You made it past week one, vanquishing your worthy foe. Your reward? An even more difficult foe! With fifteen weeks in the books, it’s time to cut dead weight for your fantasy football playoff push. To make this list, players must be rostered in at least 50% of Yahoo! leagues.
QUARTERBACKS
Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City (98% rostered)
Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL and will miss the remainder of the 2025 season.
Sam Darnold, Seattle (56% rostered)
Darnold has become wildly unreliable as a fantasy football starter over the last six weeks. In that timeframe, he has three games under five fantasy points, another under 12 fantasy points, and two over 17.6 fantasy points. He has just one top-ten match in his last six weeks, and just five on the season. He gets the Rams on a short week, and at Carolina, who snapped Matthew Stafford in half just a couple of weeks ago. I can’t trust him again for the rest of the fantasy season, so he goes to the waiver wire.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Stefon Diggs, New England (95% rostered)
The Patriots have completely sidelined their star offseason acquisition, as he finished this game playing only 50% of snaps, and he ran a route on only 57% of Drake Maye’s drop-backs, putting him at a distant third behind Mack Hollins and Kayshon Boutte. This marks his third game with a route run rate under 60%, and the third-straight match without breaking a 50% snap share. Over this three-game stretch, he has 11 targets, eight catches, and 72 yards. He’s a part-time player who is more name than game right now.
Xavier Worthy, Kansas City (87% rostered)
I am downgrading the entire Chiefs offense due to the Gardner Minshew of it all, and he was on thin ice before the Patrick Mahomes injury. You can move on from a guy with one double-digit PPR game in his last six games played.
Quentin Johnston, LA Chargers (69% rostered)
QJ was a late scratch this week, but even before that, he has been a marginal play as of late, posting nine targets, five catches, 31 yards, and a score in his last three games. Since Joe Alt had his season-ending injury, QJ has been WR36 or worse in four of five games and is WR81 in fantasy points per game.
Alec Pierce, Indianapolis (59% rostered)
We are downgrading all Colts pass catchers with Philip Rivers at the helm, and this drops Alec Pierce to the nether realm, unfortunately. He didn’t get a target until the fourth quarter: a sixteen-yard catch.
Darnell Mooney, Atlanta (54% rostered)
Mooney played 92% of snaps, Kirk Cousins threw for 393 yards and three touchdowns, and Mooney still didn’t do anything. He finished with just three catches for 35 yards, on six targets, on Thursday Night Football. This marks his third-straight game under ten PPR points, and his eleventh in twelve games.
RUNNING BACKS
Kenneth Walker, Seattle (97% rostered)
I am probably being dramatic, because I am. Just. So. Tired. Of Kenneth Walker. He splits with Zach Charbonnet, and pondering this stupid backfield split is the most annoying thing that I do every week. With the Rams on a short week, you probably don’t want to play Walker, especially since you likely have better running back options if you’re playing in week sixteen. He has nineteen carries and two catches for 47 total yards in the last two weeks, making him completely unviable for fantasy football.
Kareem Hunt & Isiah Pacheco, Kansas City (71% rostered & 63% rostered)
Hunt finished week fifteen with six carries for twelve yards, and it marked his third-straight game in single-digit fantasy points. The Hunt play was always to soak up touchdown value playing in a Patrick Mahomes offense, and it worked (Hunt had six touchdowns in the six weeks before week fifteen). But, no Mahomes makes the touchdown upside non-existent, and puts him below guys like Kyle Monangai and Nick Chubb, among others.
Pacheco is a lot like Hunt, except he doesn’t get touchdowns, as he doesn’t get carries inside the ten. As such, Pacheco has zero games over six PPR points since week seven.
TIGHT ENDS
Mark Andrews, Baltimore (90% rostered)
Andrews now has four-straight weeks under nine PPR points, finishing week fifteen with two catches for eighteen yards. That isn’t an aberration, either, as he has seven catches for 74 yards over the last three weeks combined. Andrews is a part-time tight end for a banged-up quarterback that’s circling the drain, and Isaiah Likely is getting out-targeted. You can move on from Mark “Slamdrews.”
Sam LaPorta, Detroit (59% rostered)
He’s on IR, what are you weirdos doing?
