It’s Week 15 of the 2025 NFL season and you’re likely into the fantasy football playoffs in your league — or on the verge of the postseason. If that’s the case and you’re reading this, you’re in need of a defense to stream in matchup. Here are some good options via Justin Boone’s weekly waiver wire column.
Team
Next Up
Rostered
Jaguars
vs. NYJ
36%
Cowboys
vs. MIN
11%
Bears
vs. CLE
22%
49ers
vs. TEN
24%
Panthers
at NO
4%
Jaguars vs. Jets: Jacksonville is an excellent streaming option for Week 15 for your matchup. Not only have the Jaguars performed well, posting at least seven fantasy points in each of the past five games, but also have a great matchup vs. the Jets. New York is allowing the 10th-most fantasy points to opposing defenses this season and might be starting their third-string QB.
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Cowboys vs. Vikings: Dallas’ defense is much improved from the unit we saw earlier in the season. The Vikings are also allowing the most fantasy points to opposing defenses this season.
Bears vs. Browns: Chicago will be hungry coming off the loss to Green Bay in need of a win at home to keep pace in the NFC playoff race. Browns rookie QB Shedeur Sanders has turned the ball over in three of his four games this season and is taking 2.0 sacks per game.
49ers vs. Titans: We’re picking on another weak offense in the Titans. San Francisco is also coming off a bye week and are still in play to win the NFC West. Tennessee rookie QB Cam Ward has thrown a pick in seven games this season.
Panthers at Saints: Another team coming off the bye, the Panthers should be well-rested and have a shot to win the NFC South. Carolina also has at least seven fantasy points in four of its past seven games.
It’s Week 15 and we’re into the fantasy football playoffs for most leagues. If you’ve made your leagues postseason, congratulations! Despite your performance, you may still be looking to stream a kicker this week. Here we’ll go through some options at kicker via Justin Boone’s weekly waiver wire column.
Player
Next Up
Rostered
Eddy Pineiro*
vs. TEN
8%
Riley Patterson
at PIT
5%
Cairo Santos
vs. CLE
23%
Cam Little is 59% rostered but would be the No. 1 K add if available.
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Evan McPherson is 51% rostered but would be the No. 2 K add if available.
Eddy Pineiro vs. Titans: If Pineiro isn’t healthy, then Matt Gay (6% rostered) would take his place. But if the 49ers’ kicker is good to go, he’s in a great spot against Tennessee, which allows the 10th-most fantasy points to kickers this season.
Riley Patterson at Steelers: The Dolphins take on Pittsburgh in primetime in Week 15 and Patterson is a great streaming option with a safe floor. He’s posted double-digit fantasy totals in three straight weeks and doesn’t have fewer than six fantasy points in a game since Week 3.
Cairo Santos vs. Browns: The Bears’ kicker won’t give you too much of a ceiling but has a great floor if you’re in a bind. Santos has at least six fantasy points in 10 of 11 games he’s played this season.
“I’m coming back, I’ll be back,” Reed said, nodding his head with a smile.
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Reed is having a career year in his first full season as the Aggies’ starter. In Reed’s redshirt sophomore year, he has thrown for 2,932 yards, 25 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Reed has also added 466 yards and six touchdowns on the ground.
Texas A&M’s wide receiver duo of Mario Craver and Kevin Concepcion and running back Rueben Owens II have taken pressure off Reed on offense. Craver and Concepcion combined for 1,711 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns. Owens has rushed for 618 yards and five touchdowns. On defense, the Aggies are tied with Oklahoma for the most sacks in the country with 41.
Reed’s success helped lead Texas A&M to an 11-1 season and a spot in the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history. The No. 7 Aggies will host the No. 10 Miami Hurricanes in the first round of the CFP on Dec. 20.
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At the beginning of last season, Reed backed up former Aggies quarterback Conner Weigman. After a slow start in last season’s LSU game, Weigman was benched in favor of Reed. Reed found a way to win the game 38-23 despite being down 10 in the third quarter and only throwing twice.
Reed finished the game 2 for 2 for 70 yards passing, adding another 62 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. Reed started the majority of the season after that. Reed finished his redshirt freshman season throwing for 1,864 yards, 15 touchdowns and 6 interceptions.
The Los Angeles Chargers have been plagued by injuries this season, but now they’re about to get one of their biggest names back.
The Chargers officially activated rookie running back Omarion Hampton off injured reserve Monday. Hampton, the Chargers’ 2025 first-round draft pick, has not played since suffering an ankle injury in Week 5. He was placed on injured reserve on Oct. 7 and had his 21-day practice window opened two weeks ago.
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Hampton is expected to suit up against the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Hampton was selected 22nd overall out of North Carolina last April. He rushed for 314 yards and two touchdowns at a 4.8 yards per attempt clip through the five games he’s played.
