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.
- Waiver Wire Picks
- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Fantasy Football Start’em, Sit’em Lineup Advice: Quarterbacks
The light finally came on for Bryce Young down the stretch last year. In Weeks 12-18, he was the QB8 in fantasy points per game, averaging 25.4 rushing yards per game, which would have ranked 12th-best overall last year. During that stretch, among 34 qualifying quarterbacks, Young ranked eighth in CPOE, 12th in highly accurate throw rate, and second in hero throw rate (per Fantasy Points Data). He was aggressively pushing the ball downfield with the fifth-highest deep throw rate in the NFL behind only Josh Allen, Anthony Richardson, Lamar Jackson, and Jordan Love. Young should get off to a good start this week. Last year, in Weeks 10-18, Jacksonville allowed the fourth-highest yards per attempt and second-most passing yards per game. They added Jourdan Lewis and Eric Murray this offseason, but this is still likely a plus matchup for Young. Last season, Jacksonville also had the third-lowest pressure rate, so Young should have time in the pocket to pick apart this defense.
Among 40 qualifying quarterbacks last season, Tua Tagovailoa had the lowest aDOT (5.9) and the second-lowest time to throw behind only Cooper Rush. While this Chad Pennington-esque approach hurt his receivers, it didn’t impact Tagovailoa’s fantasy output, as he was the QB13 in fantasy points per game. Among the previous subset of quarterbacks discussed, he also ranked 18th in yards per attempt, eighth in passer rating, tenth in CPOE, and first in highly accurate throw rate. With Lou Anarumo taking over the Colts’ defensive playcalling this year, I expect that we’ll still see a ton of single high usage. Last year, Indy was 11th in single high rate (56.2%). In two of Anarumo’s final three seasons with Cincy, he utilized single high between 53.9-59.8% of snaps. Last year, Tagovailoa ranked 11th in passer rating and CPOE and tenth in fantasy points per dropback against single high. Last season, in Weeks 10-18, Indy allowed the seventh-highest success rate per dropback, the tenth-highest yards per attempt, and ranked 14th in EPA per dropback, but I’ll say that not only did they change defensive coordinators, they added a new starting corner duo. Charvarius Ward and Xavien Howard take over on the perimeter this season, which will hopefully be upgrades for the Colts. This is a middle-of-the-road matchup for Tagovailoa.
Subscribe: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeart | Castbox | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | TuneIn
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.
