It has all come down to this.
In most fantasy football leagues, Week 17 brings with it the championship game. It's Thunderdome time. Two teams enter. One team leaves as champion.
Frankly, getting this far is an accomplishment in and of itself—a culmination of months of roster management and setting solid weekly lineups. But in this moment, no one wants to talk about what has happened. It's all about what will happen this week. One final go-round for all the marbles.
And that makes every call this week a Close Call.
In Week 17, all bets are off. Every lineup decision can be the one that makes or breaks the entire season. Every point can be the difference between eternal glory and infinite disappointment. It's enough to make fantasy managers want to spike the eggnog that's still in the fridge because people buy it despite the fact that no one actually likes it.
Fortunately, Close Calls is here with a little late gift action. Some Boxing Day goodness. Breakdowns of the sort of coin flips that make fantasy managers nervous in weeks where the stakes aren't especially high.
This week? They are enough to make them apoplectic.
Every week here at Footballguys, Close Calls will make a case for a pair of closely-ranked fantasy options and then make the call on which player will be more productive.
For the sake of this exercise, we'll only consider quarterbacks and tight ends outside the top 10, running backs outside the top 20, and wide receivers outside the top 30 in the Footballguys Weekly Rankings.
Week 17 Close Calls
Close Call: Justin Herbert, LA Chargers (QB14) vs. Tyler Shough, New Orleans (QB15)
The Case for Herbert: For a guy with a broken left hand, Herbert looked pretty good against Dallas last week—the sixth-year veteran completed almost 80 percent of his passes, threw for 300 yards, tossed two touchdown passes, and added 42 yards and another score on the ground. Herbert was fourth among all quarterbacks in fantasy points for the week.
The Case for Shough: That a case can be made for Shough at all shows how weird the 2025 campaign has been under center. But after posting the first 300-yard passing game of his career last week against the New York Jets, Shough is quietly eighth among quarterbacks over the past three weeks, ahead of Herbert and Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys.
The Verdict: Shough. This is where we are in 2025. In a vacuum, Herbert would be the easy call. But the Chargers are hosting a Houston Texans team that has allowed the fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks this season, while a Saints team that has won three straight faces a Tennessee Titans team that has allowed the eighth-most points to quarterbacks.
Close Call: Bucky Irving, Tampa Bay (RB22) vs Tyrone Tracy Jr., NY Giants (RB24)
The Case for Irving: The good news with Irving is that he has logged at least 17 touches in each of the last three games. The bad news is that in each of the past two contests, he has failed to hit 75 scrimmage yards. However, facing a Miami Dolphins defense that allows over 130 yards per game on the ground could be just what Irving needs to get back on track.
The Case for Tracy: The Giants have been a dumpster fire much of the season, but Tracy has finished with 16 or more PPR points in three of his previous four games, and since Week 9, the Las Vegas defense has allowed eight total touchdowns and the ninth-most fantasy points to opposing running backs.
The Verdict: Irving. Frankly, both of these backs have a good shot at delivering decent RB2 numbers this week. Both have essentially identical favorable fantasy matchups. But the Buccaneers are clinging to postseason aspirations by the slimmest of threads, and that motivation gives Irving the edge here.
