NFL

Five Key Injury Updates For Week 15

usa5sportsDecember 16, 2024

0 4 minutes read

In today's Fantasy Life newsletter, brought to you by Mike's Hard Lemonade:

If you need proof that we've reached the silly point of the season, look no further than the Carolina Panthers. to be favored to win their first game in almost two years today against the Cowboys.

Luckily, things aren't as stupid on the injury front today. Here are the situations to watch out for until lockdown…

Tony Pollard is heading in the right direction. After not practicing earlier in the week, Pollard will test his ankle during pregame warmups. We classified it as RB2 backend. The matchup is excellent, so I wouldn't hesitate to cast it if it's active.

All signs point to Bucky Irving playing. Similar to Pollard, Irving missed practice this week due to back and hip injuries, but is expected to play today against the Chargers. The team didn't raise another backso I tend to assume he's playing.

Can you trust Ladd McConkey? Ladd is officially listed as questionable with knee and shoulder injuries, but the team is “optimistic that he can go.”

One thing to note about Irving and McConkey is that Chargers/Bucs is a late game. If you're considering starting either, make sure you have a contingency plan (i.e. Rachaad White/Joshua Plummer or another player to turn to at the end of the game if things go wrong).

Breece Hall is back. After missing last week's game with a knee injury, Hall is expected to play after practicing fully on Friday. It's a great matchup against the Jags, but there are definitely concerns about splitting the workload with Braelon Allen And Isaiah Davis. I wish I could help more, but our rankings are torn:

Don't count on David Njoku. He will test things before the matchbut he didn't practice all week due to a hamstring injury. If you're looking for a TE streamer today, I like Brenton strange intervene for the injured Evan Engram. If you're looking for how to attack the Browns in DFS today, read on…

What else is in today's newsletter?

Week 15 DFS Picks: It's Jameis time, baby
Water cooler: Start-Sit Recommendations for Week 15

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Week 15 DFS Picks

by James McCool

The Week 15 Sunday slate is here, and as always, taking advantage of matchups is key to crafting effective daily fantasy strategies.

I look at them all and dig through the data to help you make good DFS picks with my Week 15 NFL DFS picks, including my best stack, value plays, GPP plays, and fades.

OUR NFL DFS Projections And DFS Screener are also excellent resources; if you are interested in college DFS we have screenings here too.

Best NFL DFS Stack for Week 15

Cleveland Browns

With a salary cost of only $16,700, the combination of James Winston/Jerry Jeudy/Elie Moore has one of the highest median projections and ceilings of any QB+2 available. They have the third highest finishing rate at 13.50%, with the only mediocre metric being a team total of 20.50.

To make things even sweeter for this combo, David Njoku And Cedric Tillman are out for the week, which means we get an even leaner target tree for Jeudy and Moore. If you want to get a little extra value, you can go with Winston/Jeudy/Atkins and take advantage of Njoku's absence. This combo only costs $14,400 and has a 4x rate of 13.90% with a median of 45.32.

Week 15 NFL DFS Value Picks

RB: James Conner

James Conner is never a sexy name to click on, but it's worth considering him as a value this week for several reasons.

Although he doesn't play a true bell cow role, he does have a Season Usage Score of 7.6 that improves to 8.1 since Week 8. He routinely runs over 50% of the routes and completes about 61% of the rushing attempts for the team. He also has a high share of attempts inside the five with a rate of 67%. Averaging 15.9 PPR points per game and in a slightly positive matchup against the Patriots, I think you should look to Conner in the midrange for smaller platoons and single-entry contests.

TE: Pat Freiermuth

Over the past two weeks, Freiermuth has averaged 16.3 PPR points per game. 18% of targets and 24% of aerial works. It's important to note that Freiermuth runs very high efficiency routes and 3.54 of his 3.69 targets per game are considered catchable.

Without George Pickenswe saw Russell Wilson defaulting to Freiermuth more frequently last week, and with an opponent expected to push them this week, it will be necessary. Freiermuth isn't elite, but he's better than the price suggests and is a high-value play in all formats.

Best NFL DFS GPP Picks for Week 15

WR: Lamb CeeDee

Over the last five games, Lamb has averaged 14.2 PPR points per game. In Week 14, he had 21.4 PPR points with 25% of targets, 26% of air yards, and an 8.3 usage score.

Now, sure, the Cowboys offense isn't pushing down the field at the moment, as evidenced by an aDOT of just 6.3 over the last five weeks for Lamb, but the targets are still there and his presence in the zone goals is undeniable.

Plus, he gets the Panthers a useful QB matchup, which should help with the effectiveness of the targets Lamb gets. At $7,300, Lamb has a median projection of 19.14 and a projected ownership of just 2.53%, making him a solid GPP play on a big field.

MORE DFS GAMES FROM WEEK 15