Last week, Laghezza was cooking. That Hurts pull was phenomenal, and TeSlaa scored double digits for the second consecutive week. It was not so great for your boy. Tyrod went down with an injury early, Tuten and Egbuka were no-shows, Neal scored 15 points, Ayomanor, Dike, Tucker and White all at least showed up and Dike scored over 13 points. The only thing I got right was Tua, but as Laghezza has said previously, it happens sometimes, but we power on into the fantasy playoffs.

Now that we have made it through the bye weeks, we need to start looking at who is still playing for something they can control. It definitely should inform your start/sit decisions. Let’s go get these championships ... or these consolation bracket wins!

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Start These Players In Week 15

Mike Gesicki, TE, CIN

LAGHEZZA: It’s zero-hour, the season is balancing on a razor’s edge, and we’re targeting … a backup tight end on a four-win team? I guess fantasy playoffs make strange bedfellows.

First things first, hitching your wagon to Bengals’ games in general’s been a skeleton key down the stretch—continually paying off far more than your run-of-the-mill streaming options. For reference, Cincinnati’s 59-point average game total since Joe Flacco arrived Week 7 is a full touchdown higher than the nearest team, and over 27 points greater than the lowest! Almost four touchdowns a game!?! 

Put alpha Joe Burrow as the counterbalance to a historically bad defense and you get fireworks, end of story. To the Mike Gesicki play itself, sadly, the WR1 of WR2s, Tee Higgins, suffered multiple blows to the head Sunday. Despite what appeared to be visible lasting impacts to even a mouth-breathing layperson like myself, Higgins cleared protocol more than once. Don’t ask me how …

Unsurprisingly, undeniable symptoms forced him back into protocol after a post-game medical visit. Prayers up for Higgins.

Oh yeah, football. Gesicki was already Cincinnati's clear third option since returning from injury Week 12 on the back of strong underpinning metrics: 25.4% target/route, 2.2 yards/route, 1.0 end zone targets/game. You could argue he bordered on fantasy viable before the latest developments.

Now, even more opportunities open in a prolific offense for Gesicki, who’s also run 10 routes lined up out wide off the IR. Non-zero chance he’s the Bengals’ WR2 Sunday versus the Ravens. Desperation, Gesicki is thy name.

Wan’Dale Robinson, WR, Giants

CLEMONS: Robinson received eight targets in the Giants week one matchup with Washington, and that was with Malik Nabers still on the field, getting 12 targets. Nabers is gone, Wan’Dale is the de facto WR1, and Jaxson Dart will get his first crack at the Commanders.

Washington has one of the worst passing defenses in the NFL. They are ranked 30th in passing yards and 28th in passing touchdowns allowed. Robinson has been the go-to guy this season. He has hit double-digit targets in five games, having only failed to receive seven or more targets three times. In six of the past seven weeks, he has ranged between eight and 14 targets. In that time, he has caught 41 passes. That is monster PPR production. He has produced double-digit numbers in five of those seven weeks. This is a game to tee him up.

Darnell Mooney, WR, ATL (TNF)

LAGHEZZA: Digging deep in the coffers for some true boldness here—I’m sure more than a few people saw the name Darnell Mooney and instantly hit a classic sour face. Who could blame you for the visceral reaction? He’s been brutal, I get it. Start better options if and where possible—some of us somehow dragged the carcass of a fantasy football squad into the second season with massive holes in it.

Mooney’s playing literally every down for Atlanta with minimal success, so the efficiency stats (target/route, yards/route) are firmly in the tank. With that, don’t believe everything you read on social media—it's not all bad for the battery from the dirty dirty. They’re responsible for one of the sweeter deep shot TDs of the season.

A player with Mooney’s high-aDOT archetype will always struggle when interior pressure’s an issue. It disallows longer routes to properly develop, as well as disrupt timing, etc. Bottom line is the floor’s pretty low as we’ve seen.

Consequently, my hope is that it won’t be an issue versus Tampa, which is really falling apart this last month and a half, ranking 30th or worse in sacks, QB hits/game and sack/pressure rate in that timeframe. The result? Tampa’s dead last in both defensive EPA/dropback and passing yards per game over a six-week span, including a dozen WR receptions per contest. Time to strike.

Make sure to flood my timeline when Mooney beats the TB secondary over the top … or prepare for me to deny this ever happened. I’m good either way …

Isaiah Likely, TE, Ravens

CLEMONS: By now, everybody knows how bad the Bengals are defending opposing tight ends, so it should come as no surprise that a tight end playing Cincy is on the start list. The interesting thing about Likely is that he seems to finally be taking control of the tight end room like we expected him to do this season before his start was delayed by injuries. He seems healthy, and he continues to look like the matchup nightmare we have grown to see him become.

