Fantasy Football Week 16: Fantasy Owners Must Sit Bryce Brown

Bryce Brown has a tough matchup in Week 16 against the Washington Redskins, but the Philadelphia Eagles rookie running back shouldn’t start for your fantasy team even if he was facing the New Orleans Saints.

Brown made a splash onto the fantasy scene in Week 12 when he topped 175 total yards and scored a pair of touchdowns against the Carolina Panthers. His production was so valuable (189 total yards, two touchdowns on 23 touches) that his fumbling problems were negligible—he was still a monstrous fantasy presence.

When he followed it up with a similar outing (183 total yards, two touchdowns) against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 13, Brown looked an awful lot like a must-start running back with LeSean McCoy sidelined due to a concussion.

Then, he threw up a pair of undesirable fantasy performances against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Cincinnati Bengals in Weeks 14 and 15, respectively, and the fumblitis didn’t go away. That made Brown’s fantasy prospects weaken considerably—but not as much as splitting carries with McCoy against a top-10 fantasy defense against RBs does.

McCoy is due back from his concussion in Week 16. Brown has shown the Eagles coaching staff enough to have earned more carries in the team’s final two games. Philadelphia will at least be able to showcase his talent to the rest of the league for trading purposes and/or understand whether they can trust him with ball security going forward.

But that doesn’t mean he’ll lead the team in carries.

McCoy’s injury isn’t the kind of ailment that Philly will have to ease him back from—meaning that when he’s ready to play, he’ll be able to handle whatever kind of workload the Eagles desire for him to have. Given Andy Reid’s frustrating tendency to withhold touches from McCoy even while healthy, it’s possible that Brown does lead the Eagles in carries.

He’s unlikely to get more than 15, though, and it’s hard to trust a guy with a fractured—and uncertain—workload over resurfacing fantasy options like Knowshon Moreno. It’s safer to look elsewhere for your fantasy production in Week 16.

For more fantasy football analysis, follow Jamal on Twitter: Follow @StatManJ