Seahawks vs. Colts Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 15

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 15 matchup between the Seahawks and Colts.

Find a breakdown of every Week 15 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Sam Darnold: Darnold is coming off his first 20-point outing since Week 9, carving up an Atlanta defense for 3 touchdowns.

It was also cool to see Seattle let Darnold throw in a one-sided game rather than stick with a run game that wasn't working.

Seattle threw the ball 3% over expectations on Sunday and 11% over expectations on first downs.

They had a 66.7% dropback rate in neutral game script on Sunday, their highest of the season.

I would still prefer Darnold as a floor-based QB2 here who can spike as a back-end QB1, but that provides added confidence that Seattle may be willing to throw the ball more here as massive home favorites.

Part of the reason we liked Darnold so much last week was that he was facing a defense that primarily lived in single-high coverages.

Darnold leads the league in fantasy points per dropback against those looks.

The Colts are more of an even defense, and they could shift towards more zone and two-high coverage with the losses of Sauce Gardner and Charvarius Ward.

Darnold is 23rd in points per dropback against two-high coverages (0.43).

The Colts have only allowed a 60.7% completion rate (6th) and 5.9 yards per pass attempt (2nd) on play-action passes, which have been Darnold’s calling card this year.

Darnold is averaging a league-high 12.4 yards per attempt and 17.9 yards per completion using play action.

The absences of Gardner and Ward open things up, and the Seahawks have a 28-point team total, so there is still plenty of meat on the bone here if you were using Darnold in 1QB formats.

Colts QB: The Colts lost Daniel Jones for the season to an Achilles injury just 16 plays into the game in Jacksonville.

With Anthony Richardson sidelined, Riley Leonard took over, completing 18 of 29 (62.1%) passes for 145 yards (5.0 Y/A) with an interception.

He rushed twice for 5 yards and a touchdown.

Leonard was banged up with a PCL injury afterwards, which prompted the team to reach out to Philip Rivers, who was a semi-finalist on the current Hall of Fame ballot.

Rivers just turned 44 years old on December 8, taking his last NFL snaps in 2020.

There is a lot to unpack here.

The first is that the Colts have lost their first- and second-string quarterbacks to injuries, and their QB3 was dealing with a knee injury after Sunday's game.

Brett Rypien is on the practice squad (since activated).

Part of why they surely reached out to Rivers was that they just lost all of their quarterbacks, and he knows the system.

Shane Steichen was Rivers' offensive coordinator in Los Angeles in 2019.

Rivers was running the same offense for the high school team he was coaching.

At face value, the Colts added a veteran who knows the system.

The second layer is that the Colts are now staring down a potential collapse.

Having been 7-1, they are now 8-5 and could be out of the postseason if they lose out.

There is absolutely a thought process here that they believe Rivers gives them a better chance to win some of the remaining games.

The addition of Rivers is also part commentary on the state of the NFL.

As the position shifted towards post-snap creation and physical traits, pre- and post-snap processing became less common, pushing offenses behind defenses in the current NFL landscape.

Two-high coverages are not a new concept in football, but defenses became better at disguising their post-snap intentions, making it harder for inexperienced quarterbacks reliant on physical traits.

It is no coincidence that we have seen a renaissance among passers who appeared lost at sea and are now finding new life in the league because they can operate at a functional level, understand coverages, and play under center.

That’s why part of me is excited to see that theory pushed to a legitimate extreme such as this.

Is quarterback development in such a bad place that a 44-year-old quarterback who was an elite processor but who has not played in five years can hop right back in and actually be a better option to win games in the current NFL?

That said, I don’t really want to see Rivers come off the shelf and be immediately thrown into this matchup against Seattle on a short week.

The Colts have not named a starter yet, but whoever starts this week is only an option for needy 2QB gamers.

Seattle has a 38.9% pressure rate at home this season (9th).

They allow a league-low 6.2 yards per pass attempt WITHOUT pressure and 5.7 yards per pass attempt when they do get to the quarterback.

If the Colts do give Leonard his first start in this spot, it is not much better.

Rookie quarterbacks are 4-16 in Seattle in the 2000s, completing 55.6% of their passes for 5.4 Y/A with 23 touchdowns and 28 interceptions.

Rookie quarterbacks are 1-7 against Mike Macdonald defenses over his career, completing 61.3% of their passes for 4.9 Y/A with 2 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Running Back

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