8 Things To Know For Week 16: Outlier Matchups To Target, RB Usage Trends and More
Fantasy

8 Things To Know For Week 16: Outlier Matchups To Target, RB Usage Trends and More

Ian Hartitz details the eight most important things you need to be paying attention to ahead of the Week 16 fantasy football semi-finals slate.

Week 16 is upon us. Reminder: Friends and family come and go, but fantasy football championship banners hang forever.

This brings us to today's goal: eight mostly fantasy-relevant things to know ahead of Week 16 that ideally will help make you both a better fantasy manager and overall person.

  1. What are the outlier positional matchups to care about in Week 16?
  2. Can we trust these newfound stud fantasy RBs?
  3. Two Interesting questions I wanted to answer
  4. Ollie Williams' Weather Report: Two potential games to worry about
  5. What man-coverage splits can we take advantage of for Week 16?
  6. Week 15 RB Usage Report: F*ck the Injury Gods
  7. The DST Corner: Chiefs and Saints headline the best streamer options
  8. The Mismatch Manifesto: Biggest matchup advantages of the week

As always: It's a great day to be great.

1. What are the outlier positional matchups to care about in Week 16?

Fantasy Life's "Defense vs. Position" tool calculates the fantasy boost that every position receives depending on its matchup. The following position groups are looking at a positive five-plus point swing thanks to a rock-solid on-paper matchup.

  • Chargers QB Justin Herbert vs. Cowboys (+6.7 fantasy boost): Here's to hoping the Chargers can keep Herbert clean enough to take advantage of a Cowboys secondary that has continuously helped make even some of the league's worst passers look competent. That's really the only concern here: Since Week 11, the Chargers rank 30th in pressure rate allowed (44%) and the Cowboys defense is a respectable ninth (39.9%).
  • Dolphins RB De'Von Achane vs. Bengals (+6.3): Obviously, you were already starting Achane regardless, but here's to hoping this b-e-a-utiful matchup in the trenches helps overcome a potential dropoff in scoring upside with Quinn Ewers under center.
  • Vikings RB Aaron Jones vs. Giants (+5.3): Has gone 78 long, cold touches without a score. That certainly could change against a Giants defense that has allowed the second-most rushing yards to opposing RBs this season.
  • Chargers WR Ladd McConkey and Keenan Allen vs. Cowboys (+7.4): Both will be further boosted up the fantasy ranks if Quentin Johnston (groin) remains sidelined.
  • Steelers WR DK Metcalf vs. Lions (+5.6): On a bit of a heater with 7-148-0 and 3-55-1 receiving lines over the last two weeks. This Lions defense has allowed each of Jameis Winston (366-2-1), Jordan Love (234-4-0), Dak Prescott (376-1-2) and Matthew Stafford (368-2-1) to go off during their last four matchups.
  • Dolphins Darren Waller vs. Bengals (+8): Coming off his second two-TD performance of the season, Waller commanded a season-high eight targets on Monday night … but the presence of Quinn Ewers under center throws a bit of a wrench into things. Waller would have been a top-10 play at the position, although now I'm more inclined to treat him as a borderline TE1 despite the A+ matchup.
     
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As for the worst matchups: WRs from the Commanders (Eagles -6.5), Giants (Vikings -6.5), and Raiders (Texans -5.7) will have their hands full. This concern also applies to the latter two involved QBs, as nobody has posted a stronger negative fantasy boost against opposing QBs than Brian Flores and DeMeco Ryans this season.

2. Can we trust these newfound stud fantasy RBs?

There are a handful of backs absolutely balling out recently … but can we REALLY trust the good times to continue with the fantasy season on the line? All RB rank notes are in terms of PPR points per game.

Steelers RB Kenneth Gainwell (RB43 in Weeks 1-10, RB8 in Weeks 11-15): Has caught at least six passes in four of the last five games, many of the designed variety. Overall, only Jahmyr Gibbs (62.7) has more PPR points from purely receiving production than Gainwell (60.9) since Week 11! While Jaylen Warren remains the favorite to lead the way in carries, Gainwell's receiving role is enough for me to rank him ahead in the Week 16 rankings—especially against a Lions defense that has been far more stout against the run (10th-fewest rush yards allowed to opposing RBs) than the pass (ninth-most pass yards allowed).

Patriots RB TreVeyon Henderson (RB37 in Weeks 1-10, RB4 in Weeks 11-15): Hendo has managed to rack up 22, 15 and 17 combined carries and targets in three games since Rhamondre Stevenson has returned to action. It'd be a lot cooler if Henderson could handle more of an every-down role, but it's probably OK considering just how explosive the rookie has been this season. Overall, Henderson's average of 5.4 yards per carry ranks fourth among 43 RBs with 100+ rush attempts (Stevenson's 3.5 YPC ranks 42nd for those wondering), and nobody has more rushes of 50+ yards (4). Give the Ravens credit for ranking first in EPA allowed per rush since Week 8; just realize it only takes one play for Henderson to pay off in a big way.

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Giants RB Tyrone Tracy (RB51 in Weeks 1-10, RB11 in Weeks 11-15): Has played rather awesome in each of his last three fully healthy games:

  • Week 11: 19-88-0 rushing, 4-51-0 receiving, 51% snaps, PPR RB13
  • Week 12: 20-62-0 rushing, 3-68-0 receiving, 71% snaps, RB12
  • Week 15: 15-70-1 rushing, 3-27-1 receiving, 77% snaps, RB5

Meanwhile, the Vikings have surrendered the eighth-most rushing yards to opposing RBs this season, generally causing far more problems for opposing passing attacks. Tracy is a talented pass-catching RB with big-play ability and the potential to breeze past 20 touches. That's a good enough archetype to earn top-20 treatment at the position this week.

3. Two Interesting questions I wanted to answer

Every Sunday while watching a quad box and Red Zone, I scribble (type) questions into a Google sheet to investigate later.

*Law and Order music*

These are two of their stories:

1. Question: What QBs have provided the most raw entertainment this season?

Here's my formula:

  • QB Entertainment Score—lowest combined rank in: Rank in big-time throw rate + Rank in turnover-worthy throw rate + Rank in Scramble Rate + Rank in deep ball rate + Rank in fewest throwaways per dropback.

We want QBs testing tight windows, no matter the result, who also run around a lot while often looking to throw deep and never giving up on the play. Cool? Cool.

The most entertaining QBs of 2025 (minimum 100 dropbacks, sorry Jameis):

  1. J.J. McCarthy (average rank: 5.8)
  2. Jaxson Dart (9.4)
  3. Marcus Mariota (10.8)
  4. Baker Mayfield (12)
  5. Trevor Lawrence (13.4)

Look, I'm shocked to see "Nine" atop the leaderboard here too, but at the same time, this doesn't even include the entertainment value from him becoming THE photoshop for every bad QB performance! (They're even doing GMs, now). McCarthy has NOT been good for the majority of this season, yet ranks first in big-time throw rate, has the fifth-highest turnover-worthy play rate, has thrown deep at the third-highest rate and throws the ball away at the league's lowest rate. Not necessarily good things, but entertaining? Yes.

As for the most lame/boring QB of the season … congrats to Jared Goff, who comes in at 32nd or worse in all five of our categories. This ultimately meaningless metric certainly favors dual-threat signal-callers; Cam Ward, Joe Flacco, Jacoby Brissett and Michael Penix round out the bottom five.

2. Question: What RBs CONSISTENTLY pick up the most yards after contact?

Yards after contact is a cool stat; I support the difficult endeavour to isolate an RB's performance independent of their offensive line. Of course, like any stat, it has its flaws, namely because long runs that break a whatever arm tackle at the line of scrimmage can seriously skew things. Example: This (very cool!) TreVeyon Henderson 55-yard TD actually was deemed as having 55 yards of yards after contact, when in reality Hendo was only briefly hit by an outstretched arm at the line of scrimmage before bursting into the secondary. Technically, yards after contact, sure, but is that REALLY what we're trying to measure here?

Right now, De'Von Achane and Henderson are both in the metric's top four. Obviously, these are great RBs, but I think we can agree they aren't consistently pushing piles at the highest level. That's not their game! But the stat is really rewarding broken arm tackles at the line of scrimmage in its current form.

My solution: Percentage of carries with three-plus yards after contact. This more so shows who is CONSISTENTLY grinding out extra yards after contact, which feels like more of the goal of things anyway, you know? Still not perfect, but I'm a fan—and it could help explain why "boring" and "less explosive" options like Zach Charbonnet, Rhamondre Stevenson and Chuba Hubbard receive more work than the internet would prefer.

