Fantasy Football: 3 Passing Games to Avoid for the Playoffs

Jacksonville Jaguars

Week 14: vs. Minnesota

Week 15: at Houston

Week 16: vs. Tennessee

Thursday's loss to the Tennessee Titans was the most Blake Bortles game of all time. He heard all the "Brock Osweiler is the worst quarterback in the NFL" talk and spent three quarters saying "Hey, don't forget about me!" before doing his garbage-time routine.

Despite all of Bortles' terrible real-life play -- among the 32 quarterbacks to drop back at least 100 times this year, he entered Week 8 ranked 27th in Passing NEP per drop back -- he has still been a useful fantasy option, currently sitting 11th in fantasy points per game.

But he's going to be very hard to trust in the fantasy playoffs with three difficult matchups. As we just covered, the Minnesota Vikings aren't playing around this year. If they can make Aaron Rodgers and the Packers' offense look bad, Bortles is screwed.

Plus, the Houston Texans and Titans have quality defenses. Yes, Bortles just racked up 29.68 fantasy points against Tennessee, but if the game was closer -- like even remotely competitive -- and the Titans weren't playing such conservative defense in the final stanza, Bortles' probably wouldn't have put up those kinds of numbers. After all, he was a mere 20 of 38 for 207 yards and 1 score with 8:07 to play.

The Texans are giving up the seventh-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks and fourth-fewest points to wideouts. Per our metrics, they have the ninth-ranked defense, and they're the sixth-best unit against the pass.

Three rugged matchups for one of the league's worst passing games -- the Jags have the fourth-worst passing offense, according to our metrics -- make Bortles, Allen Robinson, Allen Hurns and Julius Thomas tough starts down the stretch.