The Green Bay Packers will face the Seattle Seahawks in Week 15. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Packers skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 15 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Jordan Love, QB
Jordan Love has posted a passer rating north of 105 in four straight games. That might give the Packers the potential to win a few playoff games, but real-life efficiency doesn’t always mean paying the fantasy bills, which is the situation we find ourselves in routinely here.
Love hasn’t finished a week as a top-10 signal-caller since Week 6 and has been a disappointment (six touchdown passes in his past six games). The rushing potential was flashed a little bit last week (season-high 23 rushing yards), but with a TD/INT rate outside of the red zone that ranks alongside luminaries like Will Levis and Daniel Jones, the path to consistent value just isn’t there.
The matchup off of the mini-bye against the Seahawks doesn’t scare me too much. But with Josh Jacobs sucking up all of the scoring equity, Love needs to be close to flawless to churn out a profit, and that’s a dangerous line to walk for a risk-taking profile like this.
Josh Jacobs, RB
Josh Jacobs checks every box of a league-winning fantasy running back. Every. Single. One.
- Role
- Offensive Trajectory
- Form
- Versatility
- Team Motivation
The Seahawks are the fifth-worst run defense in terms of success rate, giving Jacobs a floor that is close to elite this weekend. He’s coming off of an extended week and that makes him a great bet to extend his run of 18+ carry games to five straight. If good Geno Smith shows up, no worries, Jacobs has four games with at least four receptions this season and can get you home that way.
RB PPR leaders, Weeks 11-14:
- Saquon Barkley: 114.1 (!)
- Josh Jacobs: 98.3
- De’Von Achane: 81.0
There isn’t much competition in the way for work in this offense that ranks behind only the Eagles in rush rate over expectation. We saw Jacobs post a career year in 2022, a season in which he rattled off two three-game runs of 100+ rushing yards.
Could such a streak be in store for the stretch run this year? I’m not saying it’s predictive, but during one of those streaks in ‘22 was the best game of his career (303 yards and two touchdowns) … a win in Seattle.
Interesting.
Christian Watson, WR
Christian Watson has cleared a 90% snap share in consecutive games with Romeo Doubs (concussion) sidelined, and if his teammate continues to be a spectator, you can entertain the idea of Flexing this boom/bust receiver.
I was encouraged by how the Packers came out of the locker room Thursday night in Detroit after a disappointing first 30 minutes:
Packers’ first possession of the second half:
- Josh Jacobs rush, -1 yards
- Jordan Love to Christian Watson, 59 yards
- Jordan Love to Christian Watson, incomplete
- Jordan Love to Christian Watson, incomplete
- Jordan Love to Tucker Kraft, TD
If we can lock in featured usage with Watson, I’ll happily roll the dice on his physical tools against a low-blitz defense like Seattle where time should be available to earn targets down the field.
Of course, there’s risk. Not only with the player but the offense as a whole. Watson had 64.5% of Green Bay’s first-half receiving yards last week and had all of 1.0 PPR points to show for it.
This offense can be potent, but it can also be silent. So when you weigh the environmental risk with the sporadic target-earning abilities, Watson is a tough sell if the WR room for the Packers is full.
That hasn’t been the case of late, and that adds enough opportunity potential to go this way in a pinch. But if we get word that Doubs is set to return without major restrictions, I’ll be throwing darts elsewhere this weekend.
Dontayvion Wicks, WR
The idea behind Dontayvion Wicks is the single-target upside. Be it in the end zone or deep down the field.
Neither is currently coming his way, and that means you look elsewhere for help.
It’s been more than a month since Wicks’ last end-zone target, and Week 7 was the last time he reached 55 air yards in a game. If you want to stash Wicks as a way to have a piece on the field for an above-average offense on your bench (80% of the snaps or better in two straight games), you have my good wishes, but it’s tough to justify considering him as a legitimate Flex option in any situation.
Jayden Reed, WR
Alright, friends. I assembled some of the brightest minds over the past week. We are talking about a room that includes a doctorate degree, multiple masters, a high school administrative leader, the person I most model my behavior after, and … me.
The latter aside, that’s an impressive amount of brain power within the same four walls. You can choose to believe that these résumés came together for the sole purpose of cracking the mystery that is Jayden Reed or that it was a casual happy hour with my immediate family, but I’m simply sharing facts.
Coming out of that room, after a Friday night of loud discussions, we came to a line of thought. There’s no way to know if it is bulletproof or not; predicting the future is tough, but a trend was unearthed, and considering that I’ve struggled to get Green Bay’s WR1 right all season long, I’m riding it for this week.
This season, Reed is averaging 8.7 expected PPR points per game. We are less concerned about the mean outcomes, instead wanting to know when the tail outcomes are coming. Reed has had nine games this season in which he’s been at least three points over or three points under that average number.
Here is where those teams rank, for the season, in yards per deep completion.
Opponents against whom Reed had 11.7+ expected PPR points, 2024:
- Dolphins: 5th in yards allowed per deep completion
- Vikings: 7th
- Titans: 9th
- Cardinals: 14th
Opponents against whom Reed had 5.7 or fewer expected PPR points, 2024:
- Lions: 16th in yards allowed per deep completion
- Bears: 22nd
- 49ers: 25th
- Jaguars: 30th
- Colts: 31st
Listen, I’m not saying I love it, but it’s the lone thread that connected the desired games that this room of well-hydrated individuals could come up with. Through 14 weeks, the Seahawks rank 10th in this stat, limiting the production of Jared Goff and Brock Purdy in road games, an impressive feat, to say the least.
Seattle is a bottom-10 blitz rate team, and before the Lions attacked with reckless abandon on Thursday night — certainly something that was impacted by the game script and a second meeting this season — the Packers were one of the defenses blitzed least often (Weeks 8-13, 28th in opponent blitz rate). If we are trying to play 4D chess, less defensive aggression makes pressure on Jordan Love less likely, and that’s when we want to gamble on Reed.
- Reed’s on-field target share, Love is pressured: 13%
- Reed’s on-field target share, Love not pressured: 23.1%
I’m sorry that you had to spend that time inside of my head. I’m back in on Reed for a bounce-back Week 15 with the hope being that this matchup, along with the motivation to get him at least remotely involved, is a priority off of the min-bye after the disappointing no-show against Detroit.
Fingers crossed.
Romeo Doubs, WR
Romeo Doubs has missed consecutive games and entered this work week still in concussion protocol. We know that not all head injuries are created equal, and this extended absence has me trending away from him until we get on-field evidence that he is at full strength.
Doubs has been far from reliable this season when healthy (two games with over 15 PPR points, also four games with under eight points) and can thus be ignored for the short term.
If you want to roster Doubs as a cheap way to get exposure to Green Bay’s offense, fine, but you’re not starting him in any capacity this week — even should he clear all health hurdles.
Tucker Kraft, TE
Tucker Kraft has given you a score in two of his past three games and, in theory, the doubling of his season-long end-zone target count last week in Detroit is encouraging.
But is there enough in this profile to project favorably? Kraft has yet to hit 40 air yards in a game and his route count is trending down (18-23 routes run in four straight games after averaging 31.8 in his previous four games).
Kraft is on the fringe of “startability,” joining other low-volume options with a quarterback we trust like Zach Ertz and Dalton Schultz.
