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 experts Pat Fitzmaurice and Derek Brown advise. And you can find all of DBro’s fantasy football outlook in this week’s fantasy football primer as well as Fitz’s fantasy football rankings & tiers.
- 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
Matthew Stafford (QB – LAR)
Matthew Stafford is the QB15 in fantasy points per game with QB1 finishes in two of his last three games. He’s best viewed as a QB2 this week with his receiving weapons banged up. Stafford has been ballin’ this season, though. Among 41 qualifying passers, Stafford ranks sixth in yards per attempt, third in passing touchdowns and passing yards per game, and second in hero throw rate. He faces a Jacksonville pass defense that leads the NFL in interceptions and has allowed the 11th-lowest CPOE, but they have also given up the tenth-most passing touchdowns (tied) and the 11th-highest success rate per dropback. Stafford should put up solid numbers this week, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough to make it into QB1 territory.
– Derek Brown
Harold Fannin Jr. (TE – CLE)
If David Njoku is out with a knee injury this week — and it seems like he will be — rookie Harold Fannin becomes a playable option. Browns tight ends have 29 targets and 20 catches in Dillon Gabriel’s first two NFL starts. Obviously, Fannin wouldn’t get all of Njoku’s vacated targets, but Fannin’s target outlook would certainly improve. He’ll be facing a Dolphins defense that has allowed the fifth-most receiving yards to TEs. But with the grim weather forecast in Cleveland, Fanning is still outside of TE1 range.
– Pat Fitzmaurice
Mason Taylor (TE – NYJ)
Yes, Mason Taylor flopped last week, with one catch for two yards against the Broncos. But he gets a much softer matchup this week against the Panthers, who gave up the most fantasy points to tight ends last season and have allowed the second-most fantasy points per game to tight ends in 2025. And with WR Garrett Wilson out with a knee injury, Jets QB Justin Fields has to throw to someone.
– Pat Fitzmaurice
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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.
