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
David Njoku is the TE16 in fantasy points per game, ranking sixth in deep targets and 11th in red zone targets among tight ends. He’s coming off a season-best performance last week with Dillon Gabriel under center. In Dillon Gabriel‘s first start, Njoku had a 24.2% target share (led the team), 67 receiving yards (2.39 yards per route run), and a 28.6% first-read share (led the team). Njoku was the TE7 in fantasy for the week. Njoku could build upon last week’s performance in Week 6 against a Steelers’ pass defense that has allowed the third-most fantasy points per game and the sixth-highest yards per reception to tight ends.
Last week, on my first pass through the data and looking at the matchup for Zach Ertz, I thought he was going to smash, but when I looked at the coverage data further for the Bolts, I realized I was wrong and pivoted with last Friday’s update. I hope you checked back into the Primer on Friday and read my update because I was fading Ertz, and that move was correct, as he had only one target and zero fantasy points. This is the week to go back to Ertz with the Bears’ coverage usage. They have the second-highest two high usage in the NFL (62.6%). They have utilized two high at least 56.5% of their defensive snaps weekly. This season against two high, Ertz has a 20.8% target share, 2.26 yards per route run, and a 32.3% first-read share. The Bears are a neutral matchup for Ertz, ranking 17th in fantasy points per game and 20th in schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game allowed to tight ends.
In Dillon Gabriel‘s first start, Fannin Jr. had a 12.1% target share, a 47.2% route share, 13 receiving yards (0.76 yards per route run), and a 14.3% first-read share. It was Fannin Jr.’s lowest route share of the season. The touchdown he secured saved his fantasy day. With the lackluster usage in last week’s game, I would have to be quite desperate to start Fannin Jr. this week, but the matchup is nice, so I understand it if people have no other choice and are banking on another score from Fannin Jr. this week. The Steelers have allowed the third-most fantasy points per game and the sixth-highest yards per reception 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.
