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
I was very bullish about Alec Pierce‘s prospects last week against the Chargers’ single high coverage. This week, I’m more bearish about his outlook. The Titans have the third-highest rate of two high (59.4%). Against two high, Pierce has only a 9.2% target share, 0.85 yards per route run, and a 10.9% first-read share. Pierce has a few outs this week that could allow him to pay off despite possibly limited volume. Pierce leads the team with eight deep targets, and the Titans have allowed the second-highest completion rate and fifth-highest passer rating on downfield targets. Tennessee also can’t cover perimeter wide receivers, allowing the third-highest PPR points per target. Pierce is a dice roll flex play that could yield decent results this week if he and Indiana Jones can hook up on a deep target or two in Week 8.
Last week, Tez Johnson had a 74.1% route share with a 14% target share, a 19.3% air-yard share, 58 receiving yards (1.45 yards per route run), and a 17.2% first-read share. He had one red zone target and two deep targets. This week, he’ll face a Saints’ pass defense that has utilized single high at the fifth-highest rate in the NFL (59.7%). Over the last two weeks, against single high, Johnson has had an 18% target per route run rate, 2.06 yards per route run, and a 17.9% first-read share. Johnson will likely be running on the perimeter for most of his snaps this week (52.4-60% out wide over the last three games). He’s a solid flex play with upside this week against a Saints secondary that has allowed the fourth-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
Since Week 5, Cade Otton has had weekly scoring finishes of TE13, TE17, and TE11 with at least 10.1 PPR points in each game. In those three games, he has had an 18.9% target share, 65.7 receiving yards per game (2.14 yards per route run), and a 12.7% first-read share. This week, he’ll face a Saints’ pass defense that has utilized single high at the fifth-highest rate in the NFL (59.7%). Over the last three weeks, against single high, Otton has had a 20.4% target share with 2.74 yards per route run and a 16.2% first-read share. Otton is a viable streaming option this week against a defense that ranks 18th in receiving yards per game and has given up the tenth-most fantasy points per game to tight ends.
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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.