In each of the past two weeks, he has scored 12.5 points. Two weeks ago, against Cincy, it was powered by a 43-yard reception en route to a five-catch, 95-yard performance. Last week against the Steelers he had a more pedestrian four catches for 25 yards, but he added a touchdown. He was also robbed of a touchdown based on the goofiest interpretation of a touchdown catch I have heard. That means he is garnering goal-line and red-zone targets, passes that have gone to Mark Andrews. It is Likely’s time now.

Sit These Players In Week 15 For Fantasy Football

Christian Watson, WR, Packers

CLEMONS: Watson has been on a heater since returning from injury. He has looked every bit the WR1 that this Packers organization went into the draft this season looking to find. Health has always stopped Watson from performing at his best, but he seems healthy now. There has also been another thing that limits his production, and that is very good defense.

Well, they are heading to Denver, and who awaits him? The Boogeyman. He who normally remains nameless, but since I am writing this, shhh, “Patrick Surtain II.” The last time Watson and Surtain met was Week 7 in 2023. On that day, the Broncos beat the Packers in a 19-17 rock fight. Watson finished with three receptions for 27 yards. Since then, one guy has struggled with injuries, and another became the Defensive Player of the Year. We know the resume, the Boogeyman loves a challenge, and now Watson is just that, another head to go on the big game hunter’s wall. This may not be the week for Watson.

Michael Pittman, WR, IND

LAGHEZZA: You open your lineup page, and right next to Michael Pittman’s name, it sits there torturing us—“Overall WR9”. What happened between then and now means little to nothing when losing this weekend means going home. Sorry, but it’s what have you done for me lately SZN …

Not sure what happened in Indianapolis to torpedo the most promising season in ages so dramatically in the blink of an eye, but here we are. Just over a month ago, Indy traded for Sauce Gardner to fortify a secondary poised for a deep playoff run. Fast forward to the present day, and the windows are freezing as if Dementors passed and Colts fans would never be cheerful again.

Daniel Jones left last weekend’s game with an Achilles tear, and with it went most rational hopes for a happy ending in Indianapolis. Yes, the Philip Rivers story’s a feel-good one (nunc coepi), but also not something I’m trying to tie my fantasy future to. 

Color me skeptical against this Seahawks defense anyway—they’re an absolute wagon once the wheels start rolling. Easily a top-three defense by the macros (17.4 PPG, 4.5 yards/play, 59.0% success rate, 0.12 EPA/play), not a single opposing WR eclipsed 90 receiving yards in seven straight games (of which they won six). 

Look what happened the last time they faced an elite D in Houston: Pittman scored a measly 2.3 fantasy points.

Caleb Williams, QB, Bears

CLEMONS: The Browns probably played their worst defensive game of the season against the Titans in Week 14. This week, they head to Chicago looking to give a better effort than last week. The weather outside will be frightful, and Caleb Williams' performance may follow suit. Last season, from Week 15 on, Williams only posted one top-10 performance, a Week 16 lopsided loss to Detroit. Other than that, he was underwhelming.

When you consider how much the Bears will try to duplicate what the Titans were able to do on the ground, it may not leave much room for Williams to put up a great performance. It's why over the past four weeks, Williams only has one top-10 performance. 10- and 15-point performances are not going to get it done in the fantasy playoffs. It may be time to sit Williams down.

Zay Flowers, WR, BAL

LAGHEZZA: Took me all of eight paragraphs to caveat a contradiction, but there is actually one spot you couldn’t pay me to occupy in the Bengals’ weekly shootouts—opposite DJ Turner. Cincy’s former second-round cornerback out of Michigan is putting on a clinic this season as one of the NFL’s premier corners. And he follows top wideouts around the field.

Check this nugget out. Despite allowing the most yards per play and second-most passing yards per game, no wideout managed more than 81 receiving yards in nearly two months against CIN—with just three total WR scores in that same span. One of those matchups includes BAL, where Turner shadowed Zay Flowers to the tune of a (2-16-0) outing. Woof.

No doubt he’s going to be a popular pick for the perceived matchup on paper, but the fact remains—the rest of the Bengals D remains so atrocious, there’s no need to look Tunrner’s way. Let him remove the player of his choice (in this case, Flowers), while the offense can focus its attention literally anywhere else to succeed.

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