Trending Players You Need To Know Before Week 15 Fantasy Football
Week 15: Players Trending Up & Trending Down
If you’re going to win a fantasy football championship, you have to be in tune with the latest trends. As you know, things change in the NFL so quickly. Roles are expanding for young players this time of year, injuries are creating question marks across the league, etc. Staying on top of which players are trending up and trending down at all times will ensure you make the most informed lineup and roster decisions during the most critical time of the fantasy football season. With that in mind, here are the top trending players ahead of Week 15.
More Trends: Fantasy Notebook: Snaps, Targets, Air Yards, & Routes Data From Week 14
Trending Up
Ezekiel Elliott
Ezekiel Elliott was a full-blown bellcow in the first game without Rhamondre Stevenson. He played 91% of the snaps, led the team with eight targets and a 30.8% target share, and was the only Patriots running back to touch the football. With Stevenson expected to miss more time with his ankle injury, Zeke will be in line for more high-touch outings. The Chiefs present a difficult matchup in Week 15, but after that it’s the Broncos and Bills—both of which have struggled against opposing running backs this season. If Stevenson remains out, Elliott will be a high-volume RB2 for the duration of the fantasy football playoffs.
Zay Flowers
The Ravens needed rookie wide receiver Zay Flowers to step up in the absence of star tight end Mark Andrews. So far, he has done just that. In the two games without Andrews, Flowers has caught 11-of-18 targets and scored three touchdowns. He has led the Ravens in target share (26.7% and 23.3%) in both games and he has run 100% of the routes in each as well. Now Flowers gets a matchup with the Jaguars who have been torched by Jake Browning and Joe Flacco over the last two weeks. Then after a difficult matchup with the 49ers in Week 16, it will be a potential shootout environment with the Dolphins during fantasy football championship week. Flowers will continue to be heavily involved and is approaching must-start territory.
Chase Brown
I was a big Chase Brown fan coming out of Illinois. He was highly productive in college and possessed size, speed, and explosion with a versatile skill set. Now we’re starting to see him get some usage in the Bengals offense. Prior to Week 13, Brown’s highest snap share was 7% back in Week 6. Then in Week 13 he played 15% of the snaps. He doubled that in Week 14, up to 30%. In that game, he ran a route on 29.6% of Jake Browning’s drop-backs and he commanded a 12% target share. Brown took one of his three receptions for a 54-yard touchdown, showing off the big-play threat we loved in his prospect profile. Brown now has 166 yards on 20 touches over the last two weeks. We can expect his role to continue to expand over the next few weeks, making him a must-add in all leagues. At worst, he’s a great handcuff to Joe Mixon.
Ty Chandler
I’ve been saying to stash Ty Chandler on your bench all season long. This may finally be the moment we’ve been waiting for. Starter Alexander Mattison left early in the second half of Week 14 with an ankle injury. The severity is unknown, but it was bad enough to keep Mattison off the field for the remainder of the game. If he is forced to miss time, it will be Ty Chandler asked to handle the majority of the backfield work for the Vikings. After Mattison left the game, Chandler took all but three snaps. The production wasn’t there, but he had 12 rush attempts and he caught all three of his targets.
Chandler is an all-purpose running back with 4.38 speed, enough size (205 lbs) to break some tackles, and the receiving chops to really create a ceiling for himself in fantasy football. It will be fun to see what he can do as the lead guy. It’s probably safe to project him for 15-20 touches if Mattison sits. And keep in mind, the Vikings play on Saturday in Week 15 so that’s one fewer day for Mattison to heal up. If Ty Chandler is still available in your league, pick him up. He can give you weekly RB2 production as long as he’s the starter.
D’Andre Swift
If you roster D’Andre Swift, then you must be thinking I put him in the wrong category here because he’s actually trending down. However, he’s coming off back-to-back brutal matchups with the 49ers and Cowboys. Not only are those two of the tougher defenses to run against in the NFL, but both were blowout losses that kept the Eagles in negative game script for the majority of the game. Looking ahead, though, the Eagles’ schedule opens up just in time for the fantasy football playoffs. They kick it off with the Seahawks in Week 15. Seattle has allowed the fifth-most fantasy points to running backs this season. Then it’s the Giants in Week 16 and the Cardinals in Week 17. They’ve surrendered the eighth and second-most points per game to the position, respectively.
Not only are these extremely favorable matchups for Swift, but they are also games that should put the Eagles back into more positive game scripts which will naturally create more running opportunities. They should also get back to scoring some points, too, which will bring more red zone and goal line touches.
For all the reasons we love Swift for the fantasy playoffs, we need to keep Kenneth Gainwell stashed. While he can bring some flex appeal in a pinch, he’s a league-winner waiting to happen if Swift were to get injured.
