The fantasy football landscape shifts each week, bringing fresh opportunities and unexpected challenges that separate the prepared from the pretenders. Savvy managers know that last week’s performance tells only part of the story, and diving deeper into the underlying metrics reveals the accurate picture.
This week presents some intriguing decisions. Here’s insight about key Pittsburgh Steelers players heading into their matchup with the Miami Dolphins to help you craft a winning lineup.
Aaron Rodgers, QB
The glory days of Aaron Rodgers are obviously behind us, but I think you’re lying if you say that watching him drop the ball in the bucket a few times on Sunday in the upset win over the Ravens didn’t give you a nice feeling.
On his way to 284 passing yards, his first with 250+ this season, Rodgers was a perfect four-of-four on balls thrown 20+ yards downfield. That may not sound like much, but if you’ve watched any amount of Steelers football this season, you understand.
- Weeks 1-13: 7-of-29 when throwing 20+ yards downfield
This is too late in the season to mean anything. I guess you could leverage this performance to give you a little more confidence in DK Metcalf for the final few weeks, but Rodgers himself isn’t a viable option (his last multi-pass TD game came in Week 8).
The fantasy point total looks better than you’d expect given the pass line because Rodgers recorded his first rushing score since leaving the land of cheese back in 2022. If you had the stones to play him in a DFS situation, hat tip to you, but the nice box score is nothing but a flash in the pan.
Jaylen Warren, RB
There was nothing fancy on the 38-yard, third-down dump-off pass to Jaylen Warren on Sunday in Baltimore, but against the all-out pressure, it opened up, and he scored.
It’s a good thing, too, because his other 10 touches picked up just 24 yards and had no excitement attached to them.
All in all, Warren has scored in three straight, but he did split snaps with Kenneth Gainwell down the middle last week and only outtouched him by one. You’re on reasonably thin ice here, but with Gainwell the preferred option and the expectation for this to be a more favorable script, I think you can get away with considering Warren as an RB2 in PPR formats.
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It’s not always a work of art, but he’s the favorite in this backfield for rush attempts and has caught 30 of his 35 targets on the year.
DK Metcalf, WR
Stomach pains resulted in Metcalf spending time in a Baltimore hospital last week after he put on a clinic (7-1480, his second-best game of the season).
Earlier this week, Mike Tomlin expressed optimism in his WR1’s availability for this week, so I’ll take him at his word and assume that we are good to go.
Maybe Arthur Smith was playing the long game: Pittsburgh dialed up a deep shot to Metcalf for a 53-yard gain on their first drive last week, something that we had seen essentially none of during the first three months of the season.
It was great to see, but an outlier week followed by a hospital trip, even if minor, isn’t exactly something I view as sticky. Metcalf has held under 50 receiving yards in five straight games before Week 14’s explosion, and it’s not like those were top-notch defenses shutting him down (Colts, Chargers, Bengals, Bears, and Bills).
He’s a flex play and nothing more. I still have questions about the upside of this offense, and that means he falls into the Justin Jefferson/Michael Pittman tier, where I think the talent is greater than the situation.
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Can they overcome it? Of course. Am I confident that they have a realistic path to the top 20 production? Not so much.
Pat Freiermuth, TE
We don’t know who is going to be the “featured” tight end on a week-to-week basis, but at this point, I think we can safely assume that it doesn’t really matter.
Week 14 Pittsburgh TE Participation
- Pat Freiermuth: 22 routes, 3 targets, 2.9 fantasy points
- Jonnu Smith: 12 routes, 1 target, 0 fantasy points
- Darnell Washington: 10 routes, 1 target, 2.2 fantasy points
It’s been more than a month since Freiermuth reached 20 receiving yards in a game, and he’s earned north of four targets on just one occasion. There are half a dozen tight ends widely available that carry more target and touchdown equity, so there should be no temptation to go dumpster diving this low, even if you still view the Dolphins as a plus-matchup.
