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
Deebo Samuel had a tough 2024 season, during which he dealt with numerous injuries. Last year alone, he dealt with a calf strain, pneumonia, a hamstring strain, and rib issues. Samuel has accumulated a lengthy medical record throughout the years. The injury risk remains entering 2025, with Samuel being a year older and his playing style as a bruising, tackle-breaking, underneath threat continuing. Right now, Samuel is fully healthy, but this is something to just store in the deeper recesses of your mind. Last year, Samuel was the WR46 in fantasy points per game while ranking 47th in target share (17.2%) and receiving yards per game (44.7), 53rd in yards per route run (1.69), and 63rd in first downs per route run. This is a decent on-paper matchup schematically and for Samuel’s projected role in the offense. Last year, Washington ranked sixth in screen passes. Samuel likely does the heavy lifting for Washington in the screen game. Last year, New York allowed the 12th-most yards after the catch per reception and the seventh-most yards per route run to wide receiver screens. Last year, the Giants also utilized single high at the third-highest rate (64.6%). Samuel was solid against single high with a 21% target per route run rate and 1.80 yards per route run. Samuel should pay off as a decent flex in PPR leagues.
Jaylen Waddle‘s 2024 season was a huge disappointment, but he’s primed for a bounce-back season. The talent is still there. Last year, in the 14 games he played, at least 70% of the snaps, his numbers don’t look amazing, but they were solid as he had a 16.3% target share, 1.79 yards per route run, 53.1 receiving yards per game, and 0.092 first downs per route run. Let’s examine the numbers he accrued with Tua Tagovailoa under center and Waddle as a full-time player. We get a clearer picture of Waddle’s talent through the context-distorting muck. In that sample of games, Waddle had 2.14 yards per route run, 64.6 receiving yards per game, and 0.114 first downs per route run. 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, with Tagovailoa under center and Waddle as a full-time player, he was solid with 2.02 yards per route run and 0.126 first downs per route run, but he had only a 16% target per route run and 15.3% first-read share. Hopefully, that comes up because Waddle could do damage in Week 1 against the Colts’ secondary if he gets the target volume, lining up against Charvarius Ward (2024: 60.8% catch rate and 119.1 passer rating) and Xavien Howard (2023: 62% catch rate and 86.7 passer rating) all day.
Last year, Chris Olave was limited to only six games played with a 70% or higher snap share. He suffered the fourth and fifth documented concussions of his life last year, which effectively cut his season short. In that small sample of games we got from Olave last year, he was still quite good. In those games, he drew a 22.5% target share, averaged 63.7 receiving yards per game, had 2.22 yards per route run, a 29.4% first-read share, and 0.122 first downs per route run. Among 85 qualifying receivers with at least 50 targets, if Olave had made the cut-off, he would have ranked 31st, 29th, 28th, 24th, and 12th best in those categories. In those games, Olave averaged 12.5 PPR points per game, which would have equaled WR35 production last year. Not bad, considering in that sample, he scored only one touchdown. Among 128 qualifying receivers, he also ranked 17th in separation and 23rd in route win rate. With all that said, Olave will have to overcome what looks to be mediocre quarterback play in 2025 if he’s going to produce this season. Olave looks like a volume play only in Week 1. Last year, in Weeks 10-18, Arizona allowed the ninth-fewest receiving yards per game and the fourth-fewest fantasy points per game to perimeter wide receivers. They also added Will Johnson to their starting lineup, so they could be even better in 2025.
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