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Danny Boily looks at fantasy football landmines, busts, and avoids for Week 3 of 2025. Given these Week 3 fantasy situations, consider benching these players.
Two weeks are in the books, and the fantasy football landscape is beginning to take shape. The early-season chaos is slowly giving way to discernible trends, and the line between legitimate contenders and waiver-wire fodder is becoming clearer. This is a critical juncture where managers are tempted to overreact—chasing last week’s points, panicking over a slow-starting stud, or blindly trusting a big name regardless of the circumstances.
Successful fantasy management, however, is about foresight, not hindsight. It’s about recognizing dangerous situations before they torpedo your weekly matchup. This article is your weekly reconnaissance report, designed to help you identify and sidestep the players poised to disappoint. These are the landmines—players you’d typically start without a second thought but who, due to a confluence of brutal matchups, troubling usage, or other red flags, carry an unacceptable level of risk.
If you have a viable alternative on your bench, now is the time to deploy them. Let’s dig into the five landmines to avoid for Week 3.
Be sure to check all of our fantasy football rankings for 2025:- 2025 fantasy football rankings
- Running back (RB) fantasy football rankings
- Wide receiver (WR) fantasy football rankings
- Tight end (TE) fantasy football rankings
- Quarterback (QB) fantasy football rankings
- FLEX fantasy football rankings
- Defense (D/ST) fantasy football rankings
- Kicker (K) fantasy football rankings
- Dynasty fantasy football rankings
Bo Nix, QB, vs. Los Angeles Chargers
Don’t let Bo Nix’s Week 2 stat line fool you. While his 22.3 fantasy points and three touchdowns against the Colts look appealing on the surface, they mask a deeply flawed performance. He threw for 206 yards and needed extreme touchdown efficiency to salvage his day, finishing as just the QB13 for the week.
This performance follows a dreadful 10.6-point outing in Week 1 against the Titans, painting a picture of a volatile and inefficient fantasy asset. Through two games, Nix is the QB23 overall, averaging a miserable 5.5 yards per attempt. Relying on him is a dangerous game, and this week, the house has a major edge.
The Los Angeles Chargers' defense is a buzzsaw right now. They have surrendered a mere one passing touchdown all season and only two total touchdowns, ranking second in the NFL.
Their calling card is a suffocating red zone defense that ranks first in the league, allowing a touchdown on only 16.7% of opponent trips inside the 20-yard line. For a quarterback like Nix, who just relied on red-zone variance to post a decent score, this is a nightmare scenario.
The Chargers are also allowing the ninth-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks (14.61 per game). Nix is a low-volume, low-yardage quarterback running headfirst into a defense that refuses to give up easy scores. Expect a swift regression to his Week 1 form.
Bo Nix gets to make throws like this, throw for only 191 yards and his team still scored 28 points on the colts. Must be nice 😭 pic.twitter.com/wyzDDCSmG4
— Coach (@CamJordan4Fins) September 14, 2025
James Conner, RB, vs. San Francisco 49ers
Through two weeks, James Conner has been the poster child for touchdown-dependent fantasy production. His RB17 ranking is propped up entirely by two scores, which have papered over some deeply concerning underlying metrics.
Conner is averaging a sluggish 3.2 yards per carry on his way to just 73 rushing yards on the season. Furthermore, his 56.5% snap percentage confirms he is sharing much of the workload to teammate Trey Beson, capping his ceiling for yardage and receptions.
When a running back’s entire fantasy value is tied to crossing the goal line, a matchup against a defense that doesn’t allow rushing touchdowns is a death knell.
Enter the San Francisco 49ers. This defensive unit is a brick wall, allowing just 15 points per game and only one rushing touchdown through two contests. Conner’s inefficiency means he needs significant volume or a goal-line plunge to return value, and he is highly unlikely to get either against San Francisco.
