Fantasy Football Week 15 quarterback rankings: Can Trevor Lawrence keep rolling vs. the Cowboys defense?

Josh Allen and Tua Tagovailoa are among the issues raising worries

By Chris Towers

Dec 18, 2022 at 11:11 am ET • 4 min read

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Before we get to the rankings for Week 15, let's tackle some of the biggest questions Fantasy players are facing at quarterback heading into the Fantasy playoffs, beginning with one about a guy you thought you might never have to question this season:

Is Trevor Lawrence's leap for real?

These are the kinds of situations that tend to be tougher to judge, because there hasn't been an obvious change in game plan for Lawrence lately -- he's just playing at a much higher level right now. Lawrence is obviously a talented player, so he very well could keep this level of performance up, but it also just may be a hot streak. Lawrence has 10 touchdowns to no interceptions over his past five games, while completing 71.8% of his passes, and he's really playing at a very high level -- I'd argue his performances against Baltimore and Tennessee in the past three games have been the very best of his short career. But the matchups -- vs. DAL, @NYJ -- over the next two weeks are very challenging, and I'd view him as more of a low-end QB1 for those two. If he succeeds there, though, the Texans in Week 17 could be a championship-winning matchup.

Is Brock Purdy worth using?

That being said, I'm not ready to put someone like Purdy ahead of Tagovailoa. He's been pretty solid in his first two games, tossing two touchdowns in each (one in relief of Jimmy Garoppolo). However, he also just lost Deebo Samuel (knee/ankle) and is coming off a game where he threw the ball just 21 times in a blowout win. The 49ers didn't want to throw much when they had Jimmy Garoppolo in at QB, so I would imagine their ideal game plan with Purdy still sees 25 or so pass attempts most weeks. He's still got great weapons -- and a pretty terrific matchup with the Seahawks this week, too -- but I'm not ready to put Purdy higher than the mid-range QB2 tier.

Can you trust Deshaun Watson?

Watson was a bit better in Week 14 than his first start, but it was still a pretty conservative game plan -- Watson's average intended air yards actually fell from 6.3 yards per attempt to 5.5, with just 12 of his 42 attempts traveling 10 or more yards past the line of scrimmage -- making his lackluster 61.9% completion percentage look even worse. He still looks very rusty, he hasn't been able to get on the same page as Amari Cooper, and while the Ravens have been vulnerable against the pass at times, I haven't seen near enough to trust him yet. He's just a QB2 still.

Is Josh Allen still one of the elite QBs in Fantasy?

Allen hasn't been bad lately, but there's been a marked decline in his production since his elbow injury, with just one 300-yard passing game in his past seven games, and only three multi-touchdown games in that span. He's still reached 20 points in six-point-per-pass-TD scoring in all but one game, but has topped 30 just once as well. I think we're seeing the Bills protect Allen a bit with his injury, but I think we're also seeing him struggle a bit with his accuracy (60.6% completion percentage over the past seven games), while the Bills lack of reliable weapons outside Stefon Diggs has been a bit exposed. The Bills could go a long way toward locking up the AFC East with a win against the Dolphins this week, and they might continue to ease the burden on Allen's arm if that's the case. He's still a must-start guy, but he just might not be the massive weekly edge he once was.

Can Tua Tagovailoa turn things around?

In consecutive weeks, the 49ers and Chargers have made Tagovailoa's life extremely tough by disrupting Miami's timing. Both teams have adopted a more aggressive press coverage approach, helped along by Miami's offensive line issues. And now he gets the Bills, Packers, and Patriots in quick succession to close out the Fantasy season, all of whom rank among the 11-best in Fantasy scoring allowed to quarterbacks this season. The struggles the past two weeks could just be the result of bad matchups at a time when Miami is especially struggling with its line, though that excuse makes a lot less sense for the struggles against the lowly Chargers with Terron Armstead healthy. I still have faith in the skill players and the offensive system, but Tagovialoa no longer feels like a slam dunk top-10 QB like he did just a few weeks ago.

Here are my initial rankings for the QB position for Week 15: