The first week of the fantasy football playoffs is mostly done, with just the Dolphins and the Steelers remaining. If you’re reading this, then congratulations! Your season is still alive. But there were some significant landscape alterations this weekend. Injuries to guys like Davante Adams and RJ Harvey are too soon to assess (though Adams plays on Thursday and is a long shot to make it back by then), we do have some week fifteen developments that we have to assess how much we can trust them in the last two weeks of the fantasy football season.
Is Trevor Lawrence a League-Winner?
Trevor Lawrence finished week fifteen with the highest score on the week in non-full PPR leagues, on a week where Kyle Pitts went thermonuclear for 116 yards and three touchdowns. Lawrence finished with 44.3 fantasy points, on 330 pass yards, five passing touchdowns, and 51 rushing yards and a rushing score. If you started Trevor Lawrence, then you undoubtedly understand why I am asking this question, as he is only about 66% rostered and not universally started.
Unfortunately, this won’t be a “dance with who brought you” situation for the next round of the playoffs, or the fantasy football finals, should you get there. Lawrence took on the Jets this week, who are a neutral matchup in fantasy points allowed to opposing quarterbacks. Notably, they shut down the three quarterbacks ahead of Lawrence, but they were hobbled: Lamar Jackson, Kirk Cousins, and Tua Tagovailoa. So, that has more to do with those quarterbacks than the Jets. Things get much more difficult for him going forward.
Next week, he gets the Denver Broncos. The Broncos just put Jordan Love in hell, picking him off twice as he threw for just 276 yards and one touchdown. Including that effort, only one quarterback since week six topped 14 fantasy points without the game going into overtime, and none since Jaxson Dart in week seven. That makes it extremely difficult to trust Lawrence for the fantasy football semifinals.
But if you withstand the Denver Broncos’ onslaught, things get better for Lawrence in the finals. The Jaguars take on the Colts, who Lawrence just put up 19.36 fantasy points against in week fourteen. They’re a slightly unfavorable matchup, but one that Lawrence can exploit.
So, Trevor Lawrence is not a league winner, and you can’t start him in your fantasy football semifinals. He gets a neutral matchup in week seventeen, so it’s tough to feel great about starting him then, either. Ultimately, he’s a great 2QB league second quarterback and a deep league streamer for the last couple of weeks of the season.
Just What Happened With Isaiah Likely?
This is more of a post-mortem on the incredibly favorable Isaiah Likely play that went awry this week. The Ravens boatraced the Bengals, winning 24-0 as they put “BTA,” as the kids say (though not the largest shutout margin of victory today, notably). Isaiah Likely and Mark Andrews finished with a combined three targets for two catches and 18 yards. This comes on the heels of the Bengals reaching historic heights in fantasy points allowed to tight ends. It was all set up for the Bengals to continue to cede points to the tight end, but they didn’t.
So, what happened? Well, the Ravens were too good at defeating the Bengals. They hardly touched the ball and just ripped off massive runs when they had it. If you exclude Snoop Huntley’s three kneel-downs, the Ravens averaged 9.1 yards per carry, which is twice the league average rate. It was an astounding masterclass in destroying a team on the ground. As such, they did not need to pass much (just twelve pass attempts), and they hardly ran any plays (only 40 plays), while possessing the ball for just 20:41 in the game. It was a smothering effort from the running game, and the Bengals didn’t even feign to put up a fight. So, the Ravens didn’t even bother to throw the football, and Mark Andrews & Isaiah Likely suffered for it.
Luckily for folks who made it to the next round despite duds from Isaiah Likely and/or Mark Andrews, the New England Patriots come to town next week. They gave up two touchdowns to Dawson Knox this week, and a combined 6/71 to Knox and Dalton Kincaid. Better days are ahead for these tight ends, so we have to shake off the disappointment and gargle some mouthwash to get the bad taste out of our mouths.
What Do We Do with the Chiefs Without Patrick Mahomes?
Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL and will miss the remainder of the 2025 NFL season. He leaves a team in his wake that was Patrick Mahomes. It tracks, after all, as he is one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play. So, we have to recalculate our positions on players with Gardner Minshew at the helm.
First, I don’t think you should make any movement on Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice. They are core components of this offense, and Minshew targeted Kelce on three of his four passes once he entered the game. His fourth was intended for Rashee Rice. So you can downgrade them, but ultimately you’re still starting both against the Titans next week.
There are three other players on the Chiefs rostered in more than 50% of leagues: Xavier Worthy, Kareem Hunt, and Isaiah Pacheco. You can drop all of them. Worthy has zero value in a dink-and-dunk offense and had just two double-digit games in his last nine weeks. The running backs are also a waste of space, for me. They’re both highly inefficient backs who no longer have the threat of Literally Patrick Mahomes to protect them. With Minshew at the helm, Kareem Hunt becomes a touchdown-only proposition. Think David Montgomery on a far worse offense.
The Titans give a slight reprieve to fantasy managers next week, as even Gardner Minshew can beat up on that offense. But you have to downgrade everyone, and that, unfortunately, moves a few guys off your roster entirely.
