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
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Fantasy Football Start’em, Sit’em Lineup Advice
Isaiah Likely has been a nothingburger this season. He has only one game with more than 17 receiving yards and more than 3.7 PPR points. Since Week 6, he has had a 57.3% route share with an 11.5% target share, 19.3 receiving yards per game, 1.09 yards per route run, and a 10.3% first-read share. In his last six games, he has only three red zone targets and one deep target. He’s a matchup-based dart throw at the streaming tight end board this week. The Bengals have been a free square for tight ends all season, giving up the most receiving yards per game and the most fantasy points per game to the position.
A.J. Brown has seen his season-long stock rise as he’s the WR25 in fantasy points per game. He has a 25.7% target share with 56.7 receiving yards per game, 1.85 yards per route run, and a 35% first-read share. Brown ranks second on the team in deep targets with 13, but he leads the team in red zone targets with ten. Since Week 6, Chicago has had the 11th-highest single high rate (54.3%). Against single high, Brown has feasted with a 31.6% target share, 2.51 yards per route run, and a 40% first-read share. Since Week 7, Chicago has toughened up against perimeter wide receivers, giving up the ninth-fewest fantasy points per game and the 14th-fewest receiving yards per game. Brown has the talent to overcome it, especially with the favorable single high matchup.
DeVonta Smith has been humming along this season as the WR20 in fantasy points per game with a 25.6% target share, 68.5 receiving yards per game, 2.18 yards per route run, and a 31.4% first-read share. Smith ranks second on the team with seven red zone targets, but he leads Philly with 17 deep targets. Since Week 6, Chicago has had the 11th-highest single high rate (54.3%). Against single high, Smith has had strong numbers with a 25.3% target share, 2.12 yards per route run, and a 32% first-read share. Smith should have another solid game this week against a Bears secondary that, since Week 7, has allowed the eighth-most PPR points per target to slot receivers.
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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.