The Chargers have lost both tackles, Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt, among a spate of other injuries this season but are currently sixth in the AFC playoff picture at 8-4, though they need a win tonight to have any hope of catching the Denver Broncos in the AFC West race.
Ravens offensive lineman Ben Cleveland has been suspended for three games without pay for violating the NFL’s Substances of Abuse policy, the team announced on Monday.
Cleveland was arrested in February on suspicion of driving under the influence, and according to The Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec, Cleveland recently plea-bargained and was put on probation.
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Cleveland hasn’t played since the Ravens’ Nov. 16 win over the Browns; he’s been a healthy scratch over the past few weeks. With the suspension, Cleveland will miss the Ravens’ upcoming matchups against the Bengals, Patriots and Packers, and would be eligible for the final regular-season game against the Steelers.
Cleveland was drafted by the Ravens in the third round in 2021, and has played in 64 games over the past five seasons.
After Sunday’s loss to the Steelers, Baltimore trails Pittsburgh in the AFC North.
It’s no surprise Notre Dame is miffed after being surprisingly left out of the College Football Playoff bracket Sunday. The school’s athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, told Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger as much in the hours following the Fighting Irish’s snub, saying, “We feel like the playoff was stolen from our student-athletes.”
With the wound still fresh, Bevacqua, like many others, took aim at the lack of consistency with the weekly ranking shows and selection committee, which jumped Miami over Notre Dame at the last possible second, giving the Hurricanes a spot in the CFP.
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A day later, however, Bevacqua found a new target for his ire: the ACC. Bevacqua appeared on “The Dan Patrick Show” on Monday and claimed the ACC did “permanent damage” to its relationship with Notre Dame, declaring that it pushed for Miami to secure a spot in the CFP bracket.
“We were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack their biggest business partner in football and a member of their conference in 24 of our other sports. … They have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame.”
Patrick then asked Bevacqua to clarify that final comment, which led to the following response from the Notre Dame athletic director:
“We didn’t appreciate the fact that we were singled out repeatedly and compared to Miami, not by Miami, Miami has every right to do that. But it raised a lot of eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us.”
Throughout the interview, Bevacqua made sure to express he wasn’t upset with Miami or any other ACC team. It was the conference’s alleged actions that have him angry.
“The University of Notre Dame is an incredibly valued member of the ACC, and there is tremendous respect and appreciation for the entire institution,” Phillips’ statement reads. “With that said, when it comes to football, we have a responsibility to support and advocate for all 17 of our football-playing member institutions, and I stand behind our conference efforts to do just that leading up to the College Football Playoff Committee selections on Sunday.
“At no time was it suggested by the ACC that Notre Dame was not a worthy candidate for inclusion in the field. We are thrilled for the University of Miami while also understanding and appreciating the significant disappointment of the Notre Dame players, coaches and program.”
Notre Dame outraged over CFP exclusion
As Bevacqua also pointed out, while many different Notre Dame sports play in the ACC, Notre Dame football does not full-time. Though it does play multiple ACC football games per season.
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It remains one of the only big-name teams without an official conference. The university has faced criticism for that decision, as Notre Dame cannot play for a conference championship due to … not being in a conference. Winning a conference could have gone a long way toward Notre Dame getting into the CFP, but it wasn’t an option for the program.
Losing a conference championship might also impact a team’s ranking, though that didn’t seem to matter much following Alabama‘s loss to Georgia on Saturday in the SEC championship. Despite losing by multiple touchdowns, Alabama jumped Notre Dame to make the CFP.
Bevacqua still couldn’t understand why that was the case Monday.
Bevacqua also reiterated many of the points he expressed to Yahoo Sports on Sunday, saying he doesn’t understand how the selection committee made the decision to snub Notre Dame and claiming the university had the rug pulled out from under it.
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He also spoke about the team’s decision to decline a bowl game invite following the CFP snub, saying it came down to Notre Dame’s captains.
Despite a fantastic season, in which the team went 10-2, Notre Dame will not take part in a bowl game. It’s an unfortunate result considering Notre Dame — despite the CFP snub — remains one of the best teams in the nation.
But it’s clear the snub did damage to both the university and its players. And it might have even caused a rift between Notre Dame and the ACC, which could lead to some unpleasantness when the Fighting Irish’s other sports teams gear up for conference games.
Sorry, Florida! Tough break, Kansas! Better luck next year, North Carolina!
History suggests you’ve already been eliminated from national title contention.
Those teams are each outside the top dozen in Monday’s newly released Week 6 AP Top 25, a poll that has been a surprisingly accurate tool when predicting men’s college basketball’s eventual national champion. The past 21 national champions and 35 of the past 36 were each ranked in the top 12 in their respective season’s Week 6 AP poll.
