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: Running Backs
With Joe Mixon out, Nick Chubb will begin the season as Houston’s lead back. Last year, before he was lost again to a foot fracture, he looked like a shell of his former self. Chubb only had a 2% explosive run rate, a 10% missed tackle rate, and 1.96 yards after contact per attempt. These numbers are all basement-level efficiency metrics. Hopefully, he improves upon these numbers in 2025, but with his lengthy injury history at age 29, it’s far from certain. Chubb is a touchdown-dependent flex to open the year. He could post a nice stat line to begin the year. Last year, in Weeks 10-18, the Rams allowed the 12th-most rushing yards per game and the sixth-highest missed tackle rate while having the fourth-lowest stuff rate. The addition of Poona Ford in the offseason will help these numbers. The question is how much?
Last year, Tony Pollard had a strong 2024 season as the Titans’ workhorse starter. With Tyjae Spears out for the early portion of this season, Pollard is primed to revisit that workload. Last year, he ranked ninth in snap share, opportunity, and weighted opportunities. Pollard finished as the RB22 in fantasy points per game while ranking 18th in explosive run rate and sixth in yards after contact per attempt. Pollard will face an uphill battle against Denver’s run defense in Week 1. Last year, in Weeks 10-18, Denver allowed the second-fewest rushing yards per game, the 11th-lowest missed tackle rate, and had the second-highest stuff rate. Pollard, hopefully, can get into the endzone and survive as a volume play in Week 1.
R.J. Harvey, in his limited preseason action, got all the work on first and second downs while giving up the pass protection assignments on third down to other backs. He looks primed to lead this backfield immediately out of the gate. Harvey ranked inside the top 20 among FBS running backs in each of the last two seasons in breakaway percentage and elusive rating. Over the last two years, Payton has ranked fifth and first in running back target share. Harvey is a strong borderline RB1. Last year, Tennessee faced the third-fewest running back targets, but they allowed 81.1% of them to be secured while giving up the most receiving touchdowns to backs in the NFL. Payton will try to exploit this in Week 1. Last year, in Weeks 10-18, Tennessee allowed the second-most rushing yards per game and seventh-most yards after contact per attempt while having the 14th-lowest stuff rate. They surrendered the third-highest yards per carry to gap runs (5.22) during that stretch and the ninth-highest gap rushing success rate. In the preseason, 38% of Harvey’s runs were with a gap design. Tennessee did add Cody Barton and Xavier Woods this offseason to upgrade their defense overall and their run defense, so they could be improved against gap runs. We’ll have to see.
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