The New Orleans Saints will face the Green Bay Packers in Week 16. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Saints and 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 16 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Derek Carr, QB
Updated at 6:45 PM ET on Monday, December 23
Carr is inactive for tonight's game.
Derek Carr (fractured left hand) has yet to officially be ruled out for the season, but all reports seem to be pointing in that direction in this lost season for New Orleans.
Carr still has two years remaining on his deal (though the team does have an out available to them this summer), making it important to note that — assuming his 2024 is over — he will have posted a triple-digit deep passer rating for the sixth time in his career. He doesn’t get the love he should for his touch on the long pass, and that will likely be reflected when I am higher than you on Chris Olave this summer.
Jordan Love, QB
The Saints’ pass defense is their strength (inside the top 10 in passer rating and pass touchdown rate), and with the Packers’ run game peaking, this could be a physical domination similar to what we saw from Green Bay in Seattle last week.
While I think that has the potential to cap Jordan Love’s ceiling (only threw 27 passes in Week 15), it does create a situation where efficiency due to single coverage is also projectable. That is why I think Love can give us his first top-10 finish since Week 6.
Last week, with Josh Jacobs bloodying the nose of the Seahawks, Love was able to get four of his teammates 3-5 receptions. If he spreads the ball around like that, asking for 250 yards and a few touchdowns is plenty reasonable.
Spencer Rattler, QB
Do you know how hard it is to appear in four games, have a 30+ yard completion in each of those contests, and still average under six yards per pass attempt?
That’s the situation we have with Spencer Rattler. This roster opened the season with plenty of playmakers capable of making impact plays, but just about all of them will be watching this game.
There are a handful of backup QBs starting this week, and Rattler is the one I have the least confidence in.
Josh Jacobs, RB
Josh Jacobs had nine touches in the first six minutes on Sunday night, tying him for the most such touches in a game during the 2000s. It’s almost as if this team brought in the former Raider for a very distinct reason.
I still believe Jordan Love holds the key to unlocking a run through the NFC for this team, but balance would make that possible. Jacobs has four catches in three of his past five games, a level of versatility that locks him into the top 10 at the position — this matchup vaults him inside the top five.
Jacobs has 13 red-zone touches across his last two home games, and we could see more of the same with Green Bay heavily favored. The Saints are a bottom-three defense against RBs in rush EPA, success rate, and rush TD percentage. You got a bargain on draft day, and now you have a good chance to advance in your playoff bracket.
Alvin Kamara, RB
Updated at 6:45 PM ET on Monday, December 23
Kamara is inactive for tonight's game.
Alvin Kamara made one of the better touchdown catches you’ll see from a running back last week and became the fourth player in NFL history with 50+ rushing TDs and 25+ receiving TDs in his career (Lenny Moore, Marshall Faulk, and Christian McCaffrey).
The versatility and production have been special this season when you consider the numerous moving pieces. Unfortunately, he’s dealing with a groin injury and that means he likely won’t be at your disposal for Monday night
The Saints are taking a cautious approach, and I’d expect that to be the case for the remainder of the season. If he suits up again in 2024, I’m likely to read that as New Orleans is fully sold on its RB1’s health and, thus, starting him.
Kendre Miller, RB
Alvin Kamara is set to undergo more testing on his ailing groin, and that feels like coach-speak for “I’m looking to shut down a running back with over $14 million left on his contract.”
Reporting late in the week has that as likely to keep Kamara out of Week 16 at the very least and could possible be a laying of the foundation to end his season.
If I have this read correctly, Kendre Miller, a third-round pick just a season ago, will get the chance to build on the nine carries for 46 yards that he put on film last weekend against the Commanders.
This, of course, isn’t an ideal spot. The Packers own the seventh-best run defense in terms of yards per carry allowed to running backs and figure to be operating with a lead, something that could lead to a script that trends away from Miller (12 catches in 12 NFL appearances and 12.4 carries for every catch during his three seasons at TCU).
That said, this could be a Zamir White situation from last season, where a young back is loaded up with work in an effort to evaluate. If that is reported to be likely, he could sneak into my top 30 this week.
This is a quantity over quality play, but after four months of wear-and-tear on fantasy rosters, that puts him firmly in the Flex conversation.
Romeo Doubs, WR
Romeo Doubs missed a pair of games while in concussion protocol, but cleared all needed hurdles ahead of last week and showed out once he was let back on the field.
The Packers showed no hesitation in rolling him out there as usual (Week 15: 75.4% snap share, 2024: 77.2%) and were rewarded in a big way. Doubs earned five targets on his 25 routes, producing 19 PPR fantasy points and a game-sealing score in the process.
We now have a sample size north of 800 routes from Doubs, and he’s sitting at a production rate of +7.7%. I’m not suggesting that he’s a bonafide star, but it’s clear that Doubs has Jordan Love’s trust in scoring situations. Given the strong expectations for the Packers on Monday night, he’s a fine Flex option for managers in search of upside.
Things are pretty cut and dry these days in Green Bay’s passing game. That, of course, doesn’t mean the production is easy to forecast, but we at least know who is responsible for what.
