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
A.J. Brown was a ghost in Week 1. He had only one target (4.3% target share), eight receiving yards, and a 10% first-read share. He had only one first read target, which is not like Brown. I don’t want to play injury conspiracy theorist here, but I don’t think Brown is fully healthy based on his Week 1 usage and the fact that he failed to record a single route win (31 routes). Plugging Brown into your lineups in Week 2 is a risk. There’s no doubt about it. We have a one-game nightmare fuel sample to work off of. Playing him just comes down to your other options at the wide receiver position. Facing the Kansas City secondary could work in his favor if they don’t improve their play in Week 2. Last week, they allowed the fourth-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
Tee Higgins didn’t get off to the fast start that we all hoped for in Week 1. Higgins was the WR59 in weekly scoring, seeing a 17.4% target share with a 27.3% air-yard share with 1.32 yards per route run and a 26.7% first-read share. It’s one game, people. His first read share and his 0.167 separation score in Week 1 alleviate my fears. It’s only one game, so I’m not going to overreact about Higgins or believe that the Jaguars’ secondary is stout. Last year, they allowed the fourth-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers. Fire up Higgins this week.
In Week 1, Mike Evans had quiet open to the season as the WR37 in weekly scoring. Among 105 qualifying receivers, he still ranked fifth in separation and third in route win rate, so I’m not concerned, as he also had strong market share metrics. Evans had a 25% target share, a 34.3% air-yard share, 0.129 first downs per route run, and a 30% first-read share. Evans dealt with A.J. Terrell on 55% of his routes in Week 1, securing three of his five targets with 28 receiving yards. Evans has another tough matchup this week, but Kamari Lassiter (100% catch rate and 142.4 passer rating allowed) and Derek Stingley Jr. (71.4% catch rate and 94.9 passer rating) had some hiccups last week out of the gate. If they are still a tad off their games in Week 2, as players find their regular-season legs, look for Evans to capitalize.
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If you want to dive deeper into fantasy football, check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Football Tools as you navigate your season. From our Start/Sit Assistant – which provides your optimal lineup based on accurate consensus projections – to our Waiver Wire Assistant, which allows you to quickly see which available players will improve your team and how much – we’ve got you covered this fantasy football season.