It’s the most wonderful time of the year! At least for those who are still alive in the fantasy football playoffs. It’s a fickle time of the NFL season, as some teams jockey for playoff position, while others try not to look too obvious while tanking for better draft picks. Things we would have never imagined back in August are coming to fruition, and we need to do our best to stay on top of the ever-changing NFL landscape down the home stretch.
Before diving in, let me remind you that this article is meant to help everyone who loves fantasy football! Congratulations if you are still chasing that #FootClan Title. I hope the information here can help lead you to it (except for Chad, who I will be facing in the title game if I can pull off a semifinal victory on Monday night). You are also in the right place if you’ve been eliminated, as keeping up with the end of the season will give you an advantage over those who check out early.
With that being said, here is what we learned in Week 16 of the NFL season.
Note: All fantasy finishes are before the Monday night game between the Colts and 49ers.
Injuries Suck
As Matthew Betz will surely detail in his weekly article, injuries can quickly derail a fantasy football roster, especially in the fantasy playoffs. Managers already lost Patrick Mahomes, the QB2 at the time, in the opening round. If you desperately replaced him with Gardner Minshew, you quickly lost him to a torn ACL. We lost Lamar Jackson and Jordan Love early in their games. If you gambled with J.J. McCarthy, things were looking good until he exited early with a hand injury. At RB, you may have been convinced to roll with Josh Jacobs when he was cleared to play Saturday night. That did not end well.
https://t.co/464psKfUaz pic.twitter.com/zyvzKLNNk8
— Jason Moore (@JasonMoore) December 21, 2025
On Sunday, promising rookies Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson exited early. At least the top WRs and TEs were relatively healthy…but you never know what championship week will bring.
Puka Nacua is Him
Puka has dealt with his fair share of injuries over his young career, but he is balling out when it matters most. Over the last three weeks, he’s averaged 32 fantasy points/game and finished as WR1, WR2, and WR1. He is now the overall WR2 on the season, just one point behind Jaxon Smith-Njigba, despite missing a game and a half to a hamstring injury.
We Can’t Call Cam Ward a Bust Yet
Things were looking bleak for the NFL’s number one overall draft pick to start the season. Over his first nine weeks, Ward threw just five TD passes compared to six INTs, while getting sacked 38 times. Since his Week 10 bye, he’s thrown eight TDs and just one INT while being sacked 13 times. He’s only been a QB1 for fantasy football once over that stretch, but he could have a bright future if Tennessee finds the right coach and supporting cast to surround him.
The Saints May Have Their QB of the Future
There were plenty of jokes to be made when the Saints drafted 26-year-old Tyler Shough in the second round of the NFL Draft, only to roll out Spencer Rattler as their starting QB for the first eight weeks of the season. The Saints might have the last laugh, as Shough has led New Orleans to a 4-3 record as a starter, including three straight wins and victories over division rivals Carolina (twice) and Tampa Bay. He has finished as a top-12 fantasy QB three times over that span, and may be doing enough to secure his spot as the team’s starting QB heading into 2026.
It Turns Out, Jacoby Brissett is NOT Unstoppable
This lesson is quite the opposite of what I wrote in last week’s version of this article. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and Atlanta, of all teams, finally held Brissett outside of the top-12 at the position for a week. It was a fun ride for fantasy managers who rode Brissett’s hot streak, and if they managed to survive his QB21 performance in the semifinals, there is a chance for him to redeem himself against Cincinnati in Week 17. In case you are wondering, Brissett is still under contract with the Cardinals for 2026, so their approach to QB this offseason will be a major story to follow.
Kyle Pitts is Carrying Fantasy Teams Through the Playoffs
Pitts didn’t have another historical performance in Week 16, but he followed up his Week 15 explosion with a strong 15.2 point performance, good enough to be the TE2 on the week. He’s now been a top-seven TE in four consecutive weeks and is the overall TE2 on the season. As an impending free agent, he will be another player to track this offseason after finally showing the ceiling many expected when he was the highest TE ever drafted as the number four overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Trevor Lawrence: League Winner (If You Played Him)
Speaking of the 2021 NFL Draft, the number one overall pick from that class has also morphed into a league winner recently. Lawrence has accounted for ten total TDs over the last two weeks, averaging 37.7 fantasy points in those games. Of course, he’s only carrying teams if they made it to the playoffs and started him. T-Law was a top-12 fantasy QB just once over the first seven weeks of the season, but has done it six times since his Week 8 bye. His second-half surge has propelled him to QB5 on the season.
Maybe Ashton Jeanty is as Good as Advertised.
Watching players explode on your eliminated teams is one of the worst parts of fantasy football. There are likely many managers experiencing this pain as Jeanty went off for 31.3 points and the RB1 performance of the week against, of all teams, defensive powerhouse Houston. Even if you squeaked into the semifinals with him, he was nearly impossible to trust against Houston after finishing outside of the top-30 at the position in three consecutive weeks. Still, Jeanty showcased his elite talent in Week 16 and reminded us that he can be a matchup winner on any given week. With Jeanty and Brock Bowers, who also found the end zone against Houston this week, the Raiders have two young, elite positional talents. Hopefully, they can improve the rest of the team for next season, so we can see just how high their ceilings really are for fantasy football.
The NFL can be Simultaneously the Best and the Worst
As a Packers fan, I am going to use this space to vent a little bit. The Saturday night game was a roller coaster of emotions. Josh Jacobs, surprisingly, was active for the game. He then went on to score just 3.8 fantasy points on limited work. Then Jordan Love gets knocked out of the game early, only to see Malik Willis competently lead the team to a comfortable lead, which included this beauty to Romeo Doubs.
MALIK WILLIS DIME FOR 6
GBvsCHI on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/QXgtjLv5cT
— NFL (@NFL) December 21, 2025
Then it all came crashing down as the Bears rallied, Doubs botched an onside kick recovery, and my former favorite WR, DJ Moore, hit the knockout blow with an unbelievable walk-off bomb TD in overtime. What a game…and what a gut punch.
I’m sure Rams fans had similar feelings on Thursday night as Seattle roared back against them. Bengals and Patriots fans had their hearts ripped out by Josh Allen in consecutive weeks. I could list dozens of other examples from recent history, but the point is that, as awful as it can feel when things go wrong, every NFL game has the potential to be even more awesome when things go right. And that’s why we keep coming back.
There are No Guarantees in Fantasy Football, Especially in the Playoffs
OK, that last lesson wasn’t really fantasy-related, so we will end the article with this. You can spend hours dedicated to researching trends, matchups, and odds, but this game is, at the highest level, unpredictable. In Week 16, we saw the season’s QB1 (Josh Allen), WR4 (Amon-Ra St. Brown), and TE1 (Trey McBride) all flop.
This doesn’t only apply to the studs. Surely Audric Estime is in for a big workload against the hapless Jets and makes for a great spot starter, right? Enter Taysom Hill, who led the Saints with 12 rushing attempts this week. Michael Carter was OK against Houston; he will do just fine against Atlanta, right? His 65 rushing yards could’ve been worse, but his RB41 finish left a lot to be desired.
This isn’t to say that investing time into that research is a waste. In fact, that’s the best way to achieve sustained success from season to season. However, on a one-week sample size, there is chaos resulting from variance. If you were on the wrong side of it this week, just remember, there is only one champion every season. If you’ve been on the right side of it, go get that #FootClan Title in Week 17!
from Fantasy Footballers Podcast https://ift.tt/Wrmc3G4
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