Look, there are a lot of different fantasy football leagues. And those come in all sizes. So one man’s start ‘em can always be another man’s sit ‘em, and vice versa. There’s no one-size-fits-all fantasy football advice we can give generally because someone is always going to have some crazy format where a guy is relevant or not.

What we CAN do is look towards the fringe of the start/sit decisions for “normal” leagues. The 10-12 team leagues with one flex with the scoring settings that Yahoo or ESPN or whatever automatically give you. In that range, we’ll have some guys that we like more than usual and others that we like less than usual based on matchups and other circumstances. So that’s what we are going to look at here, but always make sure you refer back to the Weekly Fantasy Football Rankings before making your final call. 

Who Should You Start in Fantasy Football This Week?

One thing that will always remain true with this article or any of our content is that it is more satisfying when you go with your heart or your gut or whatever body part wills you to make the most fun decisions. Fantasy football is SUPPOSED to be fun. And it’s more fun when YOU make the decisions. That said, I’ve been using my pesky brain over here to come up with some reasons why you should or shouldn’t start some of the guys sitting on the fringe of lineups. So here is my fantasy football lineup advice for those guys.

 

 

 

Week 7 Quarterback Start 'Em, Sit 'Em

Start: Kyler Murray, Minnesota Vikings

Kyler Murray was dropped in a chunk of leagues for his bye, which allowed us to sneak him onto a few more rosters. And, for most of those rosters, we plan to start him right away. Possibly even the next three weeks, in fact, with juicy matchups against the Indianapolis Colts, Detroit Lions, and Buffalo Bills. Murray may have been hesitant to run early in the season with the concussion situation, but in his last game against the Saints, he ran 10 times. We love to see that for fantasy. 

Sit: Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams

Matthew Stafford really wasn’t a guy racking up crazy touchdown totals for a few years there. He was hovering mostly around 25. Then Davante Adams came to town, and all of a sudden every play inside the 10-yard line was a jump-ball touchdown to Adams. With Adams out for the foreseeable future, we really aren’t super pumped on starting Stafford. He’s a zero in the run game, so we really need multiple touchdown passes from him to be worth it. 

Week 7 Running Back Start 'Em, Sit 'Em

Start: Josh Jacobs, Green Bay Packers

Josh Jacobs has been cleared from the commissioner's exempt list and is good to return to the Packers this week. And we just want to make it clear that, wherever we have him, we are starting him. He’s not coming off some sort of injury, so we don’t expect him to be “eased in”. And he’s head and shoulders better than the other options we have. There is talk about him being suspended again at some point, but that has no effect on us this week - he’s playing, and we are starting him. 

Start: Ollie Gordon, Miami Dolphins

There are some folks out there who said not to add Ollie Gordon. And I get it, he might not be good, and the team might not be good. But when you have a chance to add a starting running back in fantasy football, you almost have to do it. Those opportunities simply come too rarely with season-ending injuries and guys taking over. If you added and started Gordon those first two weeks, then you already got your money’s worth. There just are not enough good starting running backs to bench Gordon.

Sit: Blake Corum, Los Angeles Rams

This one might seem a little crazy given he’s scored in each of the last two weeks. But we really did not fully trust Blake Corum as it was. Kyren Williams played 42 snaps to only 14 for Corum this past week. And Kyren still felt the need to make comments suggesting he wants to play more. Chasing touchdowns with running backs who are on the back end of a split is just not something we love doing. He’s still one of the better handcuff plus players, so start him if you need him, but he’s not some smash play. 

Sit: J.K. Dobbins, Denver Broncos

I’m actually going to extend this one out to all Broncos running backs. When Sean Payton gets emotional, he becomes a dangerous man. And he’s clearly not pleased with the state of the Broncos offense. He’s likely looking to shake things up, and it just so happens that rookie RB Jonah Coleman has been cleared to play. So, on top of a rotation that saw J.K. Dobbins and RJ Harvey (as well as a little Tyler Badie), now we get Coleman in the mix. None of them can really be trusted here unless someone can run with the job. 

 

 

 

Week 7 Wide Receiver Start 'Em, Sit 'Em

Start: Devaughn Vele, New Orleans Saints

There is some serious concern for Devaughn Vele once Jordyn Tyson gets back. But we already know that Tyson is not going to practice this week. So that doesn’t really matter to us just yet. What does matter is that Devaughn Vele has gotten 6 or more targets in every single game this year. Not all of them have been slam dunks, but guys like that offer a better floor than most guys out there, on top of the upside he’s flashed throughout the year here. So, for this week at least, Vele is probably still going to be in our fantasy lineups in any sort of PPR. 