The game script could quickly turn negative for Arizona, further limiting his opportunities. Conner is shaping up to be a low-volume, low-efficiency back in a brutal matchup, making him one of the riskiest RB2 plays of the week.
Tee Higgins, WR, vs. Minnesota Vikings
The fantasy value of the entire Cincinnati Bengals offense took a catastrophic hit with the news of Joe Burrow’s toe injury, which is expected to sideline him for three months. For Tee Higgins, this development is devastating. His season was already off to a slow start, ranking as the WR39 with a meager 16.2% target share and just six receptions through two games.
Now, the pinpoint accuracy and elite quarterback play he has relied on throughout his career will be replaced by backup Jake Browning. While Browning is a capable backup, the drop-off is immense and will inevitably lead to a less efficient, lower-volume passing attack.
To compound matters, Higgins faces a nightmarish Week 3 matchup. The Minnesota Vikings' defense has been an absolute lockdown unit against opposing wide receivers, allowing the third-fewest fantasy points to the position in the entire league (21.55 per game).
They have conceded only one passing touchdown on the season, showcasing a disciplined and aggressive secondary. We now have a receiver who was already struggling for targets, is dealing with a massive quarterback downgrade, and is facing one of the NFL’s premier pass defenses.
That is a toxic combination of factors that sends Higgins’ fantasy floor plummeting. He is best left on your bench until we see how this new-look Bengals offense operates.
Mark Andrews, TE, vs. Detroit Lions
It’s time to ask the tough question: what is going on with Mark Andrews? For a player drafted as an elite tight end, his performance has been nothing short of a fantasy disaster.
Through two games, he has logged a shocking two receptions for seven yards. He is the TE58 on the season, yet somehow remains 87% owned in leagues—a staggering disconnect between name value and on-field reality. His 7.5% target share is a catastrophic red flag, indicating he is a complete non-factor in the Ravens' passing attack.
To make a dire situation worse, teammate Isaiah Likely is expected to return from injury as early as this week. The arrival of another capable tight end threatens to eat into a target share that is already practically non-existent.
A matchup against the Detroit Lions offers no hope for a sudden turnaround, as this unit is particularly tough against tight ends. The Lions rank eighth in the NFL, allowing a stingy 8.7 fantasy points per game to the position, and their pass defense has been solid, allowing less than 200 yards per contest.
Andrews is a ghost of himself, and he's about to face more internal competition for targets. He should not be in your starting lineup.
Chris Olave, WR, vs. Seattle Seahawks
Chris Olave’s 2025 season has been a story of empty calories. The volume is there—his 27.4% target share and 23 total targets are very good. However, the production has been remarkably inefficient.
He has converted those 23 targets into just 13 receptions for 107 yards and, most glaringly, zero touchdowns. This demonstrates a disconnect in the Saints' passing game, where high volume is not translating into meaningful fantasy points. This week, that inefficiency will collide with a suffocating defense.
The Seattle Seahawks' secondary is a fantasy wasteland for wide receivers. Through two weeks, they rank first in the NFL in fewest fantasy points allowed to the position, giving up a measly 17.15 points per game.
They have allowed only one passing touchdown all year and have consistently erased opposing number-one receivers. For a player like Olave, who has failed to turn premium volume into premium production against lesser opponents, this matchup is a worst-case scenario.
Expect another high-target day that results in a frustratingly low fantasy output. His floor is far lower than his target numbers would suggest.
Final Thoughts
The five players listed above carry a significantly higher risk of failure than their name value suggests. The key nugget for fantasy managers to remember this week extends beyond these lineup decisions: we are now at the three-week mark, a critical inflection point in the fantasy season. After this weekend, we move from small sample sizes to legitimate data.
Use this week's games to conduct a full audit of your roster. Identify the players whose usage and target share confirm their draft-day promise, and pinpoint those who are revealing themselves to be liabilities. This is the moment to start aggressively pursuing trades and working the waiver wire, as we finally have enough information to separate the pretenders from the contenders.
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