NFL Week 16 Fantasy Football Recap: Los Angeles Chargers vs. Indianapolis Colts

The Los Angeles Chargers win utilizing their best players: Keenan Allen and Mike Williams led the team in yards while Austin Ekeler scored both touchdowns in a Los Angeles victory.
Zack Moss becomes the Indianapolis Colts’ preferred running back: Moss started in the first game since Jonathan Taylor’s season-ending injury.
Colts still don’t have an answer at quarterback: Nick Foles made his first start for Indianapolis, but he threw three interceptions and only reached 100 yards in the middle of the fourth quarter.

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Los Angeles Chargers @ Indianapolis Colts

Austin Ekeler: 18 carries, 67 yards, 2 touchdowns, 4 receptions, 12 receiving yards
Keenan Allen: 11 receptions, 104 yards

Zack Moss leads the Colts backfield: Moss played the majority of snaps and touches out of the Colts running backs in their first full back without Jonathan Taylor.

Moss and Deon Jackson rotated every few snaps immediately after Taylor’s injury last week, but Moss started to take over their backfield in the second half.
This led Moss to start the game and take each of the first seven snaps.
Jordan Wilkins was signed to the active roster on Tuesday. He’s traditionally been a third-down back but served as the general backup for this game.
This pushed Deon Jackson down to third on the depth chart. Jackson’s first catch went for a nine-yard loss, and he didn’t touch the ball again until the last five minutes of the game.
It’s safe to assume Moss will be the Colts' primary running back next week.
Indianapolis plays the New York Giants next week. Each of the last seven teams to face New York registered at least 80 rushing yards by their running backs.
This will make Moss a borderline fantasy starter and a big waiver wire option for a second-straight week.

Monitor Ashton Dulin’s health: Dulin took a hit from Derwin James in the second quarter, which led to James’ ejection. Dulin was placed in the concussion protocol and was quickly ruled out.

Dulin has served as the Colts' fourth wide receiver over their last six games, playing between 20-35% of the team's offensive snaps each week.
His snaps typically came at both Parris Campbell and Alec Pierce‘s expense.
Michael Strachan was active — he’s played 124 offensive snaps this season — but he didn’t play any offensive snaps in this game.
Dulin’s injury led to a slight increase in snaps by both Campbell and Pierce.
This didn’t necessarily lead to more fantasy production by either receiver due to the ineffective play of the Colts' passing game in general.
Even if Dulin misses next week’s game, Campbell nor Pierce is probably worth consideration, but they will have a slightly higher upside.

Colts tight end room without Kylen Granson: Granson was inactive due to an ankle injury, leading to the Colts' other tight ends seeing more playing time.

Granson also missed Week 12 — the game Jelani Woods caught eight passes for 98 yards.
The Colts were more balanced between Woods and Mo Alie-Cox this time around.
Woods played slightly more on early downs, but Alie-Cox was consistently in for third downs.
Woods took over in the fourth quarter playing in all 13 snaps. Alie-Cox played only one snap in the fourth quarter in a two-tight end set.
He ended up leading the team in receiving yards by catching three passes for 43 yards.
Nick Foles has a history of throwing to tight ends, so as long as he’s the quarterback, the tight ends have a slightly higher upside than usual.
This won’t be enough to trust any tight end from the Colts in fantasy championships, but they could be high-upside cheap DFS plays.

Chargers switch to a four-man tight end rotation: Los Angeles used all four of its active tight ends at various points in the game.

Gerald Everett already started running fewer routes due to Donald Parham‘s return, but Parham became even more involved.
Everett had run 33 or more routes in over half of his games, but he wasn’t close to that number in this game.
He has primarily played in 11 personnel in the past, but both Parham and Tre’ McKitty took significant snaps from that personnel group.
All four tight ends played at least one snap from 11 personnel on third downs in this game.
McKitty and Parham both caught a pass, but Everett was held without a target.
Everett was already a borderline fantasy starter at this point, but he might be more of a sit than a start in Week 17.

Table Notes

• Snaps include plays called back due to penalties, including offensive holding or defensive pass interference. The other three stats have these plays removed.

• Targets may differ from official NFL sources. The most likely discrepancy would be from a clear thrown-away pass, where the NFL may give the target to the nearest receiver, while this data will not.

• Carries are only on designed plays. Quarterback scrambles won’t count for the total number of carries in the game.