You may have thought we made it through the heat of the bye weeks now that we are down from 6 teams on bye to just 4, but those teams consist of plenty of strong fantasy options. We are missing Carson Wentz, Michael Crabtree, Amari Cooper, Tyreek Hill, and Kareem Hunt among many other every week starters. I’ll help you figure out the mess for your teams by giving you my rankings for your start/sit decisions. First, I’d like to tell you about the four players where I most differ from the expert consensus and why I feel strongly about them. If you have more questions, don’t hesitate to let me know on Twitter.

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Matthew Stafford (QB #5): DET @ CHI 

This season, Stafford has been one of the most consistent fantasy quarterbacks in football with at least 15 fantasy points in every game besides the impossible matchup at Minnesota. In fact, he has played some of the more difficult secondaries this season and did just fine (vs CAR for 17 fantasy points, @ NO for 21, vs PIT for 18), so it should come as no surprise that I expect him to end up just fine against the Bears, who have been surprisingly strong on defense as well this year.

Joe Mixon (RB #27): CIN @ DEN

The expert consensus has the Bengals’ rookie in must-start territory once again this week, and while he does have touchdowns back to back weeks, he also has just 86 rushing yards over the last three weeks despite a few juicy matchups. Mixon has plenty of talent, but for whatever reason, Marvin Lewis refuses to use him for more than 10 touches per game anymore, so he can hardly be relied upon against a defense like Denver’s.

Keelan Cole (WR #40): JAX @ CLE

If the weather ends up looking terrible, I’ll likely drop him 10 spots, but that would still put me quite a bit higher on Cole than the expert consensus. With Allen Hurns slated to miss Sunday with an ankle injury, their rookie out of a Division-2 school will jump right into 80% of the snaps or more. Last week, he saw 8 targets for 166 air-yards despite not starting, so this week in Cleveland, he could go nuts.

Devante Parker (WR #16): MIA vs TB

Fantasy owners may be disappointed in Parker’s production this year, but that is primarily due to his injury. In fact, if you pro-rate his performance to 9 starts, he would be a top 10 receiver in football ahead of the likes of Michael Thomas, Brandin Cooks, Doug Baldwin and Mike Evans. Add in the fact that he goes up against one of the worst secondaries in football and I can’t help but wonder if ranking him #16 is too conservative.

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