Finding The Top Week 15 Fantasy Football Pickups With Predictive Analytics: Ty Chandler, Matthew Stafford, Chase Brown

Let's take a look at fantasy football's most popular waiver wire options heading into Week 15! We can use the Predictive Analytics tool in the FantasySP Fantasy Assistant to help identify the top candidates. This tool predicts the Expected Waiver Interest (EWI) for every player, plus predicts their new rostership level following this week's waiver moves. Here are its current predictions for this week:

We are officially in the fantasy football playoff season, which changes my approach to waivers. I've done a more in-depth breakdown of playoff strategies, but the main two points are simple: pay extra attention to matchups, and focus your bench slots and roster moves on contingent upside. This means rostering players like handcuffs and defenses with good upcoming matchups instead of more traditional backups. Keep that in mind when you're making your wavier moves. Without further ado, let's get right into the hottest pickups of Week 15.

Top Predicted Week 15 Fantasy Football Adds

Ty Chandler, Minnesota Vikings

Just like last week, the top option is a no-brainer. At this stage of the season, if a running back goes down and their backup sees a dominant workload in their absence, that backup must be the top pickup of the week. It doesn't matter how talented (or not talented) they are, or how bad the offense they are on is. Volume is king. And, as we saw with Ezekiel Elliott last week, sometimes a team's RB2 can, somewhat paradoxically, get a larger workload than their RB1 was seeing when that RB1 goes down, because they don't have to compete with themselves for touches. Ty Chandler may be in that exact kind of situation. We don't want to draw too much from a small sample size, but he saw eight of 11 carries (73%) and three targets (a 12% target share) on an 83% snap share after Alexander Mattison went down on Sunday. That's elite usage.

With that in mind, it's not surprising that Chandler is atop our list with a 42% EWI. It is worth noting that the Vikings' offense was putrid in Week 14, managing just three points as Joshua Dobbs was eventually benched for Nick Mullens. But, and sorry for over-doing the Zeke comparisons, the Patriots were coming off a zero-point game before putting up 21 points (while Zeke also scored 20+ in all formats) on the Steelers on Thursday. Is it just a coincidence that Chandler will also be playing his next game on a Thursday? Yes, but it also doesn't hurt that he gets to face the Chargers, who allow the 11th-most points to RBs. Chandler is deservedly the top add this week, and I don't hate plugging him immediately into your lineup if you need help at RB.

Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams

Stafford has been very productive over the last three weeks, scoring between 22 and 24 fantasy points and throwing for at least three touchdowns in every game. This is made even more impressive by the fact that his last two matchups came against the Browns and Ravens, arguably the two best defenses in the league. Those tough matchups likely kept him from being added in too many leagues, but no longer, as his healthy 39% EWI ranks second among all players.

And, speaking of matchups, Stafford has an absolutely juicy one this week. The Commanders allow the second most fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks and have, for my money, the absolute worst secondary of any team. Our Week 15 Projections have Stafford as the QB9, and I might be willing to have him higher than that. Stafford (and all his weapons) finally seems to be fully healthy, and he is absolutely dealing. My only word of warning is that he projects more as a fringe QB1 or high-end QB2 in Weeks 16 and 17 against the Saints and Giants, so don't necessarily rush to add him if you're not planning to start him this week. But if you're looking for a quarterback play for this week, it doesn't get better in terms of who might be available on the waiver wire.

Chase Brown, Cincinnati Bengals

Brown ranks third in EWI, just behind Stafford at 37%. However, unlike with Stafford, my take on Brown is going to be a bit more nuanced, so bear with me. The first part of my take is this: You should not be targeting Brown if you are looking for a running back to plug into your lineup. Yes, the rookie is flashing talent now that he's finally healthy, and yes he just finished as a top-10 RB in Week 14. But he has never cracked even 30% in either snap share or rush share, nor seen more than three targets, in an NFL game. I don't care how deep your league is; there simply has to be someone you can find to start with better usage than that. 

With that said, I absolutely don't hate adding Brown this week, as long as you're realistic about why you're doing it. He's not a plug-and-play RB, but Brown's recent breakout (plus the surprisingly competent play of Jake Browning) does make him one of the best handcuffs in the league. And if you've read any of my articles, you know how I feel about stashing handcuffs at this time of the season (If you haven't, it's good; I feel good about stashing handcuffs). If Joe Mixon were to miss time for any reason, Brown would likely force his way into your playoff lineup, and that is exactly the kind of player to have on your bench at this point of the season.