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Since the 2003-04 season, the average Week 6 ranking of the eventual national title winner has been 4.9. As former ESPN college basketball writer John Gasaway was the first to note, no other week during the season has been a better barometer, not even the polls that come out in late February or early March.
The average preseason rank of the past 21 eventual national champions has been 10.0. The last 21 national champions have had an average ranking of 5.5 in the final AP poll before the NCAA tournament begins.
The last time a team outside the top 12 in Week 6 made a national championship run, freshman Carmelo Anthony was leading Jim Boeheim to his lone title at Syracuse. The late-blooming 2002-03 Orange didn’t enter the AP Top 25 until mid-January but caught fire during the second half of the season.
Before that, you have to go all the way back to Danny Manning’s 1987-88 Kansas team to find another national champion that didn’t crack the Week 6 AP top 12. Those 11-loss Jayhawks earned the nickname “Danny and the Miracles” when they went from a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament to winning the national title.
If history is an indicator, the men’s national champion will come from this list. (Yahoo Sports)
What’s so special about the Week 6 AP poll? Why has it outperformed other polls when seeking to identify the team that will soon be climbing ladders and cutting down nets?
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It’s easy to explain why the Week 6 poll is more predictive than the Week 1-5 iterations. By early December, most high-majors have played at least a few games against fellow power-conference programs. There is more data available to help separate contenders and pretenders than there previously was in November.
Take Kentucky, which began the season at No. 9 but has since tumbled out of the Top 25. The Wildcats have yet to defeat anyone with a pulse, falling to Louisville, Michigan State and North Carolina before their own fans booed them early and often in Nashville during a humiliating 94-59 loss to Gonzaga.
Conversely, top-ranked Arizona, second-ranked Michigan and fourth-ranked Iowa State have so far outperformed expectations. The Wildcats boast victories over the likes of UConn, Florida, UCLA and Auburn. The Wolverines annihilated Gonzaga by 40 points to win the prestigious Players Era tournament title in late November. The Cyclones demolished previous No. 1 Purdue on Saturday at venerable Mackey Arena.
The more vexing question is why the Week 6 poll has proven as reliable or more than AP voters’ late-season evaluations. In theory, three more months of games should provide a richer understanding of which teams are truly elite. In reality, many of the teams that prove themselves national-championship caliber in November and December never drop out of the AP top 10 the rest of the season.
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UConn’s juggernaut 2024 national title team never fell out of the AP top five after Week 6. Nor did fellow recent champions Baylor in 2021, Virginia in 2019 or Villanova in 2018. Last year’s Florida team rose to No. 9 in the AP poll by Week 6 and then essentially kept on climbing the rest of the season.
Which team this season is most likely to go from outside the top 12 this week to hoisting a championship trophy at the end of the season?
One potential threat is 19th-ranked Kansas, which is 7-3 with victories over Tennessee, Syracuse, Notre Dame and Missouri despite having projected No. 1 pick Darryn Peterson for just three games so far this season. If Peterson can stay healthy, he can carry the offense for a team that already has shown a high ceiling defensively.
Don’t discount reigning national champion Florida either. The 18th-ranked Gators returned every frontcourt rotation player and restocked their backcourt via the transfer portal. Florida lost by a single point at undefeated Duke last Tuesday despite Xaivian Lee enduring a nightmarish 1-for-10 shooting night. If the Gators can get better shooting and playmaking out of Lee, they’re still capable of contending in the SEC and nationally.
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Undefeated Vanderbilt is the highest-rated team in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings that is outside the top 12 in the latest AP poll. The Commodores, eighth in KenPom but 15th according to AP voters, have clobbered Saint Mary’s, VCU and SMU but have yet to face a fellow Top 25 team.
BetMGM lists Florida and Kansas among its dozen national title favorites. North Carolina (No. 14), Illinois (13), Arkansas (17), Vanderbilt and St. John’s (22) are not far behind.
Those bets are each at least 20-to-1 long shots. If any of them come through, it will mean defying 20-plus years of history.
Jauan Jennings thinks that Shelby Harris is leaving something out.
Jennings responded to criticism from the Cleveland Browns defensive tackle on Monday after an incident between Jennings and the Browns defense earlier this month. That came on the heels of Jennings smacking Carolina Panthers safety Tre’Von Moehrig earlier this season, too.
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“He said some things, so why he ain’t saying what he said?” Jennings said of Harris, via ESPN’s Nick Wagoner. “I do know it ain’t that bad. That’s what I do know. I’m just going to keep it to myself of what I said, but I know it wasn’t that bad and he knows that.”
