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
Mayfield is the QB5 in fantasy points per game. He had a bump in the road last week but still looks like a revitalized version of himself. Among 35 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranks 11th in yards per attempt, seventh in passer rating, 16th in CPOE, and ninth in fantasy points per dropback. The Eagles pass defense is starting to gel, so what looked like a pushover matchup earlier in the season isn’t so easy now. Philadelphia has given up the 10th-lowest CPOE, the 12th-lowest success rate per dropback, and sits at 14th in yards per attempt. Mayfield has the weapons to overcome a tough matchup, but it won’t be easy.
Dobbins has played at least 58% of the snaps in two of his three games this season, averaging 16.3 touches and 108 total yards. He is the RB14 in fantasy points per game. Among 50 qualifying backs, he ranks fourth in explosive run rate, sixth in missed tackles forced per attempt, and 24th in yards after contact per attempt. The mauling offensive line that he has been running behind is battered, which will affect him in Week 4. Dobbins looks to have a tough Week 4 upcoming against a Chiefs’ run defense that has held rushers in check with the seventh-lowest explosive run rate, the ninth-lowest missed tackle rate, and the eighth-lowest yards after contact per attempt.
Well, so much for Aiyuk week last week. Apparently, I was wrong, and that was just a weird way to spell Jauan Jennings week. The returns for Aiyuk haven’t been there with his WR53 standing, but that doesn’t mean that he has been bad on the field. Among 106 qualifying receivers, he ranks third in separation score and first in route win rate, so don’t think about trading him away. If anything, now is a great time to get Aiyuk on your teams. This looks like another tough-on-paper matchup this week. Aiyuk has a 20% target share, a 21.7% air-yard share, 1.20 YPRR, and a 23.2% first-read share. The Patriots have featured the eighth-highest rate of two-high (50.4%). Against two high, Aiyuk has had a 16.4% target share, 0.95 YPRR, and a 21.6% first-read share. Also, add that Aiyuk will get shadow coverage from Christian Gonzalez this week, and it’s a good week to fade Aiyuk. Gonzalez has followed Ja’Marr Chase, Garrett Wilson, and D.K. Metcalf this season on 84-90% of their routes, holding Chase and Wilson to 33 receiving yards or less.
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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.