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: Wide Receivers
Start’Em
What year is it? 2023? Keenan Allen is the WR6 in fantasy points per game and looks like one of the best values from fantasy football draft season. Allen has a 25% target share (leads the team) with 64.7 receiving yards per game (1.98 yards per route run) and a 23.4% first-read share. He leads the team with four end zone targets. The Giants have the fifth-highest single high rate (61.5%) and the highest man coverage rate in the NFL (46.7%). Against single high, Allen leads the team with a 23% target share with 1.93 yards per route run and a 23.4% first-read share (second on the team). Against man coverage, Allen ranks second on the team with a 25.8% first-read share. Allen could continue to crush this week against a secondary that has been crushed against slot receivers (Allen 49% slot). The Giants have allowed the most fantasy points per game and the 14th-highest PPR points per target to the slot.
The Quentin Johnston BREAKOUT SEASON IS HERE, BABY! LG! For old school Johnston believers like myself, it is vindicating. “They thought they had us in the first half, not gonna lie.” Johnston’s 2025 breakout is for real. Believe it! Among 92 qualifying receivers, he ranks 14th in route win rate, immediately behind Puka Nacua and Rome Odunze. Johnston is the WR8 in fantasy points per game. His performance against Patrick Surtain last week was impressive. Johnston has a 21.3% target share (second on the team) with 79.7 receiving yards per game (2.06 yards per route run) and a 26% first-read share (leads the team). He is second on the team with three end zone targets. The Giants have the fifth-highest single high rate (61.5%) and the highest man coverage rate in the NFL (46.7%). Against single high, Johnston has a 21.3% target share (second on the team) with 2.32 yards per route run (leads the team) and a 25.5% first-read share (leads the team). Against man coverage, Johnston ranks third on the team with a 22.6% first-read share. Johnston could get shadowed by Paulson Adebo this week, but this is a matchup he can win. This season, Adebo followed Terry McLaurin on 74.2% of his routes, surrendering two receptions (four targets) and 27 scoreless receiving yards. He followed George Pickeson on 64.2% of his routes, giving up four receptions (five targets) with 54 receiving yards and a score. Johnston is still a strong play this week. The Giants are 16th in PPR points per target allowed to perimeter wide receivers.
Wan’Dale Robinson is still the WR18 in fantasy points per game despite the dud last week. He looks primed for a rebound this week. Robinson has two red zone targets this season. He has a 20% target share averaging 74.3 receiving yards per game (2.28 yards per route run) with a 29.2% first-read share. The Bolts have the eighth-highest two-high rate in the NFL (55.9%). Against two high, his yards per route run has increased to 2.62, and his first-read share has jumped to 33.3%. The Chargers have been quietly terrible against the slot, giving up the sixth-most PPR points per target and the eighth-most fantasy points per game to the position. Dart should lean on Robinson this week.
Jakobi Meyers is the WR22 in fantasy points per game. He has finished as a top-36 fantasy wide receiver in two of three games (WR15, WR33). Meyers has two red zone targets and three deep targets this season. He has garnered a 22.6% target share with 1.98 yards per route run and a 27.9% first-read share. This week, he faces a Chicago secondary that has utilized two high at the third-highest rate (64%). Against two high, Meyers has seen his target share balloon to 27.3% with 2.03 yards per route run and a 39.4% first-read share. Meyers should eat this week against a secondary that has allowed the most PPR points per target to slot receivers.
Jameson Williams is the WR41 in fantasy points per game. He has a monster game in Week 2 (WR12) sandwiched between two dud performances (WR57, WR59). All of the offseason talk of Williams evolving into a high-volume receiver hasn’t materialized yet into on-field production. Williams has a 12.6% target share as the team’s field stretcher (17.0 aDOT) with a 32.1% air-yard share, 58 receiving yards per game (1.87 yards per route run), and an 11.5% first-read share. This could be a big week for Williams against a secondary that has allowed the fourth-highest passer rating to deep balls while ranking 16th in depth-adjusted completion rate to downfield passes. Williams is highly volatile, but he does have a high ceiling this week. The Browns have allowed the third-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
Tyquan Thornton is the WR27 in fantasy points per game. He leads all wide receivers in deep targets. He has been the WR31 and WR15 in weekly scoring over the last two games. He has one red zone target this year. Thornton has a 17.1% target share (24.6 aDOT), 1.88 yards per route run, and a 20.8% first-read share. Thornton could burn Baltimore deep this week. The Ravens have allowed the third-most deep passing yards per game and given up the ninth-best deep completion rate. Thornton is a boom/bust option this week that easily could BOOM!
Sit’Em
Over the last two games with Jake Browning, Tee Higgins has only a 13.9% target share, 35.5 receiving yards per game, 1.04 yards per route run, an 18.8% first-read share, and 8.6 fantasy points per game. Higgins could get a target bump this week with Ja’Marr Chase likely dealing with a Patrick Surtain shadow. Denver has still allowed the 14th-fewest fantasy points per game to perimeter wide receivers, so it’s tough to consider Higgins as anything more than a middling flex play.
Xavier Worthy opened this week with a “full” practice. I’m highly skeptical that he was operating at 100%. I expect him to be active this week, but there’s no way I’m starting him this week. There’s no way to project his route share and role for Week 4 accurately. If he has a 40% route share I won’t be surprised. If he’s active this week, sit him.
Over the last two weeks, Elic Ayomanor has been the WR24 and WR27 in weekly PPR scoring. He has drawn a 15.5% target share, a 24.6% air-yard share, produced 47 receiving yards per game (1.74 yards per route run), and garnered a 15.6% first-read share. He had two scores and two end zone targets. Better days are ahead for Ayomanor, but this isn’t the week to drop him into a flex spot. Houston has allowed the eighth-fewest PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
Tre Tucker is the WR4 in fantasy points per game after his insane 40.9 fantasy point outing last week. With only three games in the bag this season, that one monster performance will throw off his full-season stats so far, so let’s look at what he did in Weeks 1-2. In the first two games of the season, he had a 14.3% target share, a 20.9% air-yard share, 0.85 yards per route run, and a 20.4% first-read share. Those stats more closely resemble what Tucker had done in his career than his Week 3 performance. This week, he faces a Chicago secondary that has utilized two high at the third-highest rate (64%). In Weeks 1-2, against two high, Tucker had a 15% target share, 0.89 yards per route run, and a 21.7% first-read share. Last week’s performance could be more indicative of things to come, but I think we have a larger sample size stating that it was a wonderful outlier and is unlikely to be replicated even in a diluted fashion for the rest of the season. Chicago has allowed the 11th-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers, so Tucker could return decent flex production this week, but there are likely better options for your lineup.
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