Start: Ja'Kobi Lane, Baltimore Ravens 

At a certain point in the rankings, you just have to give yourself a shot at upside. There are only so many guys we can safely rank at WR2s and WR3s. After that, you either need to pick a “boring but safe” option or go with something that has a little spice. Ja'Kobi Lane falls in at WR36 this week because, with both Rashod Bateman and Mark Andrews clearly playing through injuries and not producing, there is some room for upside in this offense. We had Germie Bernard in this article last week, and we are willing to give rookies like Ja’Kobi Lane and Omar Cooper Jr. (WR30) a chance.

Sit: Josh Downs, Indianapolis Colts

The theory was there on Josh Downs. On a per-game basis, he was super efficient in past years. But he was a part-time guy, primarily operating out of the slot, so his overall numbers were not fantastic. So the idea was that, with a full-time role, he could pop for fantasy. Unfortunately, so far his numbers have been fairly similar to what he was doing previously, kind of illustrating that he probably is more of a slot guy. If he didn’t do much against the Titans last week with no Tyler Warren, it’s hard to trust him this week against the Vikings. 

Sit: Xavier Worthy, Kansas City Chiefs

Xavier Worthy is just a guy that I don’t really trust. He was supposed to be this super explosive field stretcher - possibly even the next Tyreek Hill. But he hasn’t quite done that. Then, whenever Rashee Rice is hurt, he moves into that role, but he hasn’t really done that much there either. In a tough matchup with the Seattle Seahawks this week, I just have a hard time believing that this guy is going to really start moving the needle for us in fantasy football. 

Week 7 Tight End Start 'Em, Sit 'Em

Start: Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons

Maybe I’m just a sucker for this particular player. But every once in a while, he flashes that ability that made us believe. Not only did he score two touchdowns this week, but he had a crazy contested catch followed by a juke and a hurdle. The usage has been much better for Pitts following the return of Michael Penix Jr so he’s back into our circle of trust. 

Start: Colston Loveland, Chicago Bears

The situation hasn’t been as drastic for Colston Loveland. At least Loveland wasn’t actually losing snaps the way Pitts was. Loveland had a bad game, then he had the rain game in Week Two, then the quarterbacks were all over the place with Caleb Williams out. With Williams back, we’re willing to throw Loveland back out there. We don’t necessarily love the matchup this week with New England, but it gets bleak pretty quickly in the tight end rankings. 

Sit: Juwan Johnson, New Orleans Saints

With a player like Harold Fannin who hasn’t been producing, at least can we point to the route participation and say he’s out there. With Juwan Johnson, that hasn’t been the case. For two weeks in a row now, he’s pretty much split snaps evenly with Noah Fant. And that simply will not do in fantasy football when there are 32 teams and about 10-12 fantasy-relevant tight ends at any given time. So Juwan Johnson is a guy we really don’t want to start right now if we can avoid it. 

Sit: Mark Andrews, Baltimore Ravens

Andrews technically still has a pretty high target share on the season. But he has looked legitimately terrible lately. And I actually believe that a hand injury could be to blame. In the Cowboys game in Week 3, Andrews hurt his hand, which saw a bit of a shift in his usage. It’s also about the time that the drops and fumbles started. This week, even with no Matt Hibner, he only ran 66% of the routes, with Josh Cuevas mixing in. Whatever it is, we cannot trust this guy right now. 

 

 

 

Week 7 D/ST Start 'Em, Sit 'Em

Start: Cincinnati Bengals DST

This is what is so odd about the defense position in fantasy. If we had a player at RB or WR who was top five in scoring at their position, they would be must/start. The Bengals are top five at their position this year, and that’s despite already having their bye week. I think they are a better unit than they have been in past years. Yet I’m still hesitant to start them against the Baltimore Ravens, with or without Lamar Jackson. If the Bengals defense can be stout this week, maybe we can trust them moving forward. We don’t like starting the Ravens defense in this game either; the over/under is set pretty high here. 

Sit: San Francisco 49ers DST

You might still just start them in a pinch if you don’t feel like adding a new defense, as they are a solid unit. But we don’t have them ranked top 12 this week. The Falcons are a completely different team with Michael Penix healthy, so we have to respect that. The 49ers are only 2.5-point favorites in a game with an over/under of 50, so Vegas is expecting the Falcons to score some points here. So there are better matchups out there if you are playing things week to week. 

How To Handle The Toughest Fantasy Football Start 'Em, Sit 'Em Decisions?

This is actually simpler than you’d think. Because Fantasy Alarm has three different ways for you to handle your tough start-sit decisions:

  • Weekly Rankings - I do these rankings personally every week and keep them updated based on the news and rumors
  • League Sync - Sync up your actual league to our systems so you can receive custom advice for your own settings. 
  • Start/Sit Tool - Plug in the two players and see what our projections and matchup analysis have to say.