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
Mark Andrews is the TE18 in fantasy points per game with four TE1 weeks in weekly scoring (TE2, TE5, TE9, TE5). He has seven weeks as the TE17 or lower in weekly scoring as well. It has been feast or famine for Andrews this season. This week looks like it’s time to feast again. Yes, I know there’s a Thanksgiving pun in there somewhere. Andrews has a 16.1% target share with 25.9 receiving yards per game, 1.34 yards per route run, and a 21.4% first-read share. The Bengals have the eighth-highest single high rate (56%). Against single high, Andrews has seen his numbers spike with a 22% target per route run rate and 1.85 yards per route run. 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.
I’m not expecting Joe Burrow to get back under center this week and look like mid-season Joe Burrow or MVP-level Joe Burrow. We have only one full game sample to work with for Burrow in Week 1. In that game, he completed 60.9% of his passes with only 4.9 yards per attempt and 113 total passing yards. At the time, we didn’t know that the Browns defense would be as good as it has been, but also typically Burrow and the Bengals’ offense have been slow to round into form yearly. He could come out firing and look great this week, but there’s risk here even before we discuss the Ravens defense. Is the Ravens’ pass defense good, or have they simply feasted on bad quarterbacking since Week 8? I’m not sure to tell you the truth. Since Week 8, the Ravens have faced Caleb Williams, Tua Tagovailoa, JJ McCarthy, Dillon Gabriel, Shedeur Sanders, and Tyrod Taylor. Yeah, not exactly top-end talent at the quarterback position. Since Week 8, Baltimore has allowed the eighth-lowest yards per attempt, the lowest passer rating, the second-lowest CPOE, and has generated the tenth-best pressure rate. We’ll see how Burrow fares in Week 13, but he’s a volatile fantasy option this week with a WIDE range of outcomes.
Andrei Iosivas will operate as the WR2 this week if Tee Higgins is out, which is how I’m approaching this game. Last week, he was the WR29 in weekly scoring with an 18.4% target share, 61 receiving yards, 1.85 yards per route run, and a 13.6% first-read share. Iosivas has five red zone targets and five deep targets this season. Prior to last week, he had finished as a top-36 wide receiver in weekly scoring twice (WR26, WR13). Iosivas is a fine flex play again this week. Since Week 7, Baltimore has allowed the 11th-most receiving yards per game and ranked 15th in PPR points per target against perimeter wide receivers (last week, Iosivas had a 57.6% perimeter snap rate).
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