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
J.J. McCarthy has had an up-and-down start to his career. Yes, in his three “healthy” starts, he has been the QB11, QB14, and QB13 in weekly scoring, but his passing accuracy needs to improve. Overall, among 42 qualifying passers, he ranks 30th in yards per attempt and 28th in CPOE, but he is also first in hero throw rate. The high-end moments are there, but he has to improve the play-to-play consistency. The Bears offer a wonderful matchup this week for McCarthy to possibly play up to his potential and post another QB1 outing. Since Week 6, Chicago has allowed the fourth-most passing yards per game and yards per attempt, the fifth-most passing touchdowns (tied), and the second-highest CPOE.
Geno Smith is a QB2 that could easily find his way to QB1 production this week. Smith has two QB1 outings this season (QB4, QB6). Among 42 qualifying passers, he ranks 26th in yards per attempt, 11th in highly accurate throw rate, 23rd in catchable target rate, and 34th in fantasy points per dropback. This week, he gets a cakewalk matchup against a Dallas secondary that, since Week 6, has allowed the sixth-highest yards per attempt, the eighth-highest CPOE, and the sixth-highest success rate per dropback.
In Marcus Mariota‘s four starts this season, he has one QB1 weekly finish (QB6) while averaging 5.2 rushing attempts and 27.5 rushing yards per game (one rushing score). Among 42 qualifying quarterbacks, Mariota ranks tenth in yards per attempt, eighth in CPOE, 17th in highly accurate throw rate, and fourth in hero throw rate. He should have success this week. Since Week 6, Miami has ranked 18th in yards per attempt while giving up the 11th-most passing touchdowns (tied), the tenth-highest CPOE, and the 11th-highest success rate per dropback.
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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.