The New England Patriots will face the Buffalo Bills in Week 16. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Patriots and Bills 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.
Josh Allen, QB
Last Sunday, in Detroit, Josh Allen became the first player in NFL history with multiple pass TD and multiple rush TD in consecutive games. At some point this offseason, I’ll note all of the crazy Allen-centric numbers this season, but they’re growing by the week.
Josh Allen has 3 completions of 20+ yards to RBs in just over 7 minutes … Russell Wilson (Week 13) is the only other QB to do that IN A GAME this season pic.twitter.com/QODqHqweek
— Kyle Soppe (@KyleSoppePFN) December 15, 2024
Allen has been a top-two QB in three straight games and has finished as the top scorer at the position four times this season. He’s cleared 20 fantasy points in five of his past six games at home, and at this point, 20 points feels like a low expectation.
This is the first of two meetings with the Patriots over the next three weeks. If he’s going to finish this elite season with a fantasy Super Bowl-worthy performance, he’s going to have to solve this New England defense.
Drake Maye, QB
Drake Maye has over 2.5 fantasy points as a runner with over 200 passing yards in four straight games. That has allowed him to establish a reasonable production floor with four top-15 finishes over his past five games but hasn’t resulted in much of a ceiling (one top 10).
There are weekly flashes to get excited about long term. Last week, Maye completed all 10 of his first-half passes and, late in the game, had a scrambling weird flip pass to DeMario Douglas in the end zone.
That play looked like something that Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes would do. No, he’s not on that level and probably never will be, but it’s clear who he modeled his game after, and that gives him interesting upside as a punt QB option when you draft this summer, especially if the Pats can add some talent around him.
James Cook, RB
Buffalo running backs last week, against one of the best defenses in the league, picked up 285 scrimmage yards and scored three times.
No big deal.
James Cook was a big part of that, notching his third game this season with 100 rushing yards and his fourth with multiple rushing scores. I’m willing to write off Ty Johnson’s usage last week as more of a matchup thing than anything else, so I’m not too worried about the role of Cook in this explosive offense. He’s been a top-12 producer at the position in four of his past five games.
This season, the Patriots allow points at the 10th-highest rate, the fourth-most yards to running backs before contact per carry, and the second-highest passer rating when targeting RBs. You’re thanking your lucky stars to have a piece of this offense and enjoying the ride.
Ray Davis, RB
Ray Davis has failed to reach 30 yards from scrimmage in four of his past five games, and with Ty Johnson playing ahead of him on passing downs last week, his status as a one-for-one James Cook replacement is far from a certainty.
He’s a change-of-pace back, but if this offense is going to ask Josh Allen to wear the cape, there’s really no reason to roster any secondary back in Buffalo as they attempt to chase the conference’s top seed.
I think you can safely forget Davis’ name for the remainder of 2024, but I’d caution against doing so for 2025.
Rhamondre Stevenson, RB
Rhamondre Stevenson is the football equivalent of the BRAT diet: simple, unexciting, and something that can make you feel OK when your stomach is upset.
In this case, our “stomach” is our fantasy backfield. Nothing he does is exciting (at least 15% of his carries have failed to gain yardage in eight straight games), but there are only four running backs this season with more 20-carry, one-catch games than New England’s featured back (Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley, Joe Mixon, and Kyren Williams).
Stevenson hasn’t finished better than RB18 since doing so in Week 9. He could get there against the seventh-worst rush defense in terms of yards per carry before contact allowed to running backs, but even if he doesn’t, him sinking your lineup given his role is unlikely.
There’s value in that.
Kendrick Bourne, WR
Kendrick Bourne has caught every pass thrown his way in three of his past four games. The small sample size of his 2024 season with Drake Maye is encouraging, but it’s not nearly enough to put him on fantasy radars.
I’m not betting on the Patriots’ offense if I can avoid it, but if I am going that avenue, it’s going to be in the middle of the field where the Bills funnel opposing pass games. Maybe Bourne will play a part in Maye’s long-term development, but we don’t need to worry about that right now.
Keon Coleman, WR
After four straight DNPs due to a wrist injury, Keon Coleman returned to action on Sunday and assumed a reasonable role (63.2% snap share, down a touch from his 69.3% pre-injury). He only earned two targets on those 20 routes, but in an offense like Buffalo’s, quality of looks can help offset a lack of quantity.
- 51 air yards
- 64 yards gained
One catch, and he finishes the week with more points than Josh Downs, Tank Dell, Rome Odunze, and DK Metcalf. That, of course, is not always going to be the case, but the quality of QB makes a huge difference this time of year as I piece together my Flex rankings.
Would I rather play Coleman with Josh Allen in a desperate situation or hope that we land on a seemingly random Nick Westbrook-Ikhine week in Tennessee or Alec Pierce in a similar role with the Colts?
I’m not looking to play Coleman until next season, but you could do worse if the QB injuries have forced you into uncomfortable spots (starting Coleman over Xavier Worthy is on the table should Patrick Mahomes be officially ruled out). The matchup isn’t prohibitive as the Patriots own the seventh-highest opponent aDOT this season.
