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
With James Conner‘s season-ending injury, Trey Benson takes over as the team’s starting running back. Benson has been impressive on a per-touch basis this season. Among 48 qualifying backs, he ranks sixth in explosive run rate, seventh in missed tackles forced per attempt, and third in yards after contact per attempt. In the second half of last week’s game, Benson was “the dude” with a 69% snap share and a 62.5% route share. He will need all of his explosive ability and volume against this Seattle run defense. They have held opposing rushing attacks to the seventh-fewest rushing yards per game, the ninth-lowest missed tackle rate, the fourth-fewest yards after contact per attempt, and zero explosive runs.
Zach Charbonnet will return in Week 4. He missed last week’s game with a foot injury. This week, he has practiced in full all week. Considering what Kenneth Walker has done over the last two games, I don’t think Charbonnet is returning to a lead role in this backfield. He hasn’t been effective this season when on the field. Charbonnet has only a 7% missed tackle rate and 1.81 yards after contact per attempt. With an uncertain workload in Week 4 and a tough matchup incoming, Sit Charbonnet. Despite Arizona giving up the 11th-highest explosive run rate and the 12th-highest missed tackle rate, they have also held the opposition to the fourth-fewest rushing yards per game, the tenth-fewest yards before contact per attempt, and the fourth-highest stuff rate.
Marvin Harrison Jr. is off to a lackluster start as the WR47 in fantasy points per game. Harrison Jr. has managed only an 18% target share with 1.46 yards per route run and a 21.7% first-read share. These are WR3/4 type of market share and efficiency metrics. On the bright side, Harrison Jr. is tied for the team lead in red zone targets (three). Harrison Jr. is headed toward another rough game against the Seahawks. They have utilized two high at the fifth-highest rate (59.3%) in the NFL. Against two high, Harrison Jr. has seen his target share decline to 15.6% with 1.45 yards per route run and 0.043 first downs per route run. Seattle has stifled perimeter wide receivers, giving up the third-fewest PPR points per target and receiving yards per game. Harrison Jr. will need a touchdown to save his fantasy day.
Cooper Kupp is the WR58 in fantasy points per game, earning a 16.9% target share with a 15.6% air yard share (7.5 aDOT) and 45.3 receiving yards per game. He has decent per-route numbers with 2.19 yards per route run and a 21.2% first-read share, but the run-centric nature of Seattle’s offense has hindered him with his low aDOT. If he’s only drawing a 16.9% target share and seeing limited target volume because of the context of the offense, it’ll be tough to trust him week-to-week. Arizona has the seventh-highest two high rate (57.3%). Against two high, Kupp’s target share has declined to 7.4% with a 10% first-read share. This isn’t the week to look to flex Kupp. Jalen Thompson (53.8% catch rate and 69.4 passer rating allowed) has been tough against slot receivers in relief of Garrett Williams (IR).
Last week, before Seattle pulled their starters, Tory Horton was on the field for 72% of the snaps, which was nice to see (40 snap rate in Week 2). He has finished as the WR37 and WR29 in weekly fantasy scoring over the last two weeks. Since Week 2, Horton has had a 14.8% target share, a 25.6% air-yard share, 2.13 yards per route run (32 receiving yards per game), and a 17.6% first-read share (third on the team). Horton will be in play as a flex option, especially when we get to bye weeks, but I’m not rolling him out there this week. Arizona has allowed the eighth-fewest PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
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