Week 10 Start 'Em, Sit 'Em: Five Starts and Five Sits

Nobody needs help starting the best players on their roster. You're going to play them. The hard part is the guy in the middle, the one you stare at on Sunday morning.

So here are ten of those. Five starts, five sits. Two of the sits are coming off monster games. A big box score last week is not this week's matchup.

See all 20 players the sources split on

Player	Team	Rank	Low	Blend	High	Gap
Zay Flowers	BAL	WR20	FanDuel 1.2	11.5	Sleeper 16.4	15.2
Tyler Warren	IND	TE4	ESPN 9.3	14.4	FanDuel 22.0	12.7
Chuba Hubbard	CAR	RB9	FanDuel 12.1	17.1	ESPN 21.4	9.3
Ollie Gordon II	MIA	RB15	FanDuel 9.4	13.1	ESPN 17.5	8.1
Derrick Henry	BAL	RB8	CBS 14.6	17.6	FanDuel 22.6	8.0
Garrett Wilson	NYJ	WR19	CBS 6.5	11.6	FanDuel 14.4	7.9
Ryan Flournoy	DAL	WR32	ESPN 6.4	9.6	CBS 13.4	7.0
Jordan Mason	MIN	RB25	CBS 7.6	9.5	FanDuel 14.4	6.8
Rashee Rice	KC	WR14	ESPN 10.9	13.9	FanDuel 17.6	6.7
Tee Higgins	CIN	WR5	ESPN 13.4	17.2	FleaFlicker 20.1	6.7
Tyler Allgeier	ARI	RB21	ESPN 8.1	10.7	FanDuel 14.6	6.5
Isaiah Likely	NYG	TE5	ESPN 10.1	13.3	FleaFlicker 16.1	6.0
Brock Purdy	SF	QB2	ESPN 19.0	21.6	CBS 24.5	5.5
Geno Smith	NYJ	QB17	ESPN 12.2	14.7	FleaFlicker 17.4	5.2
Trey McBride	ARI	TE2	ESPN 13.0	15.1	CBS 18.2	5.2
Travis Kelce	KC	TE6	ESPN 9.6	12.1	FanDuel 14.1	4.5
Jayden Daniels	WAS	QB8	FanDuel 17.1	18.2	CBS 21.4	4.3
Drew Lock	SEA	QB16	FanDuel 13.6	15.4	FleaFlicker 17.9	4.3
Sam LaPorta	DET	TE7	ESPN 8.7	11.4	Sleeper 12.8	4.1
Drake Maye	NE	QB4	CBS 18.4	20.4	Sleeper 21.9	3.6

Left end is a bad day and right end is a great one. Matchup ranks run from 1 to 32, and 1 is the softest defense.

Nobody has ever circled Blake Corum on a calendar. That's fine. He's the back you want when your team is winning. The Rams are favored by 9.5 in Arizona with a team total of 24.5.

Big favorites hand off late. His share of the carries has crept up to 41 percent from 36. He's run in a touchdown in each of his last three. The points have drifted down from 17.1 to 11.8, but the carries haven't gone anywhere.

Don't ask him to catch anything. He sees about five percent of the targets, so this is a floor-and-touchdown play and nothing fancier.

Here's what gets me. Eighty-four percent of leagues own him and barely over half start him. Plenty of you are carrying a flex spot's worth of Corum on the bench.

He went for 26.1 in Week 7. BOOM. Next came 17.0. Then a 5.0 against Miami, and now you're nervous.

Look at how the 5.0 happened. He saw eight percent of Detroit's targets that day, after two games at 24 and 29 percent. The snaps never moved. He's on the field for about 88 percent of them. A deep threat who stays out there gets his targets back.

The matchup helps. New England is the second-softest defense in the league for receivers. Detroit is at home with a team total of 27 in a game with 51.5 points on the board. Everybody eats in that one.

Four in five leagues already start him. Join them.

Ollie Gordon II has had the ball. He got 83 percent of Miami's carries in Week 8 and 76 in Week 9. The points were 6.9 and 7.4. That's what a weak offense does to a big workload.

This is where the sources fight. ESPN has him at 17.5 and FanDuel has him at 9.45. They're arguing about the same thing I am, which is the script. Indianapolis is soft against backs, 6th of 32. But Miami is a 3.5-point underdog with a team total of 17.5. Trailing teams pass more.

No side for me. The middle it is, and I'm trusting the volume. His share over three games is 73 percent, up from 54 on the year. Ceiling is over 20.

Matthew Stafford is on 87 percent of rosters and in half of lineups. That's a lot of decent quarterbacks on a lot of benches.

Arizona is the second-softest matchup in football for passers. He saw them in Week 6, threw two scores and had 16.88 points. They're favored by 9.5 with a team total of 24.5, and the last two weeks went 9.28 and 12.22. Those were not matchups like this one.

Be honest about the catch. A team that's winning big can stop throwing, and Stafford is a short thrower, about 7.5 yards downfield on average. He needs volume to pay off.

But the floor is 10.52, which is sturdy for a quarterback. That's what you want from a start.

Now here's a guy. Germie Bernard has a 25.7 on his résumé and a pile of smaller games, and the 25.7 is hiding what matters.