Amari Cooper, WR
When the season concludes, I’ll run through all of the numbers and highlight some of the most impressive, quirky, or underwhelming nuggets from the season. I suspect that Amari Cooper, with Keon Coleman and Dalton Kincaid both at less than full strength, earning exactly zero targets (15 routes) in a game in which the Bills scored 48 points will be on the list.
I can’t really explain it other than saying that the Lions made a point of taking him away and that Josh Allen is playing at such an elite level that he simply opted to take the path of least resistance (114 receiving yards for Ty Johnson being as good an example as that as you’ll find).
Cooper has yet to make anywhere near the impact I thought he would when this trade went down; at this point, I’m done assuming any sort of ramp-up during the regular season. He’s yet to reach a 54% snap share with the Bills, and given the number of ways this offense can beat you (not to mention what could be a very run-heavy script as massive favorites with newfound one-seed life), Cooper is a shaky bet at best.
I have both him and Coleman ranked as WR4s this week, preferring the late-season peak of Jalen McMillan over both of them.
DeMario Douglas, WR
DeMario Douglas has reached 70 receiving yards just once this season, but there is some very low PPR Flex appeal here if you’re in a deeper format. The fact that he has caught 85.7% of his targets over the past three games is a step in the right direction, but more importantly, the Bills want him to produce.
OK, so that may be a bit strong, but Buffalo encourages opponents to take their medicine with the short passes (lowest opponent aDOT this season). The Patriots have been trailing for 61.3% of their offensive snaps this season (seventh highest rate), thus putting a player like Douglas in position to potentially see 6-8 targets.
It won’t be exciting, but a cheap way to double-digit PPR points is certainly within the reasonable range of outcomes.
Khalil Shakir, WR
I’ve now written this article for 34 consecutive regular-season weeks here at PFN, and I imagine that I’ve used an assortment of like five clichés to refer to Khalil Shakir’s fantasy outlook in each one of those pieces.
“Slot machine”
“Easy button”
“Layup targets”
You get the idea. Clichés can be corny, but that doesn’t mean they are inaccurate. I stand by all of it and will likely recycle those terms next week, during the playoffs, and in Week 6 of next season.
With four top-25 finishes over his past five games, Shakir is as solid as it gets. We saw the long touchdown in Week 14 (51 yards), and he followed it up with a six-catch game where not a single one of his receptions gained more than 10 yards. In theory, that sounds like a weakness, but when a game like that pops up, he catches north of 80% of his targets and still carries scoring equity because this Buffalo offense lives near the goal line.
I truly think that a fantasy team with three Shakir types (Ladd McConkey, Zay Flowers, Jayden Reed, etc.) would win at a very high rate if surrounded with even ordinary talent.
Put a pin in that idea for now, I’ll prove it this offseason.
Hunter Henry, TE
Despite an on-field target share trending up (22.1% over his past four games), it’s been more than two months since Hunter Henry found paydirt. Betting in any capacity for that to change this week with an implied team total struggling to reach 17 points is risky to say the least.
If the scoring equity is low, we need access to a ceiling in different ways, ways that are not available to Henry in this Drake Maye-led offense. In a game where the Patriots were behind for 85.7% of their offensive snaps and opposing a vulnerable Arizona defense, Henry recorded nine air yards.
Nine.
The Bills rank in the top 10 in YAC per reception and touchdown percentage to the tight end position, giving Henry far more risk than potential reward in this spot. Cut ties and move forward — Henry is not one of the two alliterative tight ends I have in my top 15 for Week 16.
Dalton Kincaid, TE
There are two types of people in this world, and the Dalton Kincaid situation separates them.
In his return from a Week 10 knee injury, Kincaid was targeted on 31.8% of his routes and wasn’t put in the trenches a single time. He made a highlight-reel, over-the-shoulder grab that reminded us all of what we saw from him a season ago.
A compromised Kincaid was on the field for 47.1% of Buffalo’s snaps last week, a rate that paled in comparison to Dawson Knox’s 73.5% snap share. Josh Allen completed just 57.1% of his passes directed at his recovering tight end, the lone thing the MVP front-runner struggled to do at a high rate on Sunday (76% completion rate to all other teammates).
Both of those paragraphs are 100% accurate. How did you read Kincaid’s Week 15?
I’m forever an optimist, and that has me trending toward the first one. There are plenty of moving pieces from a health perspective in this offense, but if I go down because I trusted a player tethered to this version of Allen, I can live with it. Kincaid currently sits as my TE10 for Week 16.
Dawson Knox, TE
Dawson Knox saw his last chance at value this fantasy season come and go without much more than a whimper in Week 15 as Dalton Kincaid (knee) returned to action.
He had a pair of chunk gains, something that seemingly everyone who played in the Bills/Lions shootout can claim. Outside of that, it was a lot of nothing, and certainly not enough to give me any level of confidence that his fantasy stock can survive as Kincaid is worked back into his full-time role.
Over the past two weeks, with 176 points put on the board, Knox managed just four looks on 54 routes run. If he’s not going to be heavily used in a pair of high-scoring games with the pass-catching nucleus at less than full strength, there’s really nothing to discuss here.
Knox’s remaining impact in our world for this season is any target limitations he puts on Kincaid — this isn’t a player that should be kicking around on redraft rosters at this point.
