The Cut List - Who to Drop for Fantasy Football Week 17

Welcome to Championship Week to those who have made it. It's been a long, grueling season, but you made it. Congratulations! There is just one more victory that stands between you and your ultimate goal. You'll be forever cemented as a champion with just one more win.

The rules are pretty simple when it comes to who to cut the final week of the season. You can cut anyone you know you're not starting this week and who will not improve your opponent. The latter part of that rule is the most important. We can quickly identify our starting lineup, but we want to make sure whoever we're cutting is not going to make our task more difficult.

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Easy Cuts

C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans – 77.1% Rostered

Stroud has averaged 13.7 PPG over his last five games since Nico Collins returned to the lineup. He has not scored 17 points in any of those contests. That stretch includes contests against Dallas and Jacksonville, two favorable matchups for quarterbacks. He has just one game with more than 250 yards during the last five games and just one with zero turnovers.

He has another great matchup in Week 17 against Baltimore, but there's no way fantasy managers can trust him. He hasn't displayed any ceiling this season, scoring over 19 on just one occasion. That was back in Week 4, at home against Jacksonville. His floor hasn't been nearly as comforting for someone without a ceiling. He's scored below 13 points seven times.

The Texans' offense will also be without wide receiver Tank Dell for the rest of the season. Ouch.

Russell Wilson, Pittsburgh Steelers – 47.7% Rostered

Wilson, like Stroud, cannot be trusted. Since returning to the lineup in Week 7, Wilson has five games with less than 15.5 points. That includes two games where he didn't even muster nine points. The Steelers offense is slow. It's methodical. It has low passing volume.

Wilson has just three games with more than 30 pass attempts. He has five games with less than 220 yards, which includes three games where he didn't even surpass 200.

They have a Week 17 date against the Chiefs, but their offense isn't high-powered either. While we can always count on Patrick Mahomes to come through in the clutch, Kanas City has been more about ball control, and they've won that way. Fantasy managers should expect another lower-scoring affair.

Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks – 44.7% Rostered

Smith had a great game this past weekend against Minnesota, throwing for three touchdowns, but he's still a cut this week. They'll go on the road to face the Chicago Bears. The weather is likely to be cold, which tends to lower scoring.

The Bears' offense is not going to push Seattle. Smith has just three games with more than one passing touchdown. That's a problem because Chicago has given up the fourth-fewest passing touchdowns.

This game will have a low-implied point total. Since the team's Week 10 bye, Smith has just one game with more than 16 points. The Bears have been a tough matchup all year for quarterbacks.

Alvin Kamara, New Orleans Saints - 99.6% Rostered

He was inactive last week, and reports indicated his injury was more significant than they initially thought. With the Saints eliminated from playoff contention, there's no way fantasy managers can trust Kamara in a Championship matchup. He'll likely be inactive in Week 17, but even if he plays, he will likely be on a snap count and sharing touches with Kendre Miller.

Dalton Kincaid, Buffalo Bills - 78.9% Rostered

Kincaid doesn't have a single game with more than 12.0 half-PPR points this season. He has just two games where he's scored double-digits. This past weekend, Dawson Knox out-snapped him 33-to-20. Knox also ran more routes than Kincaid, 20-to-14. This tight end committee approach significantly lowers his ceiling and makes his floor very low.

Josh Allen is spreading the ball around to everyone. There isn't a No. 1 target in this Buffalo offense. The closest we have is Khalil Shakir; after him, everything is up for grabs. With the snap allotment last week, starting Kincaid this week fits the definition of playing with fire.

Others to Cut:

• Gus Edwards, Los Angeles Chargers - 52.4% Rostered
• Tyler Allgeier, Atlanta Falcons - 38.2% Rostered
• Amari Cooper, Buffalo Bills - 76.6% Rostered
• Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons - 77.1% Rostered

Tough Cuts

Isiah Pacheco, Kansas City Chiefs - 92.3% Rostered

Pacheco took a backseat to Kareem Hunt this past weekend, making it almost impossible to start Pacheco this week. Hunt out-snapped Pacheco (32-to-26), ran more routes than Pacheco (18-to-13), had more targets than Pacheco (3-to-2), and had more carries than Pacheco (11-to-9). Making matters even worse was that Hunt found the end zone.

The Chiefs have a tough matchup in Week 17 against the Steelers. They've been stingy with running backs this season. With the impending timeshare and Hunt having outplayed Pacheco this past weekend, starting Pacheco will not be for the faint of heart.

DeAndre Hopkins, Kanas City Chiefs - 83.9% Rostered

Hopkins has been with Kansas City for nine games. He's scored more than 12.0 half-PPR points once. He's failed 8.0 half-PPR points in five of those games. The floor is dangerously low, and the ceiling isn't nearly as high as you'd like when going into a Championship matchup. This past weekend, Marquise Brown returned to the lineup and immediately out-targeted Hopkins. He doubled Hopkins up in targets (8-to-4).

With a tough matchup in Week 17, one where Hopkins might draw Joey Porter Jr., fantasy managers shouldn't want anything to do with Hopkins in their starting lineup. If he were to make his way to your opponent's starting lineup, you'd probably be happy to see it.

Jerry Jeudy, Cleveland Browns - 86.9% Rostered

It's wild we're talking about him as a potential cut when he was a league-winner just a few weeks ago, but the quarterback change is significant. Dorian Thompson-Robinson targeted Jeudy three times, and he finished with two catches in 20 yards. And that was against the Bengals' defense.

In Week 17, there's a good chance that Jeudy will see a decent amount of Jalen Ramsey, who has shadowed the other team's No. 1 receiver at times this year. For Cleveland, that's Jeudy. DTR cannot throw downfield, and it showed in the box score last week. He threw the ball 34 times and finished with 158 yards, zero touchdowns, and two interceptions.

The Parameters

There are a few different categories here. Anyone listed under the “Insert Position to Cut for Insert Week” can be safely cut. Seems pretty self-explanatory, correct? No surprise there. We'll focus on players with rostered percentages higher than 40% to keep this a little more straightforward. Otherwise, we could name many players for every position every week.

The following two categories are “Uh-Oh…” and “On the Hot Seat.” If a player is listed under “Uh-Oh…” that doesn’t mean they’re a cut… yet. It just means their value is falling. That could be due to several reasons. Maybe it’s due to repeated inefficiency. Perhaps it’s due to a change in role and utilization. Whatever the reason, these players are not as valuable today as they were before last week’s games.

The other category is “On the Hot Seat.” This one is also pretty self-explanatory. These players do not need to be cut, although if you’re on the hot seat, there’s certainly an argument to be made that they could be cut if you’re in a tough roster predicament.

These players should be given one final shot to make your roster. Especially early in the season, we don’t want to overreact to a change in utilization or a bad week or two, but we also don’t want to ignore it. Players in this section are a bad week away from being on the cut list.

One of the final categories we'll sometimes touch on is "Hold On." These players may have had some bad weeks, but their utilization is good, indicating better days are ahead. Hold onto them. On occasion, we’ll also identify sell-high and sell-low players. A sell-high player is one whose production has spiked, but maybe their role creates questions about whether the production is sustainable.

These players have increased their value recently, so it makes sense to see if you can trade them at peak value. Players who are sell-lows are often players with a lot of name value. These players are best explained as “get some value for them while you still can before their value falls to nothing.”

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