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
Mark Andrews‘ 2025 season got off to a quiet start. He had a 59.1% route share but only had a 5.3% target share (one target) and 6.7% first-read share. Andrews could easily have a bounce-back game against Cleveland this week. During his last four regular-season meetings against this defense, he has averaged four receptions and 53.5 receiving yards with four receiving scores (he scored in three of four games). Last year, Cleveland allowed the seventh-most fantasy points per game and the 11th-most receiving touchdowns to tight ends.
Last week, David Njoku had a quiet game as Harold Fannin Jr. stole the Cleveland tight end show. Njoku still had a 79.2% route share, but he only saw an 11.1% target share with 0.97 yards per route run (37 receiving yards) and an 8% first-read share. This seems to be the possible “get right” matchup for a bunch of players in this game. It could be for Njoku as well. Last year, in his only meeting with the Ravens, he secured five of his seven targets with 61 receiving yards (one score) as the TE7 for the week. Last year, Baltimore allowed the ninth-most receiving yards, the tenth-highest yards per reception, and the 12th-most fantasy points to tight ends.
Kyle Pitts had a surprising stat line in Week 1, but the matchup was in his favor. This week, not so much. Last week, Pitts was the TE7 in fantasy with an 81% route share, a 19% target share, 1.55 yards per route run, a 13.3% first-read share, and 0.132 first downs per route run. Pitts has a good history against Tampa Bay and their single high coverage (51.1% last week). This week, the matchup doesn’t look good for him. In Week 1, Minnesota utilized two high at the highest rate in the NFL (67.4%). Last year and in Week 1, Pitts wasn’t a big part of the Atlanta attack plan against two high. Last week, against two high, he had only a 10% target per route run rates and a 7.1% first-read share. Last year against that coverage shell, he had an 18% target per route run rate, 0.92 yards per route run, and a 13.4% first-read share. Minnesota was 15th in receiving yards and 17th in yards per reception allowed to tight ends. Pitts might make some starting lineups this week because of the state of the tight end position in fantasy, but I don’t project a monster game for him in Week 2.
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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.
