Week 18 Healthy Scratch Averages 2025

[Goodell]

Last off-season we had a discussion/vote about healthy scratches in Week 18, particularly for players who were on playoff-clinching teams that didn't have anything to play for in the final week of the season and rested their best players.

https://fangm.com/sportstalk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1939
The conclusion was...

just for week 18 and just for players not on the injury report for actual injuries we'll treat those cases for skill position players like a bye week and I'll calculate individual averages on a case-by-case basis for that.

It's kind of a messy situation in my opinion and perhaps filled with some subjective calls at times, and I'm not a fan of that at all preferring league rules be very black-and-white and not subject to potential favoritism or controversy, just uploading exact data lists from the league as we do in about all other cases by design. But we'll implement as best we can.

For this first time, I'm going to ask for some assistance in gathering the list of:

- Players marked "out" on the NFL.com/injuries official list who shouldn't be because they were being rested on a playoff-clinching team. Most of the time coaches put those players as "doubtful" but we had one case last year where one franchise put them as "out". Looking at that official list, I think all guys marked as "coaching decisions" are not listed as "out" but most "doubtful". As we don't mark down for doubtful any more, they'd be active since not listed as out and not on injury list.

- Players who should get an averaged game per our new rules on Week 18. This would be skill position players (QB, RB, WR, TE, returners) who we upload NFL game stats each week, as well as defensive players if they average more than a half-sack a game.

I'm going to start a list, but feel free to comment if players missed. If you were confused about this new rule for week 18 (despite posts about that this week) send me a PM if it impacts your depth chart for week 18.

[Goodell]

I've been doing some other things this morning, not watching every single team in every single game, so this is just a start of a list based upon an article I found about players being rested on playoff-clinching teams.

Players to get averaged games (if they do not play in Week 18 otherwise for skill position and defenders with 1/2+ sack average):

- Patrick Mahomes (KC)
- Travis Kelce (KC)
- Kareem Hunt (KC)
- George Karlaftis (KC)
- Saquon Barkley (PHI)
- DeVonta Smith (PHI)
- A.J. Brown (PHI)
- Matthew Stafford (LAR)
- Cooper Kupp (LAR)
- Puka Nacua (LAR)
- Kyren Williams (LAR)
- DeAndre Hopkins (KC)
- Khalil Shakir (BUF)
- Dalton Kincaid (BUF)
- Dawson Knox (BUF)
- Greg Rousseau (BUF)
- Josh Allen (BUF) * one of those messy situations where he did technically play but I think for just one handoff snap for personal streak reasons and had no NFL game stats, so we'd probably treat that like the other star QBs rested on playoff clinching teams with no NFL stats in week 18 so using an averaged game in the spirit of the off-season rule change for week 18 rested starters getting averages if no stats.

If any issues with this list, or new names to add for healthy scratch players rested, feel free to send me a PM or comment in this thread. Before we sim our version of week 18, I'll post a final list of healthy scratch players we'll calculate individual averages for week 18. Thanks!

[sillegrant]

Drake Maye played for one drive and got pulled, hopefully we could count him in this group?

[Goodell]

Drake Maye played for one drive and got pulled, hopefully we could count him in this group?

A fair question and something to think more about, but probably toward future season or rules adjustments ahead.

I know it's popular with some and had majority support, but I really hate that we've gone away from strict objective NFL data lists to me having to subjectively say in some cases who gets an average and who doesn't. I want nothing to do with deciding that, and wouldn't have started a league to decide things like that. The league was built to essentially run on it's own with automated scripts and data imports applying to all while I played too.

In my efforts to make it not be so subjective or me favoring certain teams, etc. we have to make things as strict as we can toward the announcements on rules. I think there's a big difference playing or not playing and between zero stats to upload and a player having game stats that we always upload every single week.

