The Dallas Cowboys will face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 16. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Cowboys skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 16 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Cooper Rush, QB
Cooper Rush has thrown for multiple touchdowns in three of his past four games. That’s a start, but without much in the way of yardage (under 215 in three straight), asking him to churn out top-15 numbers, even if playing catch-up, is too optimistic.
Rush has been doing the two things we need from him — hand the ball to Rico Dowdle and weigh down CeeDee Lamb with targets. If he can continue to do that, this will be a successful week.
Rush himself is nothing but a low-end QB2 with a very limited ceiling.
Rico Dowdle, RB
Is there an offense that looks more different statistically now compared to preseason expectations than the Cowboys?
We entered the season praising Dak Prescott and wanting as much exposure to this passing game as possible, labeling the backfield as a bottom-tier room that would promote a pass-heavy script for Dallas.
As we sit here in Week 16, Rico Dowdle is looking to join Priest Holmes, Arian Foster, Nick Goings, and Fast Willie Parker as the only undrafted RBs in the 2000s with four straight 100-yard rushing games in the regular season.
Life comes at you fast. He’s been a top-20 running back in four straight games, and if the Cowboys are going to keep this game tight, it’s going to be because their bellcow is gashing the defense that allows the sixth-most yards per carry before contact to running backs.
Even with an optimistic spin on a few injury situations in my early Week 16 ranks, Dowdle is a fine RB2. If a few backs fall out of the ranks, he’ll move inside my top 15.
Brandin Cooks, WR
Brandin Cooks’ playing time is inching up, but he’s simply going to run out of time. We saw signs of decline last season; even if you think there is gas left in the tank, this Cooper Rush-led offense doesn’t have much of a path to accessing that.
In his seven appearances this season, Cooks is averaging just 0.69 yards per route — he’s well off of fantasy radars in all formats at this point.
CeeDee Lamb, WR
CeeDee Lamb has six games with at least a dozen targets this season — he joins 2023 CeeDee Lamb as the only Cowboy ever to do that in a season. He set the franchise record with seven such games a year ago and could match it this weekend if they are playing behind for the bulk of this game as is expected.
If you need tangible proof of what this sort of volume looks like, here are the passing plays in succession detailing how Dallas found paydirt on a second-quarter drive last week:
- A 20-yard pass to Lamb
- A 28-yard pass to Lamb
- A 14-yard TD to Lamb (nice adjustment on an end-zone target)
Lamb has been a top-15 receiver in four straight games. While this offense isn’t exactly high-powered, Cooper Rush is doing enough to keep his WR1 in the fantasy WR1 conversation.
Jalen Tolbert, WR
Jalen Tolbert got on the board last week in Carolina, and that means you saw him while watching “NFL RedZone.” If you saw that one play, that means that you saw about as much of Tolbert as anyone watching a traditional feed.
For the first time this season, Tolbert was not on the field for the majority of Dallas’ offensive snaps and, for the sixth straight game, he failed to reach nine expected PPR points. I made the case to chase the WR2 for the Cowboys earlier this season as I was comfortable in counting out Brandin Cooks and wanted exposure to a Dak Prescott offense.
Cooper Rush isn’t Dak Prescott.
Dallas has been putting up some points in plus matchups of late, but the Bucs are allowing just 15 points per game during their four-game win streak; that level of production puts any secondary piece next to CeeDee Lamb in a near-impossible spot.
Jake Ferguson, TE
Jake Ferguson has been one of my bigger misses this season, and I’ll learn from it moving forward. I’m likely going to be done with messing around in the middle tiers at the tight end position.
Some of the early-season returns were positive (three straight top-10 finishes from Weeks 3-5), but with just one such showing since, it’s clear that he is more of a risky streamer than the lineup lock I had hopes for.
The good news is that the Bucs allow the third-most yards per TE target this season (8.9) — and the Cowboys are likely to be playing from behind. The not-so-good news is the fact that Fergy doesn’t have an end-zone target since the season opener, and his target-per-route rate has dropped from 21.9% to 18.9% since returning from his concussion.
I have him in the Pat Freiermuth and Hunter Henry tier of tight ends that I’d rather not play but will consider if there isn’t a strong role otherwise available (for the record, I have Jacksonville’s Brenton Strange ahead of this tier).
