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
Trevor Lawrence had a rough Week 1 in his first game with Liam Coen calling plays. There’s no denying it. Last week, among 32 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranked 22nd in yards per attempt, 25th in passer rating, 19th in catchable target rate, and had the fifth-highest turnover-worthy play rate. He should have a bounce-back week 2 performance against a bottom-of-the-barrel Cincy pass defense. Last week, predictably, Cincy looked like the same pass defense from 2024, allowing the fifth-most passing yards, the 11th-highest CPOE, and the fourth-highest success rate. Lawrence could flirt with QB1 numbers this week if everything goes according to plan.
I had to go back and watch all of Justin Fields‘ all 22 from Week 1 before writing him up this week. He looks so much more confident and comfortable in this offense. He’s getting the ball out quicker and confidently while flashing pocket navigation that we haven’t consistently seen from Fields. Fields looks like he has his swagger back. He added some nice passing stats to his 12 carries, 48 rushing yards, and two scores on the ground in Week 1. In Week 1, he ranked third in yards per attempt, fifth in passer rating, first in CPOE, and eighth-best in highly accurate throw rate. Toss out the Bills’ pass defense stats from Week 1 as Lamar Jackson shredded them, but this is a middle-of-the-road matchup for Fields, even if we look at 2024. Last year, Buffalo ranked 15th in yards per attempt and passer rating allowed while also giving up the seventh-highest CPOE. Fields should have clean pockets again this week against a pass defense that did have the seventh-lowest pressure rate in Week 1.
Tell me if you’ve heard this before…J.J. McCarthy will be a QB1 in fantasy in 2025. Well, despite the entire social media landscape attempting to dig his grave in the first half of Week 1’s matchup with the Bears, McCarthy DID IT! He was the QB11 in fantasy in Week 1, and once he settled in, he was fantastic. There will be growing pains for McCarthy, but he was awesome once the offensive line gave him some time, and his clock caught up to the speed of the NFL. In Week 1, he ranked 12th in yards per attempt and passer rating, fourth in CPOE, and tenth in catchable target rate. He also added 25 yards and a score on the ground. McCarthy will need his offensive line to hold up again this week against a defense that ranked 11th in blitz rate and third in pressure rate. If he has time, he can pick apart a secondary that in Week 1 allowed the 14th-highest success rate per dropback and 11th-highest passer rating.
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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.