Start em or sit em? Fantasy football start or sit decisions can be excruciating. While it feels great to make the right call and cruise to fantasy glory, it hurts just as much when you have someone erupt while on your bench. You can use our Who Should I Start? tool to gauge advice from fantasy football experts as you make your lineup decisions. And you can also sync your fantasy football league for free using our My Playbook tool for custom advice, rankings and analysis.
Let’s take a look at a few polarizing players and what fantasy football expert Derek Brown advises. And you can find all of DBro’s fantasy football outlook in this week’s fantasy football primer.
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Fantasy Football Start em, Sit em Lineup Advice
Chef Geno is BACK! Smith is the QB8 in fantasy points per game. Among 37 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranks 16th in yards per attempt, second in passing yards per game, fourth in CPOE, 13th in hero throw rate, and eighth in catchable target rate. Smith should have no issues posting another QB1 week against the Giants. New York has allowed the 13th-highest EPA per dropback, the 14th-highest yards per attempt, the sixth-highest passer rating, and the 11th-highest CPOE.
Richardson opened this week with a limited practice, so for the time being, I’m projecting him to play while knowing that Joe Flacco could be under center for Indy this week. Richardson was banged up with a hip issue last week, so we’ll have to see what his practice reports look like this week. This hasn’t been the start to the season many (including myself) had hoped for Richardson. He’s the QB24 in fantasy points per game. Among 37 qualifying passers, he is fourth in yards per attempt and second in hero throw rate, but he also has the second-lowest passer rating and CPOE and the highest off-target rate. Indy hasn’t done a great job of giving him layup throws as well as he has the second-highest aDOT. Richardson will work through growing pains the rest of the season. That should have always been expected. The peaks and valleys will be real for the rest of the year. The stabilizing force for his fantasy production is his rushing, which we need to see a little more of. He still ranks top-ten among quarterbacks in carries per game (tenth), red zone carries per game (fifth), and rushing yards per game (eighth). If Richardson is able to play this week, this could be a get-right game. Jacksonville can’t stop anyone through the air, allowing the third-highest yards per attempt, the sixth-most passing touchdowns, the tenth-highest CPOE, and the second-most passing yards per game. They have also struggled to defend deep passing, which has been Richardson’s bread and butter. The Jaguars have allowed the sixth-highest passer rating, the sixth-most passing yards, and the ninth-highest adjusted completion rate to deep passing.
This week is one to consider sitting Prescott, depending on your quarterback options. Prescott is the QB8 in fantasy points per game. Among 37 qualifying passers, he ranks 20th in yards per attempt, fourth in passing yards per game, 32nd in CPOE, and 19th in fantasy points per dropback. He faces a strong Pittsburgh pass defense that simply had a hiccup last week. Overall, Pittsburgh has allowed the 11th-fewest passing yards per game, the seventh-lowest passer rating, the eighth-lowest CPOE, and the 11th-fewest fantasy points via passing. Prescott also won’t have a ton of time to survey the field against a defense that has the seventh-best time to pressure and ranks 13th in pressure rate.
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