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4. Ollie Williams' Weather Report: Two potential games to worry about

Let me do my best meteorologist impression by immediately directing you to other people's expertise:

  • Real life Meteorologist Kevin Roth has a free and awesome weekly weather report directly made to help you, a scholar, know the potential weather risks for every game. You can check that out right here. I look at this every Sunday morning.
  • Fantasy Life residential badass Chris Allen has penned the greatest fantasy football article regarding the science of wind of all time, and also produces an awesome cheat sheet article on Fridays that you should definitely check out, since it will include more cool, up-to-date weather-related info.

WITH THAT SAID: Using those amazing resources leads me to have concerns on the following contests as of Wednesday afternoon (home team listed first):

  • Seahawks-Rams: Mr. Roth believes there's more of a "chance for showers" as opposed to a downpour, but the bigger concern could be a period of sustained winds around 20mph with gusts up to 40mph. Check things out pregame, but the involved QBs deserve a slight downgrade, and overly trusting non-key pass-catchers from both squads feels dicey.
  • Browns-Bills: It will be cold with 10-15mph winds. Not horrendous, but not ideal.

Otherwise ... Bears-Packers, Giants-Vikings and Ravens-Patriots figure to be cold, and Titans-Chiefs has a slight chance of rain. Nothing too major to worry about!

5. What man-coverage splits can we take advantage of for Week 16?

A disclaimer from my lawyer: This is hardly a perfect science and doesn't guarantee boom games. Just kidding. Or am I? Either way, the goal of this section is to try to find WRs who have fairly extreme man/zone splits and are facing bad defenses that happen to run a lot of man coverage. Cool? Cool.

Overall, 11 defenses have run man coverage on more than 30% of their opponents' pass plays this season. Each defense's rank in EPA allowed per dropback is also listed in parentheses.

  1. Lions (43.4% man coverage, 18th in EPA allowed per dropback)
  2. Browns (42.1%, 5th)
  3. Broncos (39.3%, 10th)
  4. Giants (37.8%, 24th)
  5. Jets (35.5%, 30th)
  6. Ravens (34.8%, 17th)
  7. Steelers (32.1%, 13th)
  8. Eagles (31.3%, 7th)
  9. Chiefs (30.9%, 16th)
  10. Commanders (30.3%, 32nd)
  11. Colts (30.2%, 14th)

It doesn't take an alleged fantasy expert to figure out WRs from the Lions, Eagles and 49ers are set up well against the Steelers, Commanders and Colts. Additionally, I'm refraining from overly trusting Bills WRs (outside of Khalil Shakir, kind of) in their tough matchup against the Browns. Still, there are five actionable situations to perhaps sink our teeth into:

  • Steelers RB Kenneth Gainwell vs. Lions: It's rare to see an RB pop up here, but hey, more fuel on the Gainwell fire from earlier! The pass-catching maestro has earned a whopping 18% of the Steelers' target share against man coverage–more than DK Metcalf (15%)!
  • Jaguars WR Jakobi Meyers vs. Broncos: Certainly not an easy matchup, but Meyers has a team-high 25% target share vs. man coverage, has worked as the WR12 in PPR points per game (14.9) since Week 11, and plays enough in the slot to most likely avoid Pat Surtain (averages 5.5 snaps per game in the slot) for chunks of the afternoon.
  • Vikings WR Justin Jefferson vs. Giants: ANOTHER tasty matchup for Jettas, who owns team-high marks in target share vs. man (34%) and zone (34%) alike. Of course, Jalen f*cking Nailor has more PPR points than Jefferson since J.J. McCarthy returned under center in Week 9, so this is hardly a lock. Still, Jefferson did drop a TD and had a score nullified by an illegal formation penalty, so he's close!
  • Saints WR Chris Olave vs. Jets: Has a ridiculous 40% target share against man coverage—the highest mark in the NFL! This Jets secondary is a mix of bad and banged up; Olave is a consensus WR1 in the Fantasy Life ranks this week.
  • Patriots WR Stefon Diggs vs. Ravens: Has awesome numbers against man coverage against the board; the problem is confusing weekly route rates. Overall, Diggs topped out at an elite 89% route rate in Week 11, but has since posted mediocre 54%, 61% and 57% marks. He's had 26 or fewer scoreless yards in these contests and isn't a recommended start if you can help it, despite these good underlying numbers.

6. Week 15 RB Usage Report: F*ck the Injury Gods

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Workhorse alert: 10 teams featured one single RB on at least 70% of their offense's snaps in Week 15: Bijan Robinson (89%), Jonathan Taylor (84%), Christian McCaffrey (84%), De'Von Achane (83%), Jahmyr Gibbs (81%), Michael Carter (79%), Tyrone Tracy (76%), Ashton Jeanty (71%) and James Cook (70%). All are auto-starts except Carter (would make sense if Emari Demercado is more involved in his second game back) and Jeanty (the Raiders are implied to score 11.75 points against the Texans). Even then, I typically let a workhorse RB's volume win as the tiebreaker over WR3 types in close start/sit decisions.

