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 (TE – MIA)
Darren Waller’s route share has grown weekly. In his first game, he had only a 37% route share, but last week he was up to a 75% clip. Salutations! Waller is a full-time player in the Miami offense. Waller has a 12.8% target share, 1.86 yards per route run (39 receiving yards per game), and a 15.4% first-read share. Waller has four red zone targets in his three games played and has scored a touchdown in each game. He has two TE1 weekly finishes (TE4, TE6). He faces a Browns’ secondary that has the third-highest rate of single high (61.3%). Against single high, he has drawn only two targets (5.1% target share) and had a 3.6% first-read share. This isn’t a great schematic matchup for him. He could save his day with another touchdown again this week, but I don’t project that he’ll roll up receiving yards in this game. Cleveland ranks 16th in receiving yards and 18th in schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game allowed to tight ends.
Hunter Henry (TE – NE)
Hunter Henry is the TE11 in fantasy points per game, leading tight ends in deep targets and running second in red zone looks. Henry has a 16.7% target share, 1.81 yards per route run (46.2 receiving yards per game), and a 20% first-read share. Since Week 3, Tennessee has had the second-highest two-high rate in the NFL (66.9%). Against two high, his target share has nudged up to 17.1% with 1.54 yards per route run and a 17.6% first-read share. This isn’t a great matchup for Henry. Tennessee has allowed the eighth-fewest receiving yards and the seventh-fewest yards per reception and fantasy points per game to tight ends. He could post TE2 production in Week 7.
Kimani Vidal (RB – LAC)
Kimani Vidal stepped up last week as the Chargers’ clear workhorse. Will it be this good every week for Vidal? No, he doesn’t get to play against the Dolphins weekly, but he is the clear leadback for this offense, right now. Vidal handled six of seven possible red zone rushing attempts, he played 67.2% of the snaps, had 18 of 24 running back carries, and had a 43.6% route share (10.5% target share). Last week, Vidal finished with 21 touches and 138 total yards as the RB9 for the week. Vidal has been good on a per-touch basis this season with a 13.6% explosive run rate and 3.41 yards after contact per attempt. Vidal could easily have another standout day in Week 7. Indy has allowed the 13th-highest explosive run rate, the sixth-highest yards before contact per attempt, the sixth-highest yards per carry to zone runs, and the fifth-highest success rate to zone runs (Vidal 59.1% zone).
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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.