Packers’ Week 15 participation rates, 2024:
- Tucker Kraft: 88.5% snaps, two targets, 25 air yards
- Christian Watson: 77% snaps, six targets, 95 air yards
- Romeo Doubs: 75.4% snaps, five targets, 88 air yards
- Jayden Reed: 60.7% snaps, six targets, two air yards
- Dontayvion Wicks: 45.9% snaps, two targets, three air yards
I don’t love this matchup for the deep threats (New Orleans ranks top five against long passes in passer rating, completion percentage, and yards per attempt), but this offense as a whole carries scoring equity this week.
That makes a player like Doubs at least worth considering for your lineup and, at the very least, worthy of rostering so that your opponent doesn’t get cheap access to an offense that could put 30 points on the board again.
Jayden Reed, WR
I can’t decide what I think of Jayden Reed, and I think it’s because the Packers can’t decide what they think of him.
He thrived in his first two games with Jordan Love this season and then teased us with a WR17 finish in Week 9 after a lull in usage. The man has just one top-30 finish since. It’s been a bumpy ride to say the least, but was last week the start of something?
Reed had three rush attempts in the one-sided win over the Seahawks (one more than he had in his previous five games combined) and caught 83.3% of his targets in that game (two games prior: 42.9%). After toying around with some exotic looks, Green Bay seems to be leaning into Reed as a gadget, get-in-space type. While I think he has the potential to be more than that, seeing them commit to something (anything!) would be glorious for his fantasy value.
Against Seattle, his six targets totalled two air yards. That may be a little extreme, but we saw him post-air-yard totals north of 75 yards earlier this year, making the conservative approach from Sunday night noteworthy.
Such a role, most assume, comes with a narrowing of outcomes — the targets are more efficient but, in large, less explosive situations. In most scenarios, I think that’s right, but against the third-worst defense in terms of YAC per reception allowed, I’d argue that supplementing a traditional running game with shuttle targets like this might actually be Reed’s cleanest path to a ceiling performance.
I rank for mean outcomes, so I’m not overweighting that upside case, but I do think there’s a logical argument for him to come through in a surprisingly big way. Reed, for me, is essentially Jaylen Waddle, but with a running game that subtracts from his target upside more than an alpha WR. Both Reed and Waddle are floating around WR30 in my current Week 16 rankings.
Christian Watson, WR
Christian Watson has just a pair of top-30 finishes this season; while the matchup isn’t prohibitive, he’s pretty clearly not viewed as a consistent threat by this offense (nine catches over the past four weeks).
That said, if you’re grasping for straws and/or have a player ruled out late on Sunday and are making a Monday night dart throw your backup plan, Watson does have a 35+ yard catch in each of his past three games. My fear isn’t his ability to exploit this secondary as much as it is Green Bay’s need for such a role as a double-digit point favorite.
Dontayvion Wicks, WR
Dontayvion Wicks has youth and athleticism on his side, something that cracks most lineups, but it’s just kind of the expectation in Green Bay these days. Wicks hasn’t run 25 routes in a game since September, and with Jordan Love being more sporadic than we anticipated, counting on him to support a receiver in this role is more optimistic than I’m willing to be.
Heck, I’m having trust issues with every player on Green Bay’s roster not named Josh Jacobs.
Wicks can be added for next week should a Packers receiver go down on Monday night, but outside of that, there’s no need to take on this risk.
Juwan Johnson, TE
Updated at 6:45 PM ET on Monday, December 23
Johnson is active for tonight's game.
The situation in New Orleans and trying to project target shares is beginning to feel like shuffling chairs on the Titanic. Would it be nice to get right? Sure, who doesn’t like being right? But would it impact the well being of any fantasy roster if I did nail it?
Nope.
Foster Moreau had more catches than Juwan Johnson had targets in the loss to the Commanders last week because of course he did. This roster is void of NFL-level playmakers not named Alvin Kamara, and with no stability under center, why get cute and take on a Packers defense that looked pretty good on Sunday night?
Johnson has scored on 13.6% of his career receptions — that’s the type of note that can be fun to use when streaming if the offense has a level of promise to it. This unit lacks that, and with an implied team total hovering around 15 points for Monday night, I’m very comfortable in taking the ‘less is more’ approach with any positive-based exposure to the Saints.
If you want to bet unders — we can have that discussion (the Best Bets column publishes every Sunday morning!).
Tucker Kraft, TE
Tucker Kraft fell short of expectations last weekend (5.4 PPR points), but the process remains sound. He’s not part of the must-start tier at the position, but he’s in the mix for TE8 behind those locked-in seven – and it has very little to do with what he offers as a player.
- Kraft ranks fourth at the position in percentage of team snaps played (86%)
- The Packers have scored 30+ points in four straight games
That Green Bay streak is the second longest in franchise history (who can forget the seven games of 1963?), and those two traits are enough to land you, with confidence, inside my top-12 at a position that lacks consistency.
For his career, Kraft has caught 75% of the passes directed his way. With 12.6 yards per catch, those targets result in fantasy production. The Saints own the third-worst goal-to-go defense through 15 weeks, and should the Pack find themselves on the doorstep, it’s easy to envision a situation in which the road team backs the line of scrimmage to stop Josh Jacobs.
I’m not banking on a bail-out short touchdown, but the path is there given the role and scoring environment. I think you can feel good about plugging in Kraft and taking your chances.