For most fantasy football leagues, this is it. Week 17, the penultimate Sunday of the 2022 regular season, will decide the who reigns supreme and who settles for second place.
And, like always, it’s a mess. Injuries and lineup changes have shunted the stars fantasy managers hoped could carry them to glory to the sideline. A shaky crop of running backs will be pressed into action once more. Brock Purdy will duel with Jarrett Stidham as starting quarterbacks. The Baltimore Ravens will attempt something resembling a passing game with the zombie remains of their preseason depth chart.
Navigating this minefield of injuries and late-season decisions from teams with lost playoff hopes isn’t easy. There’s still time to tinker with your lineup, remove the zeroes from your projected score, and pull an unlikely hero from the scrap heap and into a winning lineup.
Here’s who is officially in and out for Week 17’s NFL games.
Inactive
QB Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins
The fantasy replacement: Teddy Bridgewater will take over for the Dolphins but has been unremarkable as a fantasy option this fall. Mike White, returning to the Jets’ lineup, is rostered in only 26 percent of Yahoo! leagues and put up big numbers his first two starts of 2022. Now he gets a fading Seattle defense and a chance to secure his place as New York’s QB1 (for the time being).
QB Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
The fantasy replacement: If you rolled with Gardner Minshew last week, it’s time to keep rolling. The mustachioed QB threw for 355 yards and two touchdowns last week against a top five Cowboys defense. Now he gets a good, not great, Saints squad.
WR DeAndre Hopkins, Arizona Cardinals
The fantasy replacement: Hopkins wasn’t expected to play, so hopefully you took care of his replacement earlier in the week before the pickings at wideout got truly grim. Otherwise, Hunter Renfrow is available in 78 percent of Yahoo! leagues and coming off a seven-target performance. His ability to create space near the line of scrimmage could be a boon for Jarrett Stidham — and lead to big PPR value even if he doesn’t rack up much yardage.
RB Antonio Gibson, Washington Commanders
The fantasy replacement: Gibson’s fantasy value has waned in recent weeks and he’s been generally unreliable, but if you somehow made it to your fantasy championship with him in the lineup … congrats? Anyway, things are grim so maybe you roll the dice on the Texans’ triumvirate of bad running backs — Royce Freeman, Dare Ogunbowale or Rex by-god Burkhead — and hope one scores a touchdown (I’d lean Ogunbowale for no reason other than general Texans-Jaguars chaos).
Active and expected to play
WR Chris Olave, New Orleans Saints
RB Rhamondre Stevenson, New England Patriots
WR Jerry Jeudy, Denver Broncos
QB Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars
TE Hunter Henry, New England Patriots
