Week 16 Fantasy Football Sneaky Starts & Sleepers

Dec 20, 2023

Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWO

All but the luckiest fantasy owners at some point need to find the proverbial diamond in the rough—a waiver wire or bench player capable of putting up some points in a pinch. This weekly feature is dedicated to that part of fantasy football. It's not pretty, but it's part of the game.

Our signature strength-of-schedule metric, adjusted fantasy points allowed (aFPA) will continue to be updated throughout the fantasy playoffs. Unlike SOS tools at other sites, we can adjust a defense’s fantasy points allowed by its schedule bias, so it provides a better “apples-to-apples” comparison. I’ll put the defense’s aFPA rank in parentheses below. The higher the number, the better the matchup.

Last week’s Sneaky Starts included Jake Browning (QB8), Matthew Stafford (QB10), Nick Mullens (QB14), Ty Chandler (RB4), Clyde Edwards-Helaire (RB9), Zamir White (RB12), Chuba Hubbard (RB18), Keaton Mitchell (RB20), Diontae Johnson (WR18), Jayden Reed (WR19), Demarcus Robinson (WR23), Jaxon Smith-Njigba (WR24), Hunter Henry (TE3), Isaiah Likely (TE4), and Tucker Kraft (TE6). Not bad if I do say so myself.

Let’s see who might surprise this week.

Quarterbacks

Baker Mayfield, Buccaneers (vs. JAX, 26)

Baker Mayfield has had a solid fantasy season. He’s the QB15 through Week 15 and has posted back-to-back games of 20+ points. Since Week 12, the pass-funnel Jaguars have yielded an average of 285/1.75 (or 23.9 fantasy points per game) to enemy quarterbacks.