Still a bell-cow, wouldn't sweat it: RBs who didn't quite rack up a near every-down role in terms of snaps, but continued to dominate their backfield's overall touches and should continue to be relied on in fantasy lineups of pretty much all shapes and sizes include:

Muddled committees are so lame, and the Panthers, Chiefs, Chargers, Vikings, Steelers, Seahawks and Titans largely continue to insist on deploying just that. Rico Dowdle (RB23) and Kenneth Gainwell (RB24) are the only involved backs who crack my top 24; otherwise, Tony Pollard (RB25) and Aaron Jones (RB28) are the only RBs who should be relied on with any sort of high-end confidence as long as these gross rotations persist.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news: There are a handful of injury situations that bear watching throughout the rest of the week:

  • Broncos RB RJ Harvey (rib): Was deemed questionable to return late in the Broncos' win over the Packers. Will be his usual upside RB2 self if active, while Jaleel McLaughlin would get the RB3-worthy nod ahead of Tyler Badie if not.
  • Texans RB Woody Marks (ankle), Nick Chubb (rib): It will be Jawhar Jordan as THE running back, y'all, in a great matchup if both are out, although Marks should be good to go based on head coach DeMeco Ryans saying Marks could have come back in the game.
  • Saints RB Devin Neal (hamstring), Alvin Kamara (knee): Either is in the volume-based low-end RB2 conversation if active with the other sidelined. Both Evan Hull and Audric Estime would be gross borderline RB3s if both Neal and Kamara are sidelined.
  • Cardinals RB Bam Knight (ankle): Not expected to play. Michael Carter is a solid upside RB3 play, but keep an eye on Emari Demercado's (ankle) practice participation—full participation could signal a closer split in Week 16 than what we saw last Sunday.
  • Jaguars RB Bhayshul Tuten (finger): Expected to miss the remainder of the regular season, cementing Travis Etienne as an upside RB1 the rest of the way.
  • Commanders RB Chris Rodriguez (groin): Absence would push Bill Croskey-Merritt into the upside RB3 conversation against an Eagles run defense that has been had when Jalen Carter (shoulders) has been sidelined.

7. The DST Corner: Chiefs and Saints headline the best streamer options

Unfortunately, the Buccaneers DST was shredded by old man Kirk Cousins without the services of Drake London (knee) last Thursday night. My confidence level in them rebounding against the Panthers is quite low, especially with starting CB Zyon McCollum (hip, IR) and S Tykee Smith (stinger) out of the picture.

This puts DST-needy squads in a bit of a pickle with many of the defenses in great matchups either already rostered (Texans, Bills, Lions, 49ers) or simply not good at football (Giants, Bengals, Cardinals).

Good news: There are two options fairly widely available that could come to the rescue.

  • Chiefs DST (30.3% rostered on ESPN): Gets a Titans offense that has been the fifth-most fantasy-friendly group for opposing DSTs this season. While it's not ideal to back a squad fresh off being eliminated from playoff contention, it'd make a lot of sense if Steve Spagnuolo's ever-complicated pressure schemes cause problems for Cam Ward.
  • Saints DST (9.9%): Back-to-back great matchups with the Jets and Titans to close out the season. While also eliminated, New Orleans has won back-to-back games and has more of a feisty underdog/"we're building for next year" vibe. This play will be even stronger if "Tom" Brady Cook is again under center for the Jets.

8. The Mismatch Manifesto: Biggest matchup advantages of the week

Every week, I put together my Mismatch Manifesto, which combines things like explosive plays, pressure, yards before contact, pass yards per dropback and EPA to give us one-way mismatch charts instead of always going "Offense ranks x, defense ranks y" when discussing good or bad matchups.

Each individual chart is linked below with my biggest takeaway:

Players Mentioned in this Article

  1. De'Von Achane
    De'VonAchaneQ
    RBMIAMIA
    PPG
    16.68
  2. Aaron Jones
    AaronJonesQ
    RBMINMIN
    PPG
    7.00
  3. Kenneth Gainwell
    KennethGainwell
    RBPITPIT
    PPG
    9.65
  4. TreVeyon Henderson
    TreVeyonHenderson
    RBNENE
    PPG
    8.93
    Proj
    7.35