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.
- Waiver Wire Picks
- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Fantasy Football Start’em, Sit’em Lineup Advice
RJ Harvey is set to step into an expanded role this week with J.K. Dobbins out. We’ll see what that role will be, but I expect him to lead the backfield in touches and contribute on early downs and in the passing game. Harvey has been effective this season with his workload. Among 64 qualifying backs, he ranks 30th in explosive run rate and 21st in missed tackles forced per attempt. Among 61 backs in the passing game, he is third in target per route run rate, eighth in yards per route run, and 11th in first downs per route run. The Chiefs have been vulnerable to backs in the passing game, giving up the 11th-most receiving yards per game and the eighth-highest yards per reception, but they have been a tough rushing matchup. Since Week 6, Kansas City has allowed the second-fewest rushing yards per game, the 11th-lowest explosive run rate, and had the sixth-highest stuff rate. Harvey will need volume and passing game usage to carry him over the finish line as a strong play this week, but that is quite possible.
The backfield is slowly turning in Kenneth Walker’s direction, but it’s tough to tell that from the box scores. Last week, Walker had 14 carries and 67 rushing yards. Zach Charbonnet finished with the same number of carries, and he and George Holani got into the end zone. Walker tied for the team lead with four red zone rushing attempts and led the way with a 40.7% snap rate, a 30.8% route share, and a 46.2% red zone snap share. In the first half, Walker had a 57.1% snap share while Charbonnet had a 28.6% snap rate inside the 20-yard line. Seattle won’t run away with this week’s game, so we can cancel out last week’s George Holani blip. Based on these numbers, I do think that positive regression is coming for Walker, and it could be this week. Among 64 qualifying backs, Walker ranks seventh in explosive run rate and fifth in missed tackle rate. This week, he faces a Rams run defense that, since Week 6, has allowed the eighth-highest yards after contact per attempt, the ninth-highest success rate, the 11th-highest yards per carry to gap runs, the seventh-highest success rate to gap runs, and has logged the 13th-lowest stuff rate. Walker has been the leader for the team in gap run concepts (44.2%). I’m just as worried about Walker disappointing again this week, but the data is quite positive for him this week. I’ll close my eyes and plug him into lineups and trust the process.
With Isiah Pacheco likely out again this week, Kareem Hunt will operate as the team’s bell cow again. In Week 9, Hunt played 80.7% of the snaps with a 50% route share (2.9% target share). Hunt finished with only 12 touches and 55 total yards. Hunt is a volume play. He has only a 1% explosive run rate this season with a 10% missed tackle rate and 2.23 yards after contact per attempt. Hunt needs volume and likely at least one touchdown to pay off for fantasy this week. Since Week 6, Denver has allowed the seventh-fewest rushing yards per game, the lowest explosive run rate, the 13th-lowest missed tackle rate, and the sixth-lowest rushing success rate.
Subscribe: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeart | Castbox | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | TuneIn
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.
