Can you believe it?  It is already about that time where teams need to start making their push to the playoffs.  Where does the time go?  This also means your fantasy playoffs should be within the next few weeks depending on how your league is set up.  Anyway, every year we have those surprise teams who make a run led by their quarterbacks at the end of the season to make it into the playoffs.  And those teams generally do well in the playoffs because they are the hot team.  But today we are going to go over quarterbacks that will do the exact opposite this year.  It is now more than ever that you want your fantasy quarterbacks on top of their game and help you make a playoff run.  Here are some you may want to consider to stay away from:

Matt Ryan, Falcons

This is just not the Falcons year.  Injury after injury just depleted that offense and the defense is just god awful.  Ever since Julio Jones went down for the season, Ryan just hasn’t had it.  It makes matters worse when you don’t have any type of running game to help out the passing game.  Looking at the schedule for the rest of the season, the Falcons do not have the hardest schedule but four of the seven remaining games are away and two of the remaining three home games are against top 10 defenses.  Matt Ryan has played terrible on the road throwing nine interceptions and with a struggling offense there is no way they will put up a lot of points against top defenses even at home.  Stay away from Ryan for the rest of the season.

Andrew Luck, Colts

Luck hasn’t had two bad performances back to back all season but he has had a couple poor games. 

And now that his star receiver Reggie Wayne is out for the season, things aren’t looking too bright.  The Colts do not have as big of problems like the Flacons but they are pretty similar with a hurt number one receiver and no running game. 

The expectations were high when Trent Richardson was traded to the Colts but he has been quite disappointing all season. 

The rest of the Colts season consists of four away games and four division games.  No matter how weak teams may be (such as the Jaguars, Texans, and Titans), division games will always be tough competition and the desire to defeat a division foe will always be there.

Philip Rivers, Chargers

Rivers has started off pretty hot and has already started to cool off.  The first five weeks of the season he had 13 pass touchdowns and in the five weeks since, he has had only had five touchdowns passes.  San Diego’s playoff hunt is quickly coming to a halt and will not get any better when you look at the rest of their schedule.  They have the Broncos, the Chiefs twice, and the division leading Bengals to look forward to.  Rivers is known to have hot streaks turn to cold streaks and vice versa at the drop of a dime but I do not see a turn around here with that type of schedule.  The Chargers are a good team but with the schedule that they have and lack of consistency, there is just no way they will be able to turn it around.  Rivers has potential to have good numbers but I would not trust him as a starting quarterback especially when your fantasy playoffs begin.

Colin Kaepernick, 49ers

Kaepernick is having an underachieving fantasy season to say the least.  Three times this season he had fantasy points in the single digits! 

Then there are also games where he takes it into his own hands and runs the ball in the end zone himself.  If that’s not inconsistency, I don’t know what is.  He only has two games where he has thrown for over 200 yards so it is safe to say that the defense is carrying this 49ers team. 

The rest of Kaepernick’s schedule is not the toughest, even though they have the Saints this week and the Seahawks in a couple weeks and both of those defenses are pretty darn good.  But if you go by his performances from the whole season how can you trust him as the starting quarterback of your fantasy team? 

A quarterback that is that inconsistent does not deserve to start, especially in the playoffs.  Hopefully you have some other options to turn to or maybe you can find good matchups on the waiver wire.

Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers

Then we have Ben Roethlisberger.  He is a bit of a wild card here because he isn’t owned in over 90 percent of fantasy leagues.  It is easy to see that Roethlisberger and the Steelers have not been on their game this year.  He has his shining moments where he throws over 300 yards but then ruins it with all of his turnovers.  Four of the remaining seven games for the Steelers are division games and we all know how intense AFC North division games can be.  Especially now with the Browns playing exceptionally well compared to how they’ve been the past few years.  I believe that Roethlisberger has a chance to have himself a decent game or two somewhere down the line but, like Rivers, you cannot depend on a quarterback that is inconsistent.