Jake Browning
I can’t remember a year that had so many quarterback injuries. The position had been a wasteland. That means there are more fantasy teams in the playoffs that are streaming the quarterback position. The latest to emerge as a quality streaming option is the Bengals’ Jake Browning. Browning has finished as a QB1 in back-to-back weeks with performances of 26.7 and 24.7. He has thrown for 629 yards and three touchdowns over those two games while rushing for two more. Browning has completed more than 75% of his passes in back to back weeks. In fact, he has the highest completion percentage over the first three career starts of any quarterback since 1950 (PlayerProfiler). The schedule gets a bit tougher from here, but Browning has proven to be a usable streaming option and he’s the hot hand at the moment. Why not keep rolling with him while it lasts?
Cooper Kupp
Cooper Kupp is back. After five straight games under 10 fantasy points, Cooper Kupp has scored 41.4 over the last two weeks. And he’s done that against quality defenses in the Browns and Ravens. In Week 14, Kupp went over 100 yards for the first time since Week 6 and he scored his third touchdown of the season. He got right just in time for the fantasy football playoffs and in time for a three-game stretch of matchups against the Commanders, Saints, and Giants. The Saints have been respectable against opposing wide receivers, but the Commanders and Giants have allowed the second and third-most fantasy points per game to the position. We can trust him again moving forward and he is a must-start through the fantasy football playoffs. Cooper Kupp is back.
Rashee Rice
The Chiefs may have a wide receiver problem, but rookie Rashee Rice is not part of that. The team has ramped up his role considerably in recent weeks. He has had a target share over 25% in each of the last three games (29 total targets) and his route participation rate has continued to rise, up to a season-high 82.2% in Week 14. That has resulted in fantasy finishes of WR3, WR22, and WR10 over the last three weeks. In the fantasy football playoffs, Rice will get matchups against the Patriots, Raiders, and Bengals.
Breece Hall
I’ve never been so happy to see Zach Wilson. As weird as it is to say, Wilson is the best quarterback option the Jets have available on the roster right now until Aaron Rodgers returns in 2024. The offense showed some semblance of competence in Week 14 with Wilson back under center. That helped propel Breece Hall to 26.6 fantasy points and an RB2 overall finish. Now, I’m not naive enough to think that this is the Zach Wilson we’re going to get every week, but it’s surely better than the Tim Boyle experience. But what is most encouraging for Hall, though, is the uptick in his usage in the passing game. He has now had a target share over 20% in four-straight games. That is elite usage. He only reached 20% once in the first 10 weeks of the season. While he continues to struggle to get much going on the ground, Hall can be safely used as an RB2 for the fantasy playoffs as long as he continues to get heavy work as a receiver.
Xavier Hutchinson
The Texans receiving corps is disintegrating before our eyes. Two weeks ago we lost Tank Dell for the season with a broken leg. Then, Nico Collins suffered a calf injury in Week 14. He is expected to miss at least one game which means Noah Brown becomes the WR1 in Houston. However, rookie Xavier Hutchinson is an interesting one to watch in deeper leagues. I liked Hutchinson a lot coming out of Iowa State. He had one of the most productive college résumés of any wide receiver in the 2023 class and he had the size and skill set that could translate to the NFL level.
After Collins went down early in Week 14, it was Robert Woods who led the team in routes run (27), but he had just one more route than Brown (26) and four more than Hutchinson (23). Second-year receiver John Metchie was involved but further behind with just 15 routes. If Collins is forced to miss more time, Woods will continue to operate from the slot while Hutchinson is a much more natural one-for-one replacement for a big outside target like Collins than Metchie. So if there’s going to be another wide receiver who emerges as fantasy relevant from this group, I expect it will be Hutchinson. For that reason, he is well worth a speculative add in deep leagues.
Trending Down
Khalil Herbert
Khalil Herbert is dead. Not literally, but in fantasy football he is droppable. It has been a month since he last led the Bears running backs in snaps. That included the Week 12 game when D’Onta Foreman didn’t even play. Herbert was relegated to just a 21% snap share and eight touches in that game while rookie Roschon Johnson played nearly 75% of the snaps. It went down even more (17%) in Week 14 when Foreman was back. That resulted in just 3 carries for 8 yards and no targets or touchdowns. It looks like Herbert is the backup to Foreman at this point while Johnson is the passing game back. That makes him droppable.
Jordan Addison
Jordan Addison got off to such a hot start when Justin Jefferson went down with his hamstring injury. He even had a WR1 overall finish in Week 7. He hasn’t sniffed 100 yards since then and he hasn’t had a top-30 finish since Week 9. Addison’s last three games have resulted in 7.4, 9.9, and 4.7 fantasy points. Week 14 was a new low when he was targeted just three times, catching two for 27 yards. Remember, this has all been without Justin Jefferson other than the early portion of Week 14 before Jefferson was knocked out of the game again. There’s a chance Jefferson is back in Week 15 or Week 16, though, which will make it even more difficult for Addison to produce in this offense. We need Kirk Cousins back so bad.
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