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
Caleb Williams might be the QB9 in fantasy points per game, but his weekly volatility has been well-documented this season. He has been helping his weekly floor, though, with seven games with at least 20 rushing yards and three rushing scores. Among 45 qualifying passers, he ranks 20th in yards per attempt, 36th in highly accurate throw rate, 40th in catchable target rate, and 34th in hero throw rate. This week, I’m expecting “bad Caleb” to show up as he faces this Philly pass defense, which has been a buzzsaw. Since Week 7, they have allowed the third-fewest passing touchdowns, the seventh-lowest passer rating, and the 12th-lowest adjusted completion rate. Williams won’t have much time in the pocket this week as Philly has had the fifth-best pressure rate across their last five games.
Since Week 10, Swift has averaged 16 touches and 72 total yards per game while playing 53.5% of the snaps with a 39.1% route share and a 9.7% target share. Last week, Swift did take a backseat to Kyle Monangai as his snap rate fell to 41% with a 36.8% route share (still led the team) and only one red zone rushing attempt (Monangai had five). I don’t know if this is a one-off or a changing of the guard in the Chicago backfield. We’ll have to see if this usage pattern sticks in Week 13, but it does cast some doubt upon Swift’s unquestioned lead-back status for the Bears. Among 54 qualifying backs, Swift ranks 14th in explosive run rate and 20th in missed tackle rate. Swift has a horrible matchup this week. Since Week 8, Philly has allowed the second-lowest explosive run rate, the fifth-fewest rushing yards per game, and the sixth-lowest rushing success rate.
Since Week 10, Kyle Monangai has averaged 10.6 touches and 37.7 total yards with a 43.4% snap rate, a 30.4% route share, and a 1.9% target share. Last week could suggest there’s a changing of the guard in the Chicago backfield, though. Last week, Kyle Monangai still ranked second to D’Andre Swift in route share with 34.2% but he outsnapped him with a 55.7% snapshare. Monangai also had five red zone rushing attempts while Swift only saw one. Among 54 qualifying backs, Monangai ranks 21st in yards after contact per attempt and 27th in explosive run rate. Monangai has a terrible matchup this week and will likely need a touchdown to pay off for fantasy. Since Week 8, Philly has allowed the second-lowest explosive run rate, the fifth-fewest rushing yards per game, and the sixth-lowest rushing success rate.
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