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
Nix has been turnover-prone over the last two games, with five interceptions. Hopefully, he can limit the “Ferris Bueller” moments this week. He has had QB1 outings in four of his last seven games as the overall QB10 in fantasy points per game. Since Week 8, among 33 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranks 11th in passing yards per game, eighth in passing touchdowns, and 17th in passer rating and CPOE. Nix should sneak in this week with another top-15 fantasy quarterback performance with some upside to reenter the QB1 conversation. The Bolts’ pass defense has hit the skids recently. Since Week 10, they have allowed the 13th-highest yards per attempt, the second-most passing touchdowns, and the tenth-highest passer rating.
With Jaleel McLaughlin out and Javonte Wiliams looking like a shell of his former self, Sean Payton should lean on Estime this week. I don’t know if it actually happens because we haven’t seen it to this point. Since Week 11, Estime has played 7-23% of the snaps weekly while averaging only 5.3 touches and 17.5 total yards. With his 46 carries, Estime has put up decent per-touch numbers with a 15% missed tackle rate and 3.00 yards after contact per attempt. This is an easy avenue to feature the rookie and jump-start the running game. Let’s hope Payton actually does it, which is a coin flip. Since Week 10, Los Angeles has allowed the second-most rushing yards per game, the 11th-highest explosive run rate, and the third-most yards after contact per attempt. I’m not advocating for anyone to plug Estime into a lineup unless you are out of all reasonable options or in a deep league. This is a break glass in case of emergency flex that could pay off in Week 16.
Since Week 8, McConkey has been the WR13 in fantasy points per game, while he has only seen two red zone targets during this stretch. Since Week 11, Denver has moved toward more two high usage (51.5%). Since Week 8, against two high, McConkey has had a 22.0% target share, 1,83 YPRR, and a 22.4% first-read share. He faces a Denver pass defense that, since Week 10, has allowed the eighth-most receiving yards per game to slot receivers while still holding the position to the third-fewest PPR points per target. With Denver being so nasty against the run, teams have had no choice but to take to the air against them, and they have faced the third-most slot targets since Week 10. I expect Los Angeles will have to do the same this week, which helps McConkey’s ceiling and floor in a tough matchup.
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