Fantasy Football Playoffs Busts? Players Who May Disappoint in Weeks 15, 16, 17

Who should I start for the fantasy football playoffs in Weeks 15, 16, 17? Justin looks at potential fantasy playoff busts with tough matchups and schedules.

Fantasy football playoff time is here. Not every league starts the playoffs in Week 15, but almost all leagues will host their playoffs over the next three weekends of NFL action, whether that be a three-week playoff starting in Week 15 or a two-week one starting in Week 16. If you're in some weird league that goes into Week 18, well...I'm sorry, but I'm not talking about Week 18.

Let's talk about some players who have difficult playoff schedules. These aren't necessarily players who you need to bench in the playoffs, because there are a couple of big names on the list, but they are situations you need to plan around.

For example, Nico Collins is on this list! You probably aren't benching Collins, but knowing he has bad matchups can help you figure out a mitigation strategy with the rest of your lineup. If you're worried your WR1 will bust, you can decide if it's better to play a reliable WR2 or if you need to go with a boom-or-bust guy to increase your ceiling. With that in mind, let's look at five players whose playoff schedules are not good.

• 2025 fantasy football rankings
• Running back (RB) rankings
• Wide receiver (WR) rankings
• Quarterback (QB) rankings
• Tight end (TE) rankings
• Defense (D/ST) rankings
• Kicker (K) rankings
• FLEX rankings
• Dynasty rankings

Caleb Williams, QB, Chicago Bears

If you can survive with Caleb Williams as your starting fantasy quarterback through to Week 17, great! That matchup against the 49ers is one where you can comfortably play the second-year quarterback. The problem is that he faces a nightmare path before that, so if you start him in Week 15 and Week 16, you might not have a fantasy season left by Week 17.

One concern here is that Williams has struggled in tough matchups. He's only faced one defense that ranks in the top 10 for fewest fantasy points allowed, playing twice against the Vikings. He was QB9 in Week 1, but a rushing touchdown propped that number up. The second matchup saw Williams fail to throw a touchdown and finish as the QB22 for the week. He was also only QB25 in Week 13 against a good Eagles defense.

CALEB TO KMET. WHAT A THROW.

CHIvsPHI FREE on Prime Video
Also streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/fcyQ9JLQCj

— NFL (@NFL) November 28, 2025

In fact, Williams has had a roller coaster of a season. While he has six top-10 weekly finishes, including two games where he was the overall QB1, he also has six finishes as QB20 or worse. That inconsistency is going to make it tough to trust him, especially when both of the overall QB1 finishes were against awful defenses. He can take advantage of good matchups, but he's struggled to produce when facing strong defenses.

Breece Hall, RB, New York Jets

The last time Breece Hall faced the New England Patriots, he was held to just 6.4 points in half PPR formats, making him the RB33 for the week. It was his third-worst weekly finish of the season, and his worst since back in Week 3.

Now, Hall is set to face that same defense again in Week 17, which is the championship week for the vast majority of fantasy leagues. That's, uhh, not ideal!

This is one of those situations where you probably can't bench Hall. I mean, you at least can't bench him in Week 15 on the road against the Jaguars, another bad matchup for him, but one that's not quite as bad as the New England one. He could certainly be a complete bust in that game, but it's a "start your stars and hope you have enough talent around them if they struggle" situation.

Week 16 against the Saints is a decent, middle-of-the-road matchup where Hall should be able to finish as at least a high-end RB2.

But whew, I would seriously consider benching him against the Patriots. It would obviously require me to have enough running back talent on my roster to feel comfortable playing without him, which I acknowledge a ton of fantasy managers won't have. There's a good chance you look at your roster and realize that you just have to roll with Hall and hope for the best.

But if you have, say, two other top-20 backs on your roster in Week 17, and they both have decent matchups, Hall might need to be moved out of the lineup. It's risky, but so is playing him against an elite New England run defense.

Nico Collins, WR, Houston Texans

While you might look at this and think ehh, it's not that bad, that Week 17 meeting with the Chargers looms large, and the Week 15 one against Arizona is no sure thing either.

Sure, Week 16 should go well for Collins against the Raiders, but you kind of need to have a backup plan ready for Week 17. Collins should still be in "you have to play him and hope for the best" territory by then, but that also depends on how the next few weeks go.

CJ Stroud beating the Colts Cover 0.

Ball is out well before Nico Collins is breaking on the route. Safety has no chance to break on the throw and the pass rush can't get home because it's out so early. pic.twitter.com/7OYvjISUyX

— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) December 1, 2025

Here's the thing with Collins. He has four top-10 finishes this season, but half of those came in the three-game span where Davis Mills was Houston's starting quarterback. He hasn't been quite as effective with C.J. Stroud throwing him the football.

If the next three games show that Collins is reliably finishing in that WR1/2 tier, then the Chargers game might not be a total loss. You should still be worried, but also cautiously optimistic that his volume will win out.

If Stroud and Collins revert to some of their midseason struggles to connect against Kansas City, Arizona, and Las Vegas, that Chargers game suddenly looks like a fantasy sinkhole. How comfortable you'll feel with Collins against a defense allowing the fewest fantasy points to wide receivers won't really be decided until we see how these next few games turn out.

Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Carolina Panthers

There's no single nightmare matchup in there for Panthers rookie receiver Tetairoa McMillan, but overall, it's just not a great stretch for a receiver who only has two top-10 weekly finishes all year.

It's also notable that of the two top-10 finishes, one came against a Cowboys defense that allows more fantasy points per game to the wide receiver position than any other NFL team. The other was against Atlanta, which ranks 13th in that stat, so credit to McMillan for that showing.

However, since that Week 11 game where he was the overall WR1, he's finished WR21 and WR20, which are solid numbers but would look much worse if not for McMillan catching a touchdown in each of those games.

In fact, of his five weekly finishes as a WR1 or WR2, only one came without a touchdown. McMillan is basically an "endzone-or-bust" fantasy option whose upcoming schedule won't be easy.

Oronde Gadsden II, TE, Los Angeles Chargers

We have two extremely tough matchups here, plus a third against a Cowboys team that's been on an upward trajectory defensively since the trade deadline. (I wrote that sentence on Thursday morning, before Dallas got shredded by the Lions, but I still mostly stick by it.)

Gadsden has been solid as a rookie, but the KC and Houston games look like a nightmare. The Chiefs have allowed just three touchdowns to tight ends, while the Texans have allowed the fifth-fewest yards to the position.

Dallas, meanwhile, keeps improving against tight ends. The team has given up the seventh-most receptions to the position, but has only allowed four tight end touchdowns. On Thursday against the Lions, the team held Anthony Firkser and Ross Dwelley to a combined two catches for 11 yards. The week before, Travis Kelce scored a touchdown against Dallas, but was also held under 50 yards for just the second time in the past eight games.

Oronde Gadsden in his last 3 games:

3.7 fantasy points per game pic.twitter.com/anfHxXSdcd

— Yahoo Fantasy Sports (@YahooFantasy) December 1, 2025

Add in that Gadsden has been trending down already over the past few games, and fantasy managers should already be looking for alternatives going forward.

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