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.
- Waiver Wire Picks
- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Fantasy Football Start’em, Sit’em Lineup Advice
Darren Waller made his 2025 debut last week and ran hotter than the sun. He turned a 37% route share, 16% target share, 27 receiving yards (2.70 yards per route run), and a 20% first-read share (two scores) into a TE4 finish for the week. Waller should see his route share increase in the coming weeks. He’s a volatile play until we see that happen with the state of the tight end position; you might be pressed into playing him. The matchup is right for him to make the most out of his routes this week again. Carolina has allowed the ninth-most fantasy points per game and the second-most receiving yards to tight ends.
Brenton Strange is the TE14 in fantasy points per game with one TE1 finish this season (TE7). He’s still looking for his first red zone or deep target this season. Strange has a 16% target share with 45.5 receiving yards per game (1.80 yards per route run) and a 15.7% first-read share. Strange isn’t on the streaming radar as Kansas City has allowed the sixth-fewest receiving yards and the fourth-fewest fantasy points per game to tight ends.
Juwan Johnson is the TE8 in fantasy points per game, ranking seventh in deep targets and fourth in red zone targets among tight ends. Johnson has a 20.8% target share with 1.53 yards per route run (51 receiving yards per game) and a 26.7% first-read share. He has finished as a top ten fantasy tight end in three of four games (TE1, TE4, TE9). Johnson could be a TE1 again this week, but the matchup isn’t great. He’ll have to get there with raw volume. The Giants have faced the third-most tight end targets this season, but are 19th in fantasy points per game against the position and have yielded the third-fewest yards per reception.
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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.
