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
Ricky Pearsall picked up in Week 1 right where he left off last season as the WR20 in weekly (PPR) scoring. He had a 20% target share, a 54.3% air-yard share, 39% of the team’s receiving yards, 3.28 yards, a 26.1% first-read share, and 0.129 first downs per route run. He had two red zone targets in Week 1. Pearsall should have another productive day matching up with Kool-Aid McKinstry (66.7% catch rate and 135.4 passer rating allowed) and Isaac Yiadom (80% catch rate and 96.7 passer rating allowed) all day. In Week 1, New Orleans allowed the ninth-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
Last week, D.J. Moore could have had a bigger day if Caleb Williams hadn’t airmailed him when he was wide open, but he finished with five receptions and 68 scoreless receiving yards. He had a 14.3% target share, a 37.4% air-yard share, 1.94 yards per route run, and a 16.7% first-read share. Moore was third on the team in first-read share behind Rome Odunze and Olamide Zaccheaus. His 0.125 separation score backed up the fact that his lack of boxscore production wasn’t necessarily his fault. Moore will do battle with a secondary that allowed the sixth-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers in Week 1.
A.J. Brown wasn’t the only Philly wide receiver to have a down Week 1. DeVonta Smith walked away from the game with only a 13% target share and 13 receiving yards (0.50 yards per route run). I feel better about Smith’s outlook in Week 2 than Brown’s. Smith still commanded a 30% first-read share and posted a 9.4% route win rate against Dallas. His route win rate isn’t great, but it’s better than logging zero route wins in Week 1 like Brown. The interesting piece of Smith’s usage in Week 1 was his 69% slot rate. That also helps his Week 2 outlook as Kansas City has struggled to defend the slot over the last two seasons. In 2024, the Chiefs allowed the 11th-most PPR points per target to the slot, and in Week 1 of this season, they gave up the eighth-most PPR points per target. Fire Smith up again in Week 2.
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.
