Start ’em Sit ’em: Week 14
With week 14 upon us most people have ended their regular season in Fantasy Football and hopefully made the playoffs. If you’re in the playoffs congrats but as you should know it only gets tougher now. If you happened to miss the playoffs because, well it just wasn’t your year, then you can still fight for the top spot among non playoff teams. Finally if your league’s regular season isn’t over yet and you’re still fighting for a playoff spot, first seed bye, or whatever the case may be good luck! If you fall into any of these categories you probably wanna read the rest of this article because I’m going to tell you who to start and who to sit if you wanna get that week 14 win!
Start ’em
Quarterback, Alex Smith: Smith and the Chiefs suffered an upsetting loss this last Sunday against the Jets. Even though they lost Smith threw for 366 yards 4 TDs and added a 70 yard run to his stat line, totaling up 37.6 points. I expect the Chiefs to come into this game with do or die attitude for their division race. They will bring out all they have to win this and as a result Smith will have a great week.
Running back, Melvin Gordon: Over the last 3 weeks the Redskins are allowing an average of 26.5 points to opposing running backs (standard scoring). Gordon has been quiet lately and I think he is due for a big game. You can count on him this weekend to put up a pretty amount of points for you this weekend.
Wide receiver, Josh Gordon: This is the start of the week for me and I know I’m risking a lot with this pick. However over the past 5 weeks the Packers have allowed an average of 26.3 fantasy points to opposing wide receivers. Last week Gordon only had 4 catches for 85 yards but he was open a lot. At one point in the game Gordon was wide open going down the sideline and Kizer overthrew him resulting in an incomplete pass. However if Gordon gets that catch it goes for a 60 yard touchdown bringing his stat line to 5 catches for 145 yards and a touchdown. I think with the extra week to practice Gordon takes advantage of this fantastic matchup and scores a lot of fantasy points.
Tight end, Hunter Henry: Henry has been really good the past couple weeks and this week he gets a match up against the 29th ranked defense against opposing fantasy tight ends. Not to mention Rivers and the Chargers have been lighting it up lately. I expect a high scoring game here and Henry will probably end up with a touchdown or two.
Sit ’em
Quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger: When it comes to starting or sitting a player I don’t usually just rely on stats, however this is a special case. Since week 3 fantasy quarterbacks are averaging 8.6 fantasy points per week. Yes you read that right, the highest scoring position is averaging under 10 points against this squad. To top it all off this game is in Baltimore. That’s all the more reason to keep Ben out of your starting lineup.
Running back, Christian McCaffery: McCaffery has been really good this year, but so has the Vikings defense. Especially in keeping opposing running backs in check. No team has allowed less fantasy points to opposing running backs this year than the Vikings and I expect the game this weekend won’t be much different. I think the Panthers vs. Vikings game this weekend is a defensive battle.
Wide receiver, Doug Baldwin: It’s really hard for me to put Baldwin here but given the matchup I have to. There’s nothing I want more than for Doug to go out there and burn Jalen Ramsay all day but I just don’t see that happening. Ramsay and the number 1 ranked Jaguars defense have kept their opponents passing game in check and this is another game I expect to be a defensive battle.
Tight end, Kyle Rudolph: Rudolph has been a solid fantasy option this year but I’m staying away from him this week. The panthers haven’t allowed more than 8 fantasy points to opposing tight ends in the past 7 weeks. Rudolph’s chances of getting into the end zone are fairly high but I don’t think he should be in your starting lineups this week.
Written by: Jon Tetreault ( @jtetreault13 )