The Tennessee Titans will face the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 17. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Titans and Jaguars skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 17 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Mac Jones, QB
Mac Jones’ final stat line ended up looking fine against the Raiders last week (247 yards and a touchdown), but if not for a single play (62-yard touchdown to Brian Thomas Jr.), he would have posted an absolute dud in a great spot.
Jones is at obvious risk of being involved in another ugly slugfest this week, and with a 2.4% touchdown rate this season, I have no interest in going this direction under any circumstances. Much like Aidan O’Connell in Vegas, or even his opposing number in this game, Jones has one job, and that is to feed his top receiving option like his life depends on it.
Jones’ life may not, but our fantasy seasons do!
Mason Rudolph, QB
Bar trivia time: Entering Week 17, how many players have an active streak longer than Mason Rudolph in terms of multi-touchdown pass games?
Four.
Rudolph has done it in three straight, a mark that ranks behind only Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Jared Goff, and Jayden Daniels.
I could just leave that note there and let you get in your own head about getting creative with Rudolph in deep leagues or DFS formats, but let’s not do that.
The Jags own the lowest blitz rate in the league, and you might assume that means that Rudolph won’t be forced into bad decisions this week. But as it turns out, he’s plenty capable of making those bad throws all by himself.
It’s almost like the Titans have a type.
Rudolph hasn’t just thrown a pick in each of his five starts; he’s thrown a pick when not blitzed in each of them, including three last week in Indianapolis.
If you want to label Rudolph as this game’s most valuable fantasy QB, you have my blessing. If you want to have exposure to him in any capacity, I have questions.
Tank Bigsby, RB
Keep reading if you want the snap shares for his backfield, but spoiler alert: there’s not much to glean from that data. Heck, I was more confused after I tracked down the numbers than I was prior.
That said, Tank Bigsby was the only Jaguars running back to get a snap in the red zone last week, and if I’m forced into playing an RB in this backfield, it’s a decision I am 100% making based on chasing a touchdown.
This season, the Titans own the fifth-worst red zone defense in the league, allowing a touchdown on 64.7% of drives that cross their 20-yard line. There’s no guarantee that even if you pick the right Jacksonville back, you’re rewarded with fantasy points, and that has me trending away from this situation if at all possible.
Travis Etienne Jr., RB
I’m a man of data. I approach life with the idea that with increased information comes increased confidence.
I’ve been in this industry for over a decade, and this Jacksonville backfield has me questioning everything.
Week 9:
- Travis Etienne Jr.: 31.4% of snaps
- Tank Bigsby: 54.9% of snaps
Week 10:
- Etienne: 67.4% of snaps
- Bigsby: 23.3% of snaps
Week 13:
- Etienne: 52.2% of snaps
- Bigsby: 46.3% of snaps
Week 14:
- Etienne: 48.3% of snaps
- Bigsby: 51.7% of snaps
Week 15:
- Etienne: 70.1% of snaps
- Bigsby: 28.6% of snaps
Week 16:
- Etienne: 50.8% of snaps
- Bigsby: 29.5% of snaps
That snap share would seem to point one way lately, but then you look at the box score and see that, on three more carries, Bigsby ran for 28 more yards than Etienne.
I’ve made a call. Probably four weeks too late, but I’ve made a call. This is one of those things I just will not understand. Like time zones, silent letters, and society’s passion for scary movies.
I’m passing on both members of this backfield and not looking forward to ranking them for next season.
Tony Pollard, RB
Updated at 11:30 AM ET on Sunday, December 29
Pollard is inactive for today's game.
Game flow was a mess last week after the Titans allowed the Colts to score 24 points in the second quarter, so I’m not exactly ready to say that this is a split backfield.
First Quarter, Week 16
- Tony Pollard: 73.3% of snaps, 4.2 points, five routes
- Tyjae Spears: 26.7% of snaps, 0.1 points, two routes
The Jaguars are the league’s worst yards-per-play defense, and that would have opened up the door for Pollard to find the form he had prior to the two recent duds.
I don’t think it would have been overly likely that Pollard would repeat the 23 touches he got in the first meeting with Jacksonville, but another close game that allows for enough usage to land him as a viable RB2 was very much a reasonable expectation.
Tyjae Spears, RB
Spears has set a season-high in snap share in consecutive weeks (55.4% in Week 15 against the Bengals and 59.6% on Sunday in Indianapolis), clearing 21 PPR points (and 15 expected) in both of those contests.
Predictive?
I’d be careful. Both of those games saw north of 50 points scored, and, as of this writing, you’d get +280 odds to see this game do that. Without such a positive game-script environment, I have my doubts that a Titans committee can give fantasy managers usable production, even against a soft defense.
Spears isn’t out of the question if you’re lacking an option; he’s sitting at RB30 in my rankings, but if it came down to him or a Darnell Mooney type, I’d side with the pass catcher.
Calvin Ridley, WR
Calvin Ridley is the third Titans receiver over the past 20 years to have seven receptions and three touchdowns, gaining 30+ yards in a single season. The others? A.J. Brown (2019-20) and DeAndre Hopkins (2023).
