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: Tight Ends
Ben Johnson seemingly got his Sam LaPorta. I don’t think Colston Loveland is on the same talent plane as LaPorta, and I don’t mean that as shade, but their skill sets are different. Loveland has stellar per-route efficiency and the route-running chops to match, but he isn’t the same mauler after the catch, with only eight missed tackles forced in his collegiate career. Across his final two collegiate seasons, he ranked fifth in yards per route run in both seasons and third and tenth in receiving grade. Loveland’s route share to begin the season (and all year) is a mystery. I don’t think Cole Kmet is just going to disappear, so we could see Loveland’s route share capped, which could make him Dalton Kincaid 2.0. His Week 1 matchup against Minnesota is ok, but it’s not anything to get overly excited about. Last year, Minnesota was 15th in receiving yards and 17th in yards per reception allowed to tight ends. Loveland is a risky TE2 who could easily overperform or disappoint. The range of outcomes is wide this week.
Zach Ertz had a very “Ertzian” season in 2024, where volume and a perfect set of circumstances helped carry him to a TE10 in fantasy points per game finish. Last year, among 47 qualifying tight ends, Ertz ranked 12th in target share (16.8%), 17th in receiving yards per game (38.5), 27th in yards per route run (1.45), 14th in first read share (17.2%), and 20th in first downs per route run. Ertz will have streaming-worthy matchups this season, but don’t look his way this week. Last year, the Giants allowed the fourth-fewest receiving yards to tight ends and the third-fewest schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game.
Brenton Strange enters the 2025 season as the team’s undisputed starter after Evan Engram‘s departure. Last year, Strange had seven games in which he played at least 60% of the snaps, where he averaged 9.2 fantasy points per game. In those games, he also saw a 14.8% target share with a 17.3% first-read share while producing 1.39 yards per route run, 36.1 receiving yards per game, and 0.071 first downs per route run. Those are pretty much TE2-worthy numbers across the board outside of the first-read share, which will decline some with Travis Hunter and Dyami Brown in town. Strange is a viable tight end option for deeper leagues or if you punted the position in a draft. Last year, Carolina was crushed by the position. They allowed the fifth-highest yards per reception and the most receiving touchdowns per game to tight ends.
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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.
