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
Alec Pierce. The first of his name and the destroyer of single high. Pierce is the WR34 in fantasy points per game with top-24 performances in weekly scoring in three of his last four games (WR22, WR15, WR14). He has been crushing single high with elite per-route metrics. There’s more volatility with how the Colts will attack the Chiefs this week after what we saw from them last week than I anticipated. In Weeks 5-10, Kansas City had the ninth-highest single high rate (56%). Last week, they flipped the script and returned to their classic bread and butter as a two-high heavy defense (58.5%). The variations in their coverage structure mean massively different things for their receiving options. If they roll out single-high, I would expect Pierce and Tyler Warren to lead the passing attack. If they continue with more two high this week, Indy will look to feature Josh Downs and Michael Pittman more. Against single high, Pierce leads the team with a whopping 29% target per route run rate and 3.44 yards per route run. Against two high, he’s fourth on the team with a 13% target per route run rate and 1.38 yards per route run. That’s as wide a divide as you can get for a player’s outlook. Pierce is a boom or bust option this week. The Chiefs’ outside corners have been giving, which helps his cause this week. Since Week 7, Kansas City has allowed the seventh-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
Christian Watson is coming off a wonderful game as the WR6 in weekly scoring while seeing a 19.2% target share and a 28.6% air-yard share with 46 receiving yards (2.00 yards per route run) and a team-leading 33.3% first-read share. Since Week 8, Watson has had a 12.5% target share with 2.23 yards per route run and a 17.5% first-read share. In those four games, Watson has had two red zone targets and EIGHT deep targets. Watson’s downfield role could help him immensely this week against a secondary that has allowed the highest deep ball completion rate and the 12th-most deep passing yards per game. Also, Minnesota has the highest two high rate in the NFL (68.5%). Against two high, since Week 8, Watson has ranked fifth in target per route run rate (13%) on the team but second in yards per route run (1.73). Watson could have another monster game if he hits on the downfield looks. Since Week 7, Minnesota has allowed the third-most PPR points per target and the fifth-most receiving yards per game to perimeter wide receivers.
Last week, Michael Wilson was THE WR1 in weekly scoring. I’ll own the L there and say I didn’t see this monster game coming. Nope. Not at all. Not for a player that hadn’t had more than 61 receiving yards or a weekly finish higher than WR40 all year. Wilson had a 31.6% target share, a 60.9% air-yard share, 185 receiving yards, 3.94 yards per route run, four deep targets, and a 40% first-read share. I don’t think Wilson has an encore performance this week, but he can still have a strong game with Marvin Harrison Jr. out again. Since Week 7, Jacksonville has allowed the eighth-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
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