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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- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
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Fantasy Football Start’em, Sit’em Lineup Advice
These players are in the gray area. Not a smash start, not a hard fade. Jordan Love was quite good in Week 1 despite posting only 15.9 fantasy points. The problem wasn’t Love’s play, but the fact that he had only 23 dropbacks as the Packers turtled and sat on their lead against the Lions. In Week 1, Love ranked seventh in yards per attempt, fourth in passer rating, eighth in catchable target rate, second in hero throw rate, and seventh in fantasy points per dropback. Love will have what looks like a tough on-paper matchup this week against Washington, but it has been only one game (not to take anything away from Washington). In Week 1, they allowed the fourth-lowest yards per attempt and passer rating and the lowest CPOE. Yes, I know this was against the Giants. I think there also has to be some context to the fact that Washington was also fourth in pressure rate. The Commanders do have a talented defense, but this is probably best viewed as a middle-of-the-road matchup for Love and company and a litmus test for Washington’s defense. Love should have clean pockets to operate from in Week 2 after facing the fourth-lowest pressure rate in Week 1. The passing volume is a concern for Love, but Jayden Daniels can hopefully push them to take to the sky more in Week 2.
Zach Ertz has an unimpressive but steady start to the 2025 season. He finished with a 70.3% route per dropback rate, a 16.7% target share, 1.00 yards per route run, and a 22.7% first read share (second on the team). He did have a target in the red zone against the Giants. Ertz is a decent streaming option this week against a defense that allowed the 14th-most fantasy points per game and the tenth-highest yards per reception to tight ends last year.
Terry McLaurin didn’t have the strong start to the season that I hoped for, considering the matchup. He had only a 13.3% target share, a 29.2% air-yard share, 0.87 yards per route run (27 receiving yards), and an 18.2% first-read share. McLaurin’s 19.3 aDot was interesting. I hope that Washington isn’t shoving him into a field-stretching-only role while Deebo Samuel takes the high-volume usage weekly, but I guess we’ll see how that works out as we move through the season. Jayden Daniels overshot McLaurin on a go route against the Giants that could have made his final stat line better, so I’m not pressing the panic button just yet. In Week 1, Green Bay was 12th in single-high rate (55.1%). Last year, McLaurin was quite good against single high with 2.42 yards per route run, a 24.8% first-read share, and 0.101 first downs per route run. It has only been one game, but I’m not sold that Carrington Valentine and Keisean Nixon can hang with McLaurin. The perimeter duo combined to allow an 83.3% catch rate and 110.4 passer rating in Week 1. I know I’m out on a limb with including McLaurin in the strong starts category this week, but it has been one game, so let’s not overreact too much.
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