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
Cade Otton (TE – TB)
Cade Otton has been a ghost for much of this year as the TE33 in fantasy points per game. He has reemerged in the passing offense over the last two weeks with 12.1 and 10.1 PPR points as the TE13 and TE17 in weekly scoring. He has only one red zone target this season, though. Over the last two games, Otton has had a 19.6% target share, 66 receiving yards per game (3.07 yards per route run), and an 11.1% first-read share. Otton is a strong streaming option at tight end this week against a Lions’ defense that has allowed the 14th-most receiving yards per game, the seventh-highest yards per reception, and the 12th-most fantasy points per game to tight ends.
– Derek Brown
Sam Darnold (QB – SEA)
Sam Darnold might be the QB18 in fantasy points per game, but he has three QB1 outings in his last four games (QB10, QB2, QB9). Darnold has quietly been amazing on a per-dropback basis this season. It has been awesome to see. Darnold is first in yards per attempt, third in passer rating, ninth in highly accurate throw rate, and third in hero throw rate. Houston has fielded a stout pass defense, but Darnold has played so well that I think he still posts solid QB2 numbers this week. Houston has allowed the fifth-fewest yards per attempt, the lowest passer rating, and the sixth-lowest success rate per dropback.
– Derek Brown
C.J. Stroud (QB – HOU)
As of this writing, I have C.J. Stroud ranked QB16, but it’s possible I’ll be moving him down. I’m worried about a quarterback with a bad offensive line going up against a Seattle pass rush that’s sixth in the league in pressure rate and tied for second in sacks. The only reason I have Stroud ranked as a potential streamer is because the Seahawks have been playing without their two best cornerbacks, Devon Witherspoon (knee) and Riq Woolen (concussion), and starting safety Julian Love (hamstring). If more than one of those two injured defensive backs are able to return this week, I’ll drop Stroud into the non-streaming zone of my rankings.
– 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.
