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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- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
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Fantasy Football Start em, Sit em Lineup Advice
Goedert is the TE2 in fantasy points per game, but that is inflated with Philly dealing with no DeVonta Smith or A.J. Brown for nearly two weeks. Both should be expected to return this week. In Weeks 1-2, Goedert was the TE13 in fantasy points per game, drawing a 14.1% target share with 1.21 YPRR and a 15.8% first-read share. The Browns have been a difficult assignment for tight ends, allowing the 11th-fewest receiving yards and the seventh-fewest fantasy points per game to the position.
Lions’ tight end Sam LaPorta has had a slow start to the season. He has yet to score more than 7.3 fantasy points in any of Detroit’s four games this season. It has been a far cry from his rookie campaign last year when he eclipsed that total in 11 of his 17 games. LaPorta has been hampered a bit by an ankle injury, so perhaps Detroit’s Week 5 bye came at just the right time. Fantasy managers are hoping that LaPorta will look like the 2023 version of himself beginning this Sunday when Detroit hosts Dallas. This projects to be a game where the Lions can control the pace with the running game versus a weak Cowboys’ run defense. Still, there is always the chance the team makes a concerted effort to feature LaPorta coming out of the bye. Given the question marks surrounding many tight ends around the league, fantasy managers should continue to trust LaPorta despite the disappointing start.
Etienne is dealing with a shoulder issue, and it has drastically affected his playing time. Over the last two games, he has averaged only 45% of the snaps with 12 touches and 60 total yards. Among 57 qualifying backs, he ranks 25th in missed tackles forced per attempt and 20th in yards after contact per attempt. The Bears run defense has been up and down. While they have the fourth-lowest missed tackle rate and the eighth-lowest yards after contact per attempt, they have also been exceptionally vulnerable to gap runs. They have allowed the ninth-highest explosive run rate and have given up the fourth-highest yards per carry to gap runs and the 11th-highest success rate to this run play type (Etienne 64% gap). With this snap rate cut, he’s a dicey RB2, but the path is there for him to pay off this week, even with limited volume.
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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.