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
Over the last two weeks, Vidal has taken over as the lead back for Los Angeles, but it hasn’t led to a ton of volume. He has averaged a 60% snap share with 6.5 touches and 29 total yards. Vidal hasn’t posted an explosive run in either game and only had 2.18 yards after contact per attempt, but in this small sample, he has delivered an impressive 27% missed tackle rate. The Bolts need to recommit to running the ball. This isn’t exactly the best matchup to do so, but this offense has been floundering as of late as they don’t have the aerial weapons to truly lean into being a pass-first team. Vidal is a low-end flex play again this week. Since Week 10, Denver has allowed the second-fewest rushing yards per game, the third-lowest missed tackle rate, and logged the highest stuff rate.
Since Week 11, Williams has played 45-56% of the snaps weekly while averaging 9.1 touches and 29.6 total yards. He has played terribly, with zero explosive runs, zero missed tackles, and only 1.78 yards after contact per attempt. The matchup is glorious this week, but Williams doesn’t have the juice or the volume to capitalize on it. 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.
Since Week 8, Johnston has been the WR43 in fantasy points per game with four outings with at least 12.8 PPR points. He has four red zone targets across his last seven games and five scores. Since Week 11, Denver has moved toward more two high usage (51.5%). Since Week 8, against two high, Johnston has had an 11.7% target share, 2.04 YPRR, and a 17.5% first-read share. Johnston is a low-end flex play again for Week 16. Since Week 10, Denver has allowed the fifth-fewest PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers.
Last week, Smartt assumed the starting role with Will Dissly out, and he’s likely to do so again in Week 16. Against the Bucs, he had a 56.8% route share, a 17.6% target share (six targets), 2.38 YPRR (50 receiving yards), and a 16.7% first-read share. Smartt hasn’t recorded a red zone target this season. Smartt is on the streaming radar again this week, but he’s only on the fringe this week. Denver has been stout against tight ends, giving up the fewest yards per reception and the tenth-fewest receiving yards per game.
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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.
