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
Well, I hope you read the Primer last week and started Alec Pierce. Last week, he finished as the WR14 with a 24% target share, 115 receiving yards, and a 33.3% first-read share. This week, he is primed to have another nice outing. Like last week, he faces another single high heavy team and should exploit it. This week, he faces an Atlanta secondary that has the highest single high rate in the NFL (73.2%). Against single high, Pierce has a 27.6% target share with 3.69 yards per route run and a 32.5% first-read share. Those are elite numbers no matter how ya slice it. Since Week 5, Atlanta has allowed the 12th-most PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers. Start Pierce again this week and enjoy.
Josh Downs has finished as a top-36 wide receiver in weekly scoring in each game since Week 5 (WR34, WR15, WR27, WR22). Since Week 5, he has had an 18.2% target share, 48 receiving yards per game, 1.86 yards per route run, and a 21.6% first-read share. In those four games, he has seven red zone targets and one deep target. His route share in those games has been a decent 66%. This week, he faces an Atlanta secondary that has the highest single high rate in the NFL (73.2%). Since Week 5, against single high, his target share has dipped to 13.2% with 1.34 yards per route run and a 15.7% first-read share. Since Week 5, Atlanta has held slot receivers to the 14th-fewest receiving yards per game and ranked 16th in PPR points per target. Downs is a middling flex play this week. He could easily score a touchdown and save his day, but I don’t project a standout performance.
Across his last two games, Parker Washington has had a 23.2% target share, a 34.6% air-yard share, 71 receiving yards per game, 1.89 yards per route run, and a 25.9% first-read share. Last week, Dyami Brown was lost to a concussion, and Brian Thomas Jr. sustained an ankle injury. Their statuses are up in the air for Week 10. Adding to his murky outlook is the acquisition of Jakobi Meyers. Washington played on the perimeter in one of these games and in the slot for the other. I’ll update his status on Friday once we get a clearer picture of how the Jags’ wide receiver room will look for Week 10. There’s too much up in the air right now, even to attempt to project his role and matchup this week.
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