways Week 15
Kyle Pitts Breaks the Fantasy Playoffs
The fantasy playoffs started with an absolutely massive bang, as Kyle Pitts exploded for a whopping 40.1 half-PPR points on Thursday night. I’m going to do a brief victory lap here as I highlighted Pitts’ elite usage both in last week’s recap and my Week 15 rankings breakdown.
With that said, I obviously didn’t see this historic performance coming — anyone who says they did is lying. This is the beauty and the tragedy of fantasy football. Countless managers saw their fantasy championship hopes go up in smoke in the very first game of the playoffs, as Pitts single-handedly erased a season’s worth of blood, sweat, and tears. Countless managers on the other side now find themselves two wins away from a championship thanks to the former fourth-overall pick.
As for the actual fantasy implications of this, there really aren’t many. If Drake London remains sidelined, Pitts is an absolute must-start. If London returns (which seems possible), he falls back to being a backend TE1.
Michael Carter … League-Winner?
Every year, at least one player comes from absolutely nowhere to make a huge impact in the fantasy football playoffs. Usually, that player is a running back who is thrust into a larger role due to injury. Right now, Michael Carter is the clear favorite to be that guy.
After Zonovan Knight went down with an ankle injury (he is now on IR), Carter was a workhorse in the Cardinals’ backfield. The former Jet finished with 14 carries (an 82% RB rush share without Knight) and four targets on a 79% snap share and a 63% route participation rate. He turned that usage into a respectable 11.4 half-PPR points even against an elite Houston defense.
Going forward, the Cardinals have two matchups with beatable defenses in the Falcons and Bengals to finish out the fantasy football season. If Carter keeps this pristine usage, he will be a genuine RB2 for both weeks. Even if he loses some work (perhaps to Emari Demercado, whose lack of involvement on Sunday may be explained by the fact that it was his first game back from injury), he can be a viable flex. He’s easily the top waiver add of the week.
Jawhar Jordan … League-Winner??
If Carter doesn’t end up being the hero of these fantasy playoffs, maybe Jawhar Jordan will. A 2024 sixth-round pick, Jordan made his NFL debut on Sunday with Nick Chubb sidelined by a rib injury. Then, when Woody Marks went down with an ankle issue, Jordan took over. He carried the ball 15 times for 101 yards, the most of any Texans RB this season. He even saw two targets, too, although Dare Ogunbowale led the backfield in routes.
The big issue with Jordan is that both Chubb (who did get in a limited practice last Friday) and Marks (who reportedly could have returned even last week) could be active in Week 16. But if they are both out, Jordan suddenly becomes a very exciting option against the hapless Raiders. Given that he is almost certainly available in essentially every fantasy league out there, this is a situation worth monitoring.
Evan Hull/Audric Estime … League-Winners????
Okay, maybe these guys aren’t going to be league-winners. After Devin Neal went down with a hamstring injury, the Saints’ backfield was an ugly mess. Estime (a 2024 fifth-round pick by the Broncos) and Hull (a 2023 fifth-round pick by the Colts) were involved in very similar capacities.
Estime finished the game with the lead in snaps (24 to 19), routes (14 to seven), and targets (three to zero). But the most important aspect of running back usage is usually who sees the most carries, and that honor went to Hull, albeit barely (four to three).
Hopefully, Neal (or maybe even Alvin Kamara) ends up healthy for Week 15, and we don’t have to deal with this situation. But right now, one of these guys is the Saints’ top healthy RB. That makes them both worth adding for RB-needy managers in deeper formats.
Grandpa Rivers’ First Start
With Daniel Jones done for the year, the Colts turned to Philip Rivers to be their starting quarterback in Week 15. Given that Rivers is 44 years old and hasn’t played in the NFL since 2020, the results weren’t that bad … but they certainly weren’t great.
Rivers attempted just 27 passes even in a negative game script, as the Colts posted a pass rate a massive 11.4% below expected. He completed just 18 of them for 120 yards, a pick, and one touchdown. Josh Downs caught that lone TD, so he led Indianapolis’ pass-catchers with a measly 8.8 half-PPR points. Their leader in receiving yards was Ameer Abdullah … with 32.
To be fair, this was a tough matchup with an elite Seattle defense. There’s a world in which, with a second week off the couch, Rivers is able to be more productive against the 49ers and/or Jaguars over the next two weeks.
But I still wouldn’t want to trust any Colt not named Jonathan Taylor in the fantasy playoffs. Michael Pittman Jr., Alec Pierce, and Tyler Warren have all gone from borderline must-start options to borderline must-bench players.
Luther Burden’s Breakout Day Ends Early
After a rookie season that has so far produced far more hype than fantasy points, Luther Burden III finally seemed to be on his way to a breakout on Sunday. At halftime, he had five catches on six targets (a 33% target share) for 78 yards. Even more importantly, he had a 79% route participation rate, a massive step up from his previous career high of 64%.
