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
After falling on his face in Week 1, Tua Tagovailoa showed some life in Week 2 as the QB17 for the week. Overall, among 34 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranks tenth in yards per attempt, 19th in passer rating, 22nd in CPOE, and 19th in highly accurate throw rate. His last two meetings against the Bills haven’t worked out well, with a 3:3 touchdown-to-interception ratio and failing to surpass 240 passing yards in either outing. The reality of the Bills’ pass defense probably lies somewhere in the middle of their putrid showing in Week 1 and holding the Jets to 3.7 yards per attempt and a 70.8 passer rating in Week 2. Tagovailoa should post decent QB2 numbers in Week 3, but I’m not expecting much more than that.
After a solid showing in Week 1, Khalil Shakir had a quiet game in Week 2, but the matchup wasn’t really conducive to him seeing heavy usage. Shakir has a 12.3% target share with 1.27 yards per route run and a 9.1% first-read share. Despite the lighter usage, Shakir is still tied for the team lead in red zone targets (two). Shakir should see an uptick in volume this week. Miami has the seventh-highest two high rate (61.9%). Last year, against two high, Shakir had a 21.3% target share with 2.38 yards per route run and a team-leading 27.3% first-read share. The Dolphins haven’t given up much production to the slot in two games, but in Week 1, Josh Downs wasn’t a full-time player, and DeMario Douglas in Week 2 isn’t a priority target in the Patriots’ offense. I don’t have a lot of concerns regarding Shakir’s ability to win battles against Jason Marshall Jr. (100% catch rate and 113.9 passer rating).
Well, Keon Coleman didn’t see that Sauce Gardner shadow treatment in Week 2, but he still had a quiet game. Coleman did line up against Gardner with 52.9% of his routes with only one target and seven receiving yards to show for it. Overall, Coleman has a 19.2% target share with 2.30 yards per route run and a 27.3% first-read share. After polar opposite performances only two games into the season, we’re left to wonder which is the real Coleman and how to project him for the rest of the 2025 season. Coleman has a wonderful matchup on the outside this week against a Miami secondary that has allowed the ninth-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers, but the coverage shell matchup could work against him this week. Miami has the seventh-highest two high rate (61.9%). Last year, against two high, Coleman had only a 13% target per route run rate, 0.76 yards per route run, and a 16.9% first-read share. We’ll see which side of the matchup for Coleman wins the day, but he’s a volatile flex option either way.
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