Fantasy Football Start’em, Sit’em: Parker Washington, Kayshon Boutte, Jayden Higgins

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

Jayden Higgins (WR – HOU)

Last week, Jayden Higgins took another step toward becoming a wide receiver who can be a difference-maker in the final weeks of the fantasy season. He has slowly seen his route share growing, and last week the Texans doused it with Miracle-Gro. Higgins had a 67.7% route share while gobbling up a 30% target share and 38.9% first-read share, per Fantasy Points Data. He finished the Texans’ Week 12 win over the Bills with 38 receiving yards, a touchdown, two red-zone targets and two deep targets. Since Week 10, Higgins’ per-route metrics have been filthy, with a 33% target per route run rate, 1.93 yards per route run and a 22.9% first-read share. He’s quickly becoming a weekly WR3 for fantasy, who should enjoy some spike weeks to close the season.

Kayshon Boutte (WR – NE)

Kayshon Boutte returned from a hamstring injury in Week 12 to rank second among the Patriots’ wide receivers in snaps and first in routes, per Pro Football Focus (PFF). He didn’t do much with the playing time, earning only a 5.7% target share with 15 receiving yards, but when you’re looking to Flex Boutte, you understand that you’ll have some weeks like this. He’s run hotter than the sun for most of the season, tied to Drake Maye as the team’s field-stretcher. If you’re picking up Boutte off the waiver wire, you can Flex him against the Giants or Ravens. Both of these pass defenses rank inside the top 12 in deep ball completion rate allowed, per Fantasy Points Data.

Parker Washington (WR – JAX)

Parker Washington popped off with another strong game in Week 12, with a 23.3% target share, 71 receiving yards and a touchdown. Since Week 7, Washington has had three games with at least 50 receiving yards and has scored two touchdowns. If Brian Thomas Jr. makes it back this week, that will ding Washington’s fantasy outlook for Week 13 and moving forward. He still has a nice matchup this week, though. Tennessee has allowed the eighth-most fantasy points per game to wide receivers.

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.