There is an old saying in fantasy football that championships are not won at the draft. This encapsulates a lot of things. For instance, your ability to effectively turn over your roster through trades and free agency moves. It also means being able to take each matchup, on a week-by-week basis, and scratch and claw your way to wins. When you are drafting players at the beginning of the year, you are forced to take a high-level view of the player and his situation for the year.
When making a start-sit decision on a weekly basis you have the luxury of being able to evaluate the player on a more micro level. You can evaluate based on the opponent they play and potential game script. While you still want to play great players regardless of matchup, evaluating these factors can give you an advantage over your opponent in head-to-head matchups, as well as give you a leg up when setting fantasy football DFS lineups.
Every week I will be selecting a handful of players to highlight that I believe have matchup or game script factors that either elevate or dampen their fantasy football prospects. I will include a screenshot of my entire matchup grid for every team as a reference. The betting lines information is pulled from an average of major gambling institutions as listed at vegasinsider.com. The matchup rankings are pulled directly from JJ Zachariason’s weekly tweet listing schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed by position. You can find his tweets @LateRoundQB.
There are different ways to calculate adjusted fantasy points allowed. Others likely do it differently than I do. But here's where each team ranks as a matchup for QB/RB/WR/TE/DEF through 14 weeks. pic.twitter.com/qCkG5hztMs
— JJ Zachariason (@LateRoundQB) December 14, 2021
For Week 15 I have selected seven players as seen below. I’m always eager to hear your opinions on my selections, or other players I should have included. Tweet at me at @zhaugenfootball, and my DM’s are always open.
Players with Favorable Matchups
Chase Claypool
Chase Claypool has been a bit of a roller coaster this year in fantasy football. He’s on a 16 game pace of about 1,100 receiving yards and has shown he is still a great big-play threat. The problem has been two-fold. The first is that his perception has been tainted by some immaturity and stupid plays. More importantly, he only has one touchdown on 47 catches.
Claypool is a massive human being who had nine touchdowns on 62 catches as a rookie. Everything about this screams touchdown regression. In Week 15, Claypool faces the Titans and their bottom three defense against wide receivers. This game seems set up for Claypool to hit on a couple of big plays and hopefully a touchdown.
James Robinson
James Robinson had himself in Urban Meyers doghouse, only seeing 15 combined touches over the last two weeks. Meyer’s offense was already affecting Robinson’s fantasy football upside before the volume issues that made him unplayable. But Urban Meyer is finally gone, and I have to imagine the new Jaguars staff will want to ride James Robinson in pursuit of a rare opportunity for a Jaguars win against the Houston Texans.
The Jaguars are favored in this game, and Houston sports a bottom-five rushing defense. All these signs point towards a big running game for the Jaguars, and hopefully James Robinson.
Justin Fields
Justin Fields is still showing some rookie ups and downs. A lot of his struggles are due to atrocious offensive line play and suspect play calling. These are likely factors Fields will have to battle the rest of the year. This has made his fantasy football production is starting to fly under the radar.
The Bears have started to use his legs in the second half of the year. In his last three full games, Fields has finished as the QB10, QB10, and QB5, respectively. Now he gets a top-five matchup against the Minnesota Vikings at home. Yet he is still being ranked most places around QB20. Fields should be started in most fantasy football leagues this week and with confidence.
Players with Unfavorable Matchups
Michael Pittman:
Michael Pittman has stepped clearly into the role of the Colt’s number one wide receiver this year. This has certainly resulted in fantasy relevancy, though it has been a bit inconsistent. Still, the volume is there for him to be an every-week play. But I would be terrified to play him this week in my playoff matchup. The Patriots are one of the top passing defenses in the NFL, and JC Jackson is a breakout shutdown corner. It could be a tough week for Carson Wentz and Michael Pittman to start off your playoffs.
Saquon Barkley
Saquon Barkley finally had a good fantasy football finish last week, totaling 95 yards and a touchdown. Prior to an 18-yard receiving touchdown late in garbage time, he was tracking for another disappointing game; at least volume is promising. The inefficiency, though, is too strong for me to put much faith in Saquon against the Cowboy’s elite run defense. Not to mention, we may still be dealing with a backup quarterback situation in New York. You may not have a choice, but wherever you can reasonably pivot from Saquon this week, I would.
Matthew Stafford
Matthew Stafford is a top-five quarterback in fantasy football right now. He has been consistent as well. So, I am not saying you need to bench Stafford by any means. I am just tempering expectations this week. The Seahawks are the heaviest run funnel defense in the NFL right now, and the Rams are big favorites in the game. Division games can sometimes end up in slugfests, too. This game has the feeling of a run-heavy offense for the Rams which could limit the upside for the red-hot Matthew Stafford.
Leonard Fournette
Leonard Fournette is incredibly involved in this Buccaneers offense and just ran all over a good Bills defense last week; so take this with a grain of salt. But the Buccaneers play the Saints in Week 15. The Saints are one of the heaviest pass funnels in the NFL, and are the worst matchup for fantasy football running backs. Fournette should stay in lineups, but at his increased price I am avoiding Fournette in DFS with the brutal matchup.
