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: Tight Ends
Last year, Tucker Kraft stepped up as Green Bay’s clear present and future starting tight end. The South Dakota State alum finished as the TE14 in fantasy points per game in the Packers’ run-heavy offense. Green Bay loves its committee approach with the passing game, so it’s tough to see Kraft becoming a high-end target earner in this offense, but he has the talent to do so. Last year, among 47 qualifying tight ends, Kraft ranked 20th in target share and 27th in first read share, but he posted top 12 marks in receiving yards per game (12th-best), yards per route run (seventh), missed tackles forced (third), and yards after the catch per reception (first). Green Bay did feed him an 18.5% designed target rate (second-best among tight ends), but he wasn’t the first option on many passing plays. As much as I love Kraft, I’m not bullish on his outlook this week against Detroit. Last year, in two meetings with this defense, he averaged only 3.5 receptions and 37.5 receiving yards. The Lions were tough on tight ends all year, allowing the third-fewest receiving yards and the 14th-fewest yards per reception.
Last year, Evan Engram ranked 20th in yards per route run, but his target-drawing ability was just fine, ranking fifth in targets per route run and third in target share. He was also dealing with shoulder and hamstring issues. Those were his first injuries to deal with during a season since 2021. In Engram’s two previous seasons, he ranked 13th and 14th in yards per route run and second and 12th in target share. Also, in 2023-2024, Engram excelled in one of the hallmark metrics that I look at when evaluating talent and upside at the tight end position: yards per route run versus man coverage. In those seasons, Engram ranked fourth and eighth in this metric. Engram still has massive upside in this offense, but his preseason usage is concerning. In the third week of preseason action, he had only a 64% route per dropback rate. If that holds all season, it’ll cap his upside in fantasy. I’m unsure that it will. Engram has a tough matchup for Week 1 against a defense that gave up the ninth-fewest schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game to tight ends.
Tyler Warren‘s talent is undeniable, but his target volume in this offense weekly behind Josh Downs and Michael Pittman, along with quarterback play concerns, have clouded his outlook for 2025. During his final collegiate season, Warren ranked in the top three among tight ends in yards per route run, receiving grade, missed tackles forced, and yards after the catch. Warren could start the season off right with a TE1 finish out of the gate against a Miami secondary that allowed the 12th-most receiving yards and fantasy points per game to tight ends last year. Daniel Jones should look to feed easy catch and run targets to Warren against a defense that allowed the tenth-most missed tackles last year.
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