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Week 15 could have been your league's semifinal matchup. It may have been the first half of your two-week championship. It's also possible that Week 15 was the end of a regular season that (unfortunately) utilizes Week 17 games to determine the ultimate fantasy football prize.
Whatever the case, everything is on the line each week now in fantasy. There is no recovering or recouping. There are no "get-em-next-weeks." Each decision is magnified. Were you trying to wait on James Conner for Monday night with a decision to start a lesser player early Sunday? Were you left in the lurch at quarterback after turning to Taysom Hill for the past month?
With swing decisions all over lineups, stud players are the safety nets managers need. Set and forget. Thus, getting dud performances out of stud players now hurts most of all. They were supposed to be the one guys you didn't have to worry about. Here are Week 15's studs turned duds.
Davante Adams, Green Bay Packers
Green Bay doesn't have a ton of weapons. It's why Adams has garnered at least eight targets in every game except one this season. Against Carolina, the scaffolding of his statistical day was still there. He saw 10 targets. He caught seven balls. Both figures led the team yet again. However, Adams averaged just six yards per catch, totaling 42 yards. It was his second-worst output of the season and worst since returning from injury early in the year.
The Packers were up 21-3 at half. The run game was given 27 carries and routinely gashed the Carolina defense. Aaron Rodgers threw for a season-low 143 yards. Everything was shaped around the running game in this one. It's the reason Adams underwhelmed and why there is no reason to worry about him in championship games.
Kenyan Drake, Arizona Cardinals
Since missing Week 9, Drake had averaged 16 PPR points per game the past five weeks. He scored five touchdowns during the span and seemed to finally be returning owners that first-round value. In Week 16, he went the other direction. Drake notched 40 yards and no scores against Philadelphia, while getting out-touched and out-produced by Chase Edmunds. Edmunds, the change-of-pace back, wasn't even winning the competition because of game script. Arizona held a big lead early. On top of that, Edmunds was given more rushing attempts than Drake.
This will continue to be a timeshare moving forward. But one thing is abundantly clear: Drake is no longer the lynchpin back. Before getting injured and missing a game, Drake out-snapped Edmunds every week by a wide margin. Before the injury, the closest the snap count ever got was in Week 5 when Drake was on the field for 67 percent of snaps and Edmunds for 45 percent. Since Drake's Week 10 return, every single game saw a closer mix than that, with Edmunds even garnering more playing time three of those six games.
Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks
After three of four lackluster performances, the Jets game was a bounce back everyone in Seattle needed. The offense had been sputtering for over a month. Wilson himself was struggling. Against the Jets, he didn't throw it a ton, but the offense got back on track. Unfortunately, that didn't carry over in any meaningful way to Week 15 against Washington. Wilson threw for a season-low 121 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. 52 rushing yards saved him from one of the worst quarterback performances of the year for a top five player at the position. And yes, he still is a top-five QB despite all these struggles, which speaks to how insanely good he was playing early in the year.
That time is gone, thanks to injures around him on offense, an inability to find production if DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett get bracketed on the outside, and a general stiffening of the slate of opposing defenses. Week 16 brings a rematch with Los Angeles: the site of the beginning of the collapse for Wilson's statistical season. The Rams are also the very best defense in the NFL in some regards. They are first in yards-per-play allowed and third in scoring defense.
DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Chris Carson, Seattle Seahawks
Last week, we said how Metcalf and Lockett have emerged as the best WR duo in the NFL, a clear tier ahead of the guys in Minnesota or anyone else. Well, Washington managed to shut them both down on the same day. The first time Metcalf had been slowed, Lockett produced his best game of the season. The second time, Lockett also had trouble. It was the only time until now both had a poor game the same week. That came against the Rams, Seattle's next opponent.
Carson has played in 10 games this season. In the first nine, he scored double-digit PPR points eight times, falling short just once. He hasn't reached even 81 rushing yards in any game this season, but the balance between running and receiving has supported his being a must-start when healthy. But Week 15 was a dud. He saw 17 touches but only turned that into 69 yards and failed to reach the end zone.
Amari Cooper, Dallas Cowboys
With how bad Dallas has been, Cooper is quietly the 13th-ranked wide receiver for the season. When he's bad, though, he's really bad. Cooper has only three games this year where he didn't put up a good showing. Some receivers, like the pair in Seattle, at least manage a small chunk of yards when things aren't going their way. Not Cooper. Those three games saw him collect 29 yards combined! (38 receiving yards and -9 rushing yards.) This latest was a 0.3 fantasy point output in non-PPR.
Keenan Allen, Los Angeles Chargers
After being on the doubtful side of questionable all week, Allen was active and played. It seems obvious he wasn't 100 percent though. Allen offered fantasy owners the worst situation: he was hurt but not hurt enough to sit.
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