Jennings walked up to Moehrig after the San Francisco 49ers’ 20-9 win over the Panthers last month and smacked him in the helmet twice. Moehrig was suspended for a single game following that incident after video surfaced of him punching Jennings in the crotch earlier in the game. Jennings was not penalized.
The next week, during the 49ers’ 26-8 win over the Browns, Jennings was spotted exchanging words with the Cleveland defense. While there was no physical incident like with Moehrig, Harris called Jennings out with some very strong words postgame.
“He’s a hoe, and I want that known. Like, I see why he got punched in the nuts,” Harris said. “He said some things that you should not say to another man, ever. But like I don’t respect it ‘cause you said that then run behind your O-line. That’s some real soft s**t. … I see exactly why they punched him in the nuts. I’m surprised nobody punched him in the jaw yet.”
Though he doesn’t sound willing to engage much further, Jennings has clearly upset quite a few people across the league in just a matter of weeks.
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Jennings has 458 receiving yards and five touchdowns so far this season, his fifth in the league. The 49ers will enter Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans with a 9-4 record, and are coming off their bye week following a three-game win streak. Though they are still in third in the NFC West standings, the 49ers are not out of the division race yet and are on pace to secure a playoff spot for the first time since their Super Bowl run during the 2023 campaign.
Desmond Bane’s decision to launch a ball at OG Anunoby is going to cost him.
The NBA fined Bane $35,000 on Monday, one day after he launched a ball at Anunoby during the Orlando Magic’s 106-100 loss to the New York Knicks. The move resulted in a small altercation at Madison Square Garden and a technical foul.
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Midway through the fourth quarter of that contest, Bane was chasing down Anunoby on a fast break. While Jalen Suggs appeared to block Anunoby at the rim, both guys went tumbling down under the basket. Bane came running up behind, grabbed the ball and launched it at Anunoby.
It wasn’t just a little toss, either. Bane, who wasn’t falling out of bounds himself, wound up and fired the ball at Anunoby’s back hard before pointing at the officials as if the ball was out on Anunoby.
Anunoby got up and shoved Bane in the chest, but the two were quickly separated. Bane was hit with a technical foul, and the game continued on.
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This marks the second such incident with Bane in as many months. Bane was ejected from the team’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks in early November after he launched a ball toward Onyeka Okongwu’s head. That one appeared far less conspicuous, but resulted in him getting ejected for both a flagrant foul and an ensuing technical.
Bane finished with 16 points on Sunday in the loss. The 27-year-old is averaging 18.3 points, 4.5 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game this season, his first with the Magic.
Jalen Brunson led the Knicks with 30 points and nine assists in the win, which pushed them to 13-1 at home this season. Anunoby finished with 21 points and seven rebounds, and Josh Hart added 17 points and 12 rebounds.
Until Monday morning, there was serious doubt as to whether Christian Pulisic would even be in uniform for AC Milan’s Serie A match at Torino. Not only did the American attacker overcome illness to pull on a kit, he came off the bench in the second half and scored twice in a 10-minute span as Milan came from behind for a 3-2 victory.
Pulisic entered in the 66th minute, scored the equalizer in the 67th, then posted the winner 10 minutes later for the visitors, who ran their Serie A unbeaten streak to 13 and claimed first place on goal differential over Napoli. The Pennsylvania native has scored seven league goals in nine appearances and nine goals across 12 matches in all competitions.
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Pulisic had missed last weekend’s home victory over Lazio with a minor leg injury before returning for a brief appearance Thursday in the Coppa Italia rematch with the Roman club.
A fever and flu-like symptoms threw his availability Monday into question, but after being cleared to play early in the day, he made an immediate impact.
According to Stats Perform, he is the third U.S. national team player this century to score multiple goals as a sub in a European top-five league (England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France). The others were Charlie Davies (Sochaux/France) in 2009 and Folarin Balogun (Monaco/France) last year.
On his first goal, Pulisic settled Alexis Saelemaekers’ left-side cross and slid a left-footed shot from eight yards into the far corner.
Ten minutes later, he glided unmarked into the heart of the penalty area as Samuele Ricci crossed from the right side. With another left-footer, Pulisic one-timed a 10-yard shot into the right corner.
In league play, he leads Milan in goals, two ahead of Rafael Leão, and is tied with three others for most assists (two).
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In his third season in Italy since leaving Chelsea, Pulisic has recorded 30 goals in 79 league appearances and 41 in 112 overall.
Pulisic’s form at Milan this season bodes well for the U.S. national team, which will reconvene in late March for friendlies against Belgium and Portugal — the last camp before the World Cup squad is finalized in May.
Pulisic was limited to 48 minutes over two friendlies in the October international window because of injuries and missed last month’s window to focus on his fitness.