That’s pretty good, and his 37.5% target share in the first edition of this matchup with his former employer is a nice feather to have. Of course, the fact that he had more catches in that game (seven) than Tennessee had points (six) is the elephant in the room fantasy managers are forced to deal with.
I’m more in than out on Ridley this week, with the thought being that any quarterback who has managed to hang around the NFL for six seasons should be able to have his moments against a defense that not only ranks bottom-five in deep pass touchdown rate and yards per pass on those deep throws but also is the worst unit in the league when it comes to slowing receivers after the catch is made.
What the future holds for the Titans at the QB position remains to be seen, but if Ridley is under contract for the next three seasons, they will likely want to keep him happy heading into the offseason. He was able to salvage a three-catch game last week; if he continues to serve as a field stretcher, this is about as good as the spot gets.
Brian Thomas Jr., WR
Brian Thomas Jr. is one of three receivers since 2000 to post 1,000 yards and nine touchdown catches through 16 weeks of his rookie season — and they all came from LSU (Odell Beckham Jr. in 2014 and Ja’Marr Chase in 2021).
Whose career trajectory will BTJ’s follow?
I’m a hopeless optimist, so I want to lean toward Chase. We can have that talk after this season ends. When it comes to Week 17, I’m beyond nervous. Mac Jones hadn’t completed a pass over 20 air yards this season prior to last week (62-yard TD to Thomas), and now he faces the fifth-best YPA defense on deep passes. Thomas has been elite, I get it. Heck, I’ll give you the numbers:
WRs in the 24 PPR PPG Club since Week 13:
- Ja’Marr Chase: 26.6 PPG
- Davante Adams: 26.5 PPG
- Justin Jefferson: 26.5 PPG
- Thomas: 24.0 PPG
But this could be a down spot where volume is an issue, and I’m nowhere near comfortable in assuming that the quality of targets in Jacksonville can offset a lack of quantity. I still have BTJ ranked as a starter, but he’s outside of my top 20 at the position for the first time in a while, and I won’t have any DFS exposure.
Parker Washington, WR
Parker Washington had a 100% catch rate last week, and that allowed him to eke his way into Flex viability in PPR formats, but how comfortable are you in betting on a perfect day at the office in a Mac Jones-led offense?
Washington’s target rate over the past three weeks sits at 12%, a number that isn’t even remotely close to being roster-worthy. If you’re betting on Jacksonville, you’re doing it in chasing Brian Thomas Jr.’s high ceiling. You’re not trying to grind your way to another 11.4 PPR points that come with a disastrous floor.
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, WR
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine had the scoring run earlier in the season, and that was fun while it lasted.
Wait, no it wasn’t. Very few benefited from that binge run; if you’re a mathematically inclined person who writes about this stuff, you were forced to eat your words on a weekly basis.
Not fun. But the past three weeks have been more like it. Yeah, he scored last week, but with just 45 yards on 104 routes over that stretch, I feel vindicated when it comes to the process-based fading of NWI.
Westbrook-Ikhine has a career target rate of 13.7%, a number that is well below my threshold for getting any part of my interest.
Chig Okonkwo, TE
This is why we love fantasy. And why we hate it.
Chig Okonkwo, the same Chig Okonkwo who did not account for a single one of the 707 performances in which a player had 20+ receiving yards in a game through Week 6, is the top-scoring tight end over the past two weeks.
I’ll take the pain to another level and let you know that his 33 PPR points that could have been had for free on the waiver wire are more than Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce combined, a duo you could have used the first two picks of your draft this summer to acquire.
Of course, I don’t think this is sticky, but he does lead the team receptions with Mason Rudolph under center – one more than Calvin Ridley on 41 fewer routes. The bar is low at the position and the matchup is right (the Jaguars are the only team allowing 8+ yards per pass this season) for Okonkwo to move onto the TE1 radar and be trusted as the premier streaming option if he is still available.
Brenton Strange, TE
Updated at 11:30 AM ET on Sunday, December 29
Strange is active for today's game
Brenton Strange put up 18.3 PPR points on plenty of benches in Week 15 and then busted with a 2.2-point outing on Sunday in Las Vegas when we were ready to trust him.
Ugh.
I was ready to fire up “Ponzi Scheme Strange” as a nickname, and I still like the ring it has, but I don’t believe it. The fact of the matter is that the Jaguars simply didn’t view him as valuable in this spot.
One week after being on the field for 80.5% of Jacksonville’s offensive snaps, Strange’s role was reduced to 50.8%, resulting in just 15 routes run. When fully extended, we still have this trend from last week:
Strange’s production in four career games with 20+ routes:
- 12.4 PPR points per game
- 19.6% on-field target share
- 25% target rate in the red zone
I can’t pretend to know what is going on in the Jacksonville coaching rooms, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that scoring seven points on your final nine drives against the Raiders wasn’t the result they were hoping for.
The Titans allow the second-highest opponent passer rating when their opponents reach the red zone (112.7). I’m hopeful that Strange’s participation increases OR that the value of his routes improves — if we get both, that is how you walk into significant DFS value.
He’s too thin of a play for me in season-long formats, but I’m not fully selling in my stock just yet.