Fantasy Football Fallers: Christian Kirk, Russell Wilson, Puka Nacua

The NFL Scouting Combine is a matter of days away, marking the start of the NFL Calendar for the 2025 season. While much of the focus will be on the rookies who work out, and those who don’t, plenty of business will be done by the agents of veterans during this week with numerous ramifications will follow. Here are players trending up or down for fantasy football at the end of February.

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Fantasy Football Players Trending Down

Puka Nacua (WR – LAR)

Perhaps the Rams are just posturing and hoping Matthew Stafford realizes his situation in Los Angeles is as good as it will get or they really don’t mind if his agent finds an attractive offer elsewhere. If Stafford does move on it’ll likely be bad news for Puka Nacua. Stafford, throughout his career, has been a king-maker for wide receivers, hammering them with volume and helping them ascend to the elite tier. Who do the Rams replace him with if he leaves?

The rookies are likely to be too high up the draft board for the Rams to get to them, barring a trade, which seems unlikely with them viewed as lesser prospects than previous classes. The free agent class includes Justin Fields, Russell Wilson and Daniel Jones, who all would bring question marks, as well as Sam Darnold, who would be fine, and the much-linked Aaron Rodgers, who could be a disaster. Rumors have swirled the Rams are happy to go with Jimmy Garoppolo, but that wouldn’t be an inspiring move with him stinking up Las Vegas the last time he was a starter and failing to send volume toward his best assets. Nacua should be fine, but pretending he’s not going to be impacted by the decision at quarterback is a bad move.

Russell Wilson (FA – PIT)

When Russell Wilson took over the starting duties in Pittsburgh he seemed to be rejuvenated after the Denver debacle, throwing for 271 yards per game in Weeks 7-13, and averaging 1.7 passing touchdowns and 8.7 yards per attempt. Things came crashing down, though, when the schedule turned nastier.

Over the remaining weeks of the season, Wilson averaged 177 passing yards and 1.25 passing touchdowns per game and 6.0 yards per attempt, which ranked 29th among starters in that period. When the Steelers needed wins most, Wilson couldn’t elevate those around him and couldn’t produce any magic. While it once seemed a formality that the Steelers would bring Wilson back, now the rumor mill more often connects the Steelers with Aaron Rodgers or Matthew Stafford, which would leave Wilson scrambling for a starting job and having to convince teams his persona isn’t prohibitive to their success.

Christian Kirk (WR – JAX)

Over the last three years, Christian Kirk has often been Trevor Lawrence‘s favorite target. In a mediocre receiving room, he managed to sustain fantasy relevancy as the best choice, notching 1,108 yards in 2022 before 787 in 12 games in 2023. Kirk missed the final five games of that season and then the final nine of the 2024 season in a disappointing year where he failed to break 90 yards in any games.

Kirk has no guaranteed money remaining on his salary and will likely be an easy cut for a new regime when they stare down at his $24 million cap number for 2025 and consider how they’d like to build this offense around Brian Thomas Jr. Kirk might find that in a disappointing free agency group of wide receivers, he has some suitors, but his days of being a PPR scam are likely over.