Unfortunately, everything came crashing down from there. Burden made just one catch in the third quarter, injured his ankle, and did not return. He was listed as a DNP on the Bears’ estimated injury report for Tuesday.
With just two weeks left in the fantasy season, Burden will need to recover fast to have relevance this year. If he misses even one week, fantasy managers will have to trust him in his first game back with fantasy championships on the line … that seems like a risky move to me. Unfortunately, this will probably go down as a rookie season of what-ifs for Luther Burden … thankfully, there’s always next year.
Even Revenge Can’t Save Stefon Diggs
Speaking of wide receivers who unfortunately seem unstartable for the rest of the fantasy playoffs, we have Stefon Diggs. Diggs’ role in the Patriots’ offense has been weirdly small, especially in terms of routes, at multiple points this season. But he has hit a new low since Kayshon Boutte’s return in Week 12.
Over the last three weeks, Diggs has posted route participation rates of 51%, 56%, and 59%. His target shares have been 9%, 13%, and 13%. He has scored 3.0, 4.1, and 4.1 half-PPR points.
On Sunday, in a revenge game against his former team (whom he torched earlier this season) with massive playoff implications, he caught three passes for 26 scoreless yards. Even if he briefly ran hot with elite target earning on part-time routes earlier in the season, not being a full-time player is coming back to bite Diggs’ fantasy value. Unless his usage improves dramatically against the Ravens this week, I can’t recommend trusting him in either of the next two weeks.
Mike Evans’ Big Return Hurts Emeka Egbuka
Mike Evans returned to the field for the first time since Week 7 last Thursday. And he immediately made his presence known, racking up a team-high 10 targets (as high as 12, according to some sources) on just 26 routes, and catching sux for 132 yards. I wouldn’t have expected to say this about a 32-year-old coming off his second injury of the season into a crowded situation, but he is a very viable starter the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, Evans’ big return had to come at someone’s expense. That someone was rookie Emeka Egbuka. Although he still saw a 21% target share, Egbuka’s 55% route participation rate was by far his lowest healthy mark of the season. He was closer to Jalen McMillan’s 48% than Evans’ 65% (which should trend up going forward) or Chris Godwin’s 93%.
As Diggs has made clear, it’s essentially impossible to be a consistent fantasy receiver on below a 60% route participation rate. And Egbuka has been struggling to produce even with elite usage in recent weeks, with just 5.7 half-PPR points per game since Week 11. The first-round rookie is off the fantasy radar going forward.
Can We Trust Jameson Williams?
See if you can spot the outlier in Jameson Williams’ game-log since Dan Campbell started calling plays in Week 10:
- 6/119/1 on seven targets
- 4/88/1 on seven targets
- 0/0/0 on three targets
- 7/144/1 on 10 targets
- 7/96/0 on nine targets
- 7/134/1 on nine targets
Even with that donut included, Jamo has been on absolute fire. He has averaged a whopping 16.5 half-PPR points per game on a 20% target share and a 36% air yards share. I know that many fantasy managers are likely hesitant to trust him again after being burned by him before, but these numbers are too good to ignore. He’s a must-start this week against the Steelers and — barring another absolute zero — will remain that way against the Vikings in Week 17.
Bucky Irving & TreVeyon Henderson Are Back On Top (Mostly)
Both the Buccaneers’ and Patriots’ backfields have been in flux recently, with Rhamondre Stevenson and Bucky Irving returning from their respective injuries. In Week 15, they both seemed to settle into strangely similar configurations.
Both teams used more than two backs on a non-negligible chunk of their plays. In Tampa, Irving, Rachaad White, and Sean Tucker combined for 66 snaps on 61 offensive plays. In New England, Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson went 59 of 51.
And both teams had one clear leader in terms of rushes: Henderson saw 14 of 20 backfield carries (70%) while Irving saw 16 of 21 (76%). However, in contrast with those excellent rush share numbers, these two young backs saw mediocre snap shares of just 49% and 56% respectively.
This is because both teams used their veterans as passing-down backs. Stevenson posted a 59% route participation rate on a 67% snap share, while White was at 43% and 41%. (For what it’s worth, Henderson and Irving were also involved as receivers, with three targets apiece on 31% and 35% route rates, respectively). Stevenson was more involved on the ground, with six carries to White’s one … but those missing carries were accounted for by Tucker’s four.
So what is the point of all this? Not much, to be honest. After both seeming like 1B (or even 1A) options as recently as a week ago, White and Stevenson (not to mention Tucker) are only playable if you are desperate at this point. This slightly odd usage does hurt the range of outcomes for both Irving and Henderson, but they are both trending upward and are high-end RB2s at worst.