Early on he barely played. Twenty-seven percent of the snaps in Week 3, then 40. Since then it's 85 or better every week. The role changed, and the targets followed, from 18 percent of the team's targets to 23 over the last three.

That 25.7 came on 12 targets and 11 catches. The next two games, 5.7 and 8.0, were five targets each. So he's a volume receiver on a team that doesn't give him volume every week. Cincinnati is a middle-of-the-pack matchup. Pittsburgh is a 3.5-point underdog, but the team total is 23 and the game has 49.5 points in it.

Seven in ten leagues own him. Barely a quarter start him.

This is a close call, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Jordan Love hasn't scored under 13 all year. He has never had a dud. Last week he threw for 372 yards, scored four touchdowns and put up 36.18. And in Week 1 he scored 20.48 against these exact Vikings.

So why sit him? Because Minnesota is 32nd of 32 for quarterbacks, the toughest matchup in football, and last week's monster came on only 29 throws. That's efficiency, and efficiency goes home. Green Bay is favored by just 3 with a team total of 22.8. He's QB13 this week, and he's QB5 on the year.

The floor the sources give him, 9.6, is lower than any game he's played. That's the number I can't ignore.

Just over half of leagues start him, and they're not crazy.

I know what you're looking at. 36.5 against Cleveland. 28.7 against Cincinnati. Five touchdowns in two games. You want to ride that.

Now look at what came before it. Six games, and not one of them cracked 14. The carries were always there. He's had about 70 percent of Tennessee's rushes all year, and lately it's 80. What changed was the end zone. Touchdowns are hard to count on. If they weren't, they'd be yards.

Sunday the end zone moves away. Jacksonville is the second-toughest matchup in football for running backs. Tennessee is a ten-and-a-half point underdog with a team total of 18. A team down two scores stops handing it off, and Pollard has 14 catches all season. No carries late, and no catches to make up for it.

Barely half of leagues are starting him this week. The other half have it right.

The sources have Sam LaPorta seventh at tight end. He was seventh before the slump too. Nobody updated the sheet.

Look at the games. 22.4 and 19.8 in the early weeks. Since then his best is 7.2, and he drew just five targets in each of the last two games. His share of the targets slid to 15 percent from 18. He's still on the field for about 90 percent of the snaps, which tells you the coaches haven't given up on him. They just aren't throwing it his way.

New England is 25th of 32 for tight ends, so the matchup doesn't fix it. The honest argument for him is the scoreboard. Detroit has a team total of 27, and points have to go somewhere.

Nine in ten leagues start him, and that's the problem. Nobody wants to be the one who benched him.

Strip out two games and Jalen Coker's season looks different. The first was a 33.8 in Week 1. Week 6 gave him 15.7 on 13 targets. Everything else is below 15, and the last three are 1.9, 9.6 and 6.6.

The reason is the targets. They were 37 percent of Carolina's passes in that Week 6 game. Now he's at 14, down from a 20 percent season share, and he's seeing four or five throws a week. That's not a number you can build a lineup on.

The sources still love him. WR16 this week, way above where his season has him. ESPN is the sober one at 9.5, and I'm with ESPN. New Orleans is a middling matchup and Carolina is a 2.5-point underdog. He's been a dud in 29 percent of his games.

Seven in ten leagues start him anyway.

Ashton Jeanty has never had a bad game. His worst of the year is 7.0, and that was last Sunday. See the problem?

The floor is falling because the carries are. He had 62 percent of Las Vegas's rushes in Week 1 and 72 in Week 2. Over the last three it's 31 percent, and in Week 8 he got two carries. He isn't running well when he gets them either. Next Gen has him below expectation on his rushing.

What's keeping him alive is the catching. He's seen 18 percent of the targets, and the 21.6 in Week 7 was eight catches. That's real, and it's why he's been steady.

But the script is rough. Las Vegas is a 6.5-point underdog with a team total of 17, and Seattle is a middle matchup. Catches in garbage time are fine. Carries aren't coming.

• Nico Collins, Houston. He's 86th of 88 in getting open. His share of the targets has slid to 15 percent from 20. Two of his last three games were under 11. Cleveland is a middle matchup and Houston is favored by 4.5. Hold.
• Derrick Henry, Baltimore. Three of his last four games were under 6. The carry share is 57 percent against 66 on the year. But he has not had a true dud all season, and he's RB8 at home. Hold.
• Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis. His share of the carries was 95 percent in Week 1 and 31 in Week 8. It was back to 57 last Sunday. Miami is 9th of 32 against backs, and he's RB5. Hold.

Tyler Warren and Chuba Hubbard split the sources most. For Warren, ESPN is low at 9.3 and FanDuel is high at 22.03. That tops his best game of the year, 21.4, so I'm not buying the high end. For Hubbard, FanDuel is low at 12.07 and ESPN is high at 21.4. He averages 18.3 against the softest defense for backs, so I take ESPN.

How to read this. Matchup rank runs from 1, the softest defense against that position, to 32, the toughest. Share is the slice of a team's targets, or carries for backs, that goes to one player. Rostered and started rates come from Sleeper leagues. Stats run through Week 9. Projections blend CBS, ESPN, FanDuel, FleaFlicker and Sleeper.