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’m approaching this week like Bucky Iriving will be out. At the time of writing this, he is in a boot and on crutches, dealing with a foot sprain. I don’t see him healing enough from this injury to suit up this week. When White has been called upon, he has been efficient on a per-touch basis with a 26% missed tackle rate and 2.43 yards after contact per attempt. White should handle the bulk of the work this week while having bellcow upside. Sean Tucker could steal a few touches, but I don’t think his workload is projectable enough to warrant him being a flex play this week. White has a horrible matchup incoming. Seattle has been quite good this season at stopping the run, giving up the sixth-fewest rushing yards per game, the second-lowest explosive run rate, and allowing the third-fewest yards after contact per attempt.
With Trey Benson headed to the IR, Michael Carter looks to take over the early down portion of a committee approach in Arizona. Last week, Carter played only four snaps, had one rushing attempt, and ran two routes. Last year, to close the season (Weeks 17-18), he drew two starts, averaging 18 touches and 70 total yards with a 13% missed tackle rate and 1.67 yards after contact per attempt. In those two games, he finished as the RB20 and RB11 in weekly scoring. Emari Demercado will factor into this backfield equation, but if Carter is the early down hammer, he should have a strong day against a porous Titans’ run defense. Tennessee has allowed the fifth-most rushing yards per game, the fourth-highest explosive run rate, and the 13th-highest yards after contact per attempt.
The big debate this week is “which Cardinals’ running back will take the lion’s share of the work this week?” The way I’m approaching this is that Michael Carter will be the early down option, and Demercado will handle the two-minute offense and most of the passing downs. Last week, he was second to Trey Benson in route share with 29.4%. He played 39.1% of the snaps but only had two carries. Last year, while he had a 20.4% route share, he had only 6.8% of the rushing volume. He could easily break a big run this week and pay off with the early down volume he is given. Last year, in limited action (24 carries), he looked very good with a 12.5% explosive run rate, a 21% missed tackle rate, and 3.58 yards after contact per attempt. Tennessee has allowed the fifth-most rushing yards per game, the fourth-highest explosive run rate, and the 13th-highest yards after contact per attempt. The Titans are also 17th in receiving yards and 18th in yards per reception allowed to running backs. Demercado and Carter are strong flexes this week, with the situation murky and the matchup juicy.
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