Fantasy Football Start’em, Sit’em: Michael Penix, Aaron Rodgers, Tua Tagovailoa

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 dive into our start/sit lineup advice and outlook for a few of the top fantasy football waiver wire pickups of the week.

Fantasy Football Start’em, Sit’em Lineup Advice

Michael Penix Jr. (QB – ATL)

Analysis: The Falcons must be a frustrating team to root for this year. Despite having huge wins against the Bills and Commanders (before they fell off), the Falcons have lost two games on missed kicks at the buzzer, and now they’ve lost an overtime game to the Colts. Thankfully, their schedule has a few favorable matchups coming up. This week, the Falcons face the Panthers, who shocked the league by shutting out the Falcons in Week 3. To the surprise of most, the Panthers have had a decent defense this season, allowing the 12th-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks. That said, they just allowed Tyler Shough to throw for 282 yards, two scores and zero interceptions en route to his first career win. With the abundance of talent on this offense, Penix is one of the safest waiver quarterbacks, but he continues to have a limited ceiling due to his lack of rushing production.

Aaron Rodgers (QB – PIT)

Analysis: Aaron Rodgers hasn’t been a high-scoring fantasy quarterback this season, but he has consistently produced double-digit fantasy points. With four weeks between 10 and 12 fantasy points and only two weeks over 20 points, he is a high-floor, low-ceiling option this year. In Week 10, he ran into a great game plan by Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter. However, over the next two weeks, he faces the Bengals and the Bears, who both rank in the top four in fantasy points allowed to the quarterback position. The last time he faced the Bengals, he and Joe Flacco combined for 570 yards and seven passing touchdowns. If there was ever a game for Rodgers to crack 25 points for the second time this season, it may be this matchup. Rodgers is a safe fill-in quarterback each week and has serviceable upside in favorable matchups.

Tua Tagovailoa (QB – MIA)

Analysis: Plug your nose, close your eyes, take some Pepto-Bismol, do whatever it takes to stomach the possibility of putting Tua Tagovailoa in your lineup this week. Let’s start with why you might want to play him in Week 11. The Dolphins face the Commanders, who are allowing an average of 8.8 yards per pass attempt (most in the league) and an average of 311.3 passing yards per game over their last three games (second-most in the league). End of list. The bad? Tagovailoa has only finished as a top-15 quarterback twice this season. In 40% of his games, he has finished outside of the top 24 at the position. That includes finishing as the QB34 in Week 7. There are 32 teams in the NFL, and two teams were on bye that week. The Dolphins are also averaging the seventh-fewest passing yards per game. With that all said, they are playing the Commanders. Tagovailoa could have a good week in a favorable matchup, but we have also seen the Dolphins bottom out.

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.