I hate that he has little stats, but I can't really have it become a case where I get to subjectively say how many stats is too much or not on the fly making it up. Maybe we'll make some hard-and-fast rules on that in the future. X number of attempts or below is thrown out and used average instead. I don't recall Week 18 being quite like this in the past, but hating the week 18 mess.

So for now, so we're not just making up rules on the fly and helping/hurting teams subjectively as we make stuff up, I think it has to be treated as it would any other week of the year if it doesn't adhere to the Week 18 only exceptions we made for healthy scratches on playoff bound teams having no stats to use averaged stats instead. This wouldn't fit our healthy scratch coach's decision no play rules implemented this year in my opinion. When a player's sim attempts go beyond their stats, their performance is a default update where it won't be terrible or great but just kind of there and helped by the strength of supporting cast (or not). Whether it should be changed for a future year and we say less than 5 attempts on Week 18 and player's stats thrown out and averaged used instead, etc. I think we'd have to implement only after future rules discussions and adjustments to rules ahead.

[sillegrant]

Sounds great to me! Realism is king and subjective decisions should be avoided where possible. Looking forward to the Winter Meetings of Fan Gm!

It's been a Great season!

[devosee]

Josh Hines-Allen was healthy and excused from playing week 18. Will he qualify as someone who can play?

[Knighty Knight]

I'd recommend just using the injury report. https://www.nfl.com/injuries/

It should be more straightforward than initially thought. Search for terms like "coaching decision," "coach's decision," or "not-injury related," as the phrasing varies by team. Players like Patrick Mahomes were only listed as doubtful, so they should be available since we removed all other designations except "out."

[Goodell]

I'd recommend just using the injury report. https://www.nfl.com/injuries/

It should be more straightforward than initially thought. Search for terms like "coaching decision," "coach's decision," or "not-injury related," as the phrasing varies by team. Players like Patrick Mahomes were only listed as doubtful, so they should be available since we removed all other designations except "out."

We use nfl.com/injuries every week, so definitely something we look at and did check the coach's decision notes. Last year there was a big issue about some coach's decision guys NOT being marked doubtful but instead being marked as out. Don't believe that was the case with anyone this year, but had they been "out" on that list and have a coach's decision note there we would have made active and not out here.

That's one part of it, making sure nobody is out here who was just coach-decision rested. The other part is who gets averages as skill position players or defenders with more than a half-sack average.

[Goodell]

Josh Hines-Allen was healthy and excused from playing week 18. Will he qualify as someone who can play?

As a defensive player their grades matter the most. Because he's not "out" on the injury report or on an injury list, he'd be active like any other week and grade contributing to the defense.

I think I read that he was inactive for "personal reasons". If he was on the NFL.com/injuries list as "out" for personal reasons, we could maybe think more if it's similar to the rule changes and not have him "out", but since he's not out on the NFL injury list anyway it's easy that he'd just be active and not out. No reasonable way for me to search every individual player in the league and see who is out or not for personal reasons unless it shows up on the NFL.com/injuries list that we download each week. We rely mostly upon that for injury status and implement it exactly as they have it, except for week 18 where we might make some out guys not out if coach's decisions. But not the case here.

The averaged game part of it is another matter. Doesn't matter for most defensive players (unless they're averaging a sack a game or something) and their grade matters most (which he'd have since not out), but since he was out for "personal reasons" on a losing team not resting for the playoffs I don't know if it fits the spirit of the new week 18 rule for averaged games as much. 1/2 a sack per game would be his average I believe which helps a little but isn't a massive contribution to the simulation as a partial sack.

But his biggest contribution in grade will be part of week 18 sim since he wasn't officially "out" on NFL.com/injuries or on any injury list.

[Goodell]

Another player for this brought up to me is DeAndre Hopkins. Believe he dressed in case of certain situations came up for performance bonus but didn't take a snap with zero stats on a playoff-bound team being rested as a coach's decision healthy scratch. I'll add him to the list of averaged games for week 18.