Bijan Robinson is coming off a rough game for the Falcons, but fantasy managers can’t look past a great Week 16 matchup. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
Last week was so much fun playing Red Light, Green Light, we’re running it back. Pun definitely intended.
With it being the playoffs, fantasy managers are surely spending way more time on their roster decisions than in the regular season. Like, bordering on obsessive. That last flex position gets over-scrutinized beyond belief. Quarterback streamer decisions use up so much time and brain power that it sometimes becomes a coin flip as it gets closer to game time. Heads, Gardner Minshew. Tails, Nick Mullens.
Looking back at what came of the running back landscape during Week 15, things look orderly, with Christian McCaffrey at the top of the heap with 39.20 points. All seems right in the world there. Then things get dicey with James Cook in second place during a week when Josh Allen threw the ball just 15 times. The last time a Bills running back put up a No. 2 RB performance feels like the Thurman Thomas days. Party crashers to Week 15’s top 10 included Ty Chandler, Devin Singletary and Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Kudos to you if you started them in anything but a desperation play.
Let’s take a look ahead to these all-important games in Week 16. Just like last week, players who are must-starts are in the Green Light section, while players in the Red Light section might be better off riding benches because of the matchup. In some cases, however, it will be hard to sit certain players. But we warned you.
Green LightBijan Robinson vs. IND
Let’s get this one out of the way right off the bat. Yes, it’s fully understood what happened last week — one fumble, eight touches for 14 yards — and how fantasy managers as a collective are not sending Arthur Smith holiday cards this year. Andy Behrens shared the pain with the fantasy community. Time to focus on what’s ahead, and that’s a juicy matchup at home against a Colts defense that has allowed the eighth-most rushing yards and is tied for second with 14 rushing touchdowns allowed to running backs. They’re also fifth in receiving yards allowed to the position.
Taking a look beyond last week, Robinson piled up 19, 21 and 15 touches in his previous three games; that’s 18.3 per game. The fumble-sit from last week needs to be treated as an outlier game; instead, look at how Robinson finished with no fewer than 79 total yards in the games that immediately preceded it. The snap share of 71.8% was very good, and the target share of 19.3% was also solid. If someone were to tell me that Robinson would get touches numbering in the high teens in a game environment that’s indoors, with a 44.5-point over/under, I’d take it without question because I know the results would be there.