Sunday, September 17, 2017

Fantasy Football Start'em, Sit'em: Week 2 Fantasy Quarterbacks

Ultimately, the decision of which player to start is largely determined by the composition of your roster (as well as your league's settings).

As an example, Jameis Winston is listed below as a "start" for Week 2. And I'd feel comfortable going into Week 2 with him as my starting quarterback.

That said, he may be a sit for your team.

In other words, if you owned both Tom Brady and Winston, you should start Brady -- and in turn, bench Winston.

So, while you won't find absolute start-sit recommendations below (use my Week 2 Fantasy Football Rankings for that instead), the goal here is to highlight some players that I like (and would feel comfortable starting) as well as some players that I dislike for this week (and would prefer to keep on my bench).

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Week 2 Fantasy Football QB Start'em



QB - Jameis Winston, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (vs. CHI)

The only quarterback in league history to begin his career with back-to-back 4,000-yard seasons, Winston gets a significant upgrade in weapons going into his third NFL season. The presence of a true vertical threat like DeSean Jackson should really open things up underneath for the team's other pass-catchers.

While Chicago has built a talented front-seven, the back end of their defense remains an exploitable weakness. Both times that Winston has faced the Bears in his young career, he has thrown for 295-plus yards and multiple touchdowns as he averaged 9.79 yards per attempt. Based on implied totals from Vegas odds, the Buccaneers are projected to score the ninth-most points (25.25) this week.

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QB - Philip Rivers, Los Angeles Chargers (vs. MIA)

Finishing as a top-12 fantasy quarterback on the road in Denver, Rivers threw three touchdowns (and only 192 yards) against a tough Broncos secondary. As he returns home (and it seems weird to call Los Angeles "home"), Rivers draws an easier matchup against the Dolphins.

Since 2014, Keenan Allen has played 24 games and missed 25 games. With Allen, Rivers has completed 68.5 percent of his pass attempts for 284.46 YPG (7.59 Y/A), 2.04 TD/G and 0.88 INT/G compared to 60.6% for 273.16 YPG (7.24 Y/A), 1.88 TD/G and 1.28 INT/G without him.

With a healthy complement of pass-catchers (minus their first-round pick) and a favorable matchup, Rivers is a top-10 option for this week and one of my favorite QBs in DFS contests this week as well.

- Related: Our contributors provide their Favorite Week 2 DraftKings Plays

QB - Carson Palmer, Arizona Cardinals (at IND)

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again? In a prime spot, Palmer failed to exploit a matchup against the Lions as he completed just 27-of-48 pass attempts for 269 yards and threw three interceptions and only touchdown. Once again, he gets a favorable matchup, but he can exploit it?

Last week, the Rams put up a league-high 46 points (although two of their scores were defensive TDs), but Jared Goff threw for a career-high 306 yards against a Vontae Davis-less defense. In such a soft matchup projected to be one of the highest-scoring teams of the week based on implied totals, I'm cautiously optimistic that we see a better outing from Palmer this week.

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Week 2 Fantasy Football QB Sit'em



QB - Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys (at DEN)

In most weeks, Prescott is a back-end QB1 and his stats as a runner typically keeps his floor relatively high. That said, facing the Broncos on the road is obviously not the recipe for fantasy success.

Since the start of the 2015 season, the Broncos have allowed only two 300-yard games -- Ben Roethlisberger (380) and Drew Brees (303) -- and neither of those games were in Denver. In fact, only four opposing quarterbacks have thrown for 230-plus yards in Denver -- Tom Brady (280), Teddy Bridgewater (269), Rivers and Matt Ryan (267 each).

QB - Eli Manning, New York Giants (vs. DET)

On a positive note, Odell Beckham appears to be trending in the right direction for their Monday Night Football matchup against the Lions. That said, Eli and the offense got nothing going against a vulnerable Cowboys secondary in Week 1 as he threw for 220 yards and no touchdowns.

The Lions allowed the second-most fantasy points in 2016 so the matchup is exploitable and the presence of OBJ would give Eli a greater chance of being able to exploit it, but I'd rather take a wait-and-see approach until we see something more from this offense before trusting him this week.

QB - Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions (at NYG)

Last week's matchup wasn't favorable and Stafford ended up throwing four touchdowns to finish as the week's QB2 so it's certainly possible that he has a solid outing despite another difficult matchup. That said, the Giants have allowed 20-plus fantasy points to just one opposing quarterback over their past 17 games since the start of the 2016 season. Facing the Giants in MetLife Stadium last December, Stafford threw for 273 yards, no touchdowns and one intercception to finish with 10.22 fantasy points (weekly QB24) in that outing.

- More Fantasy Football Start'em, Sit'em for Week 2

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