NFL Week 6 Start, Sit, and More

How’s it going, everyone? Hope everyone is safe and sound after all the storms we’ve had ravaging the southeast United States. Hurricanes Helene and Milton really did a number on a wide area.

If you’d like to donate or help those in need and forgive me for being political and off-topic, but the best thing to do is donate to organizations like Samaritans Purse or Baptists on Mission others who work directly with the local churches in the areas affected. Since they are part of the communities, they often best know where to allocate resources.

With that all said, we’ll get back to football. I want to note with this newsletter that while I will give some start/sit recommendations, I won’t always. In some cases, I will do my best to lay out the pros and cons of the situation and let you decide which avenue to take that is best for your roster and weekly matchup. I figured it would be a nice little change of pace. Yes, I will do some “start this guy, not him”, but I also want to provide you with enough info to make an informed choice on your own as well.

Things to look out for in Week 6

Quarterbacks

🐻 Throughout the offseason, it wasn’t that I hated Caleb Williams the prospect, I figured he’d have a successful career, I’m just wary of rookie QB’s. But, Williams has finished as the QB 14, 21, and 6 in the last three weeks. He’s completed over 67% of his passes in that stretch and has five touchdown passes to just two interceptions. He now faces Jacksonville in London who are tied for the second most passing touchdowns allowed and have zero interceptions. It’s a great matchup to stream the rookie.

🏙️ Daniel Jones has been the QB 6, 11, 23, and 11 over the last month after looking absolutely awful against Minnesota in Week 1. Cincinnati is who he gets next. Cincy is pressuring quarterbacks at a bottom-ten rate, have allowed the second-most rushing yards to quarterbacks, and are top-10 in Net Yards/Attempt allowed. Jones may be without Malik Nabers, but Jones still has Darius Slayton and Wan’Dale Robinson who should be able to take advantage of a suspect secondary.

🐈‍⬛ Since we’re talking about pressure, the bottom two teams in bringing pressure to quarterbacks are the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons. They happen to play each other this week. So, I will mention both Andy Dalton and Kirk Cousins as great starts this week. Carolina is a great matchup for quarterbacks by any metric you look at, but Atlanta is less so. Still, I think Dalton and the Panthers will be able to move the ball against the Falcons, and we could be in for a fun game.

🔥 After spending the offseason wondering if Will Levis could fix his accuracy issues, he’s off to a good start in that department. He has a 3.6% completion rate over expected according to NGS. That’s while dealing with a decent amount of drops by his receivers. He’s had more than his fair share of mistakes, but hopefully, those start to come down. Fresh out of the bye week, maybe Levis will have had time to recuperate and put things together on offense. He gets a great matchup against Indy as well.

Running Backs

🎖️ It’s not a great matchup for Brian Robinson on the ground this week. The Ravens have allowed the second-fewest rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns to running backs through five games. However, they are an above-average matchup for receiving backs, where Robinson and backfield mate Austin Ekeler could capitalize.

🔻 If you’re going to try and trade for Bijan Robinson, now is your chance. The Falcons face the Panthers this week, and Carolina has allowed a league-high nine rushing touchdowns to opposing running backs this year. And it’s important to realize, that while Bijan isn’t quite the workhorse were hoping for, he’s not been terrible. He’s on pace for more receptions than he had last year (though he’s catching passes at an unsustainable rate), and he’s averaging just 0.4 rushing yards per game less than he was in 2023. He is receiving more touches so his efficiency is slightly down, but if Atlanta is getting their act together, Bijan could be in for a big game.

🐈‍⬛ Interestingly, Atlanta has allowed only a single touchdown to running backs all year. And that includes rushing and receiving scores. They are a good matchup for running backs in terms of receptions and targets allowed but give up just a paltry 4.6 YPR. Chuba Hubbard might find it hard to score against them, but he’s a good volume start.

🇺🇸 I guess all Rhamondre Stevenson needed to become good again was to be ceremoniously benched. He out-touched “starter” Antonio Gibson 16 to 7 and outgained him 92 to 56. More importantly, he didn’t fumble. He gets rewarded with a bottom-10 matchup against the Texans. He did pop up on the injury report so monitor that.

Wide Receivers

🐴 Michael Pittman is expected to miss multiple weeks, catapulting Adonai Mitchell to start on the outside opposite Alec Pierce. But I’m not featuring them here, who else would it be other than my boy Josh Downs? Downs has had a target share of 28.6% since returning from injury. It’s not Malik Nabers territory but it’s downright elite either way and he will probably lead the Colts in targets this week. His target rate is the 4th highest among all receivers. Tennessee gives up a disproportionate amount of points to receivers in the slot. The problem is the Titans are the toughest matchup for wide receivers in the NFL and Anthony Richardson might be back, which could hurt Downs production because of Richardson’s accuracy issues. It is important to note Downs has yet to practice this week with a foot injury, but Friday and Saturday could see him log some practice and he could be good to go.

🎖️So far Terry McLaurin has 303 receiving yards this season. The closest on Washington in receiving yards is Zack Ertz with 160. The closest receiver is Olamide Zaccheus with 121, 182 fewer yards. McLaurin’s 14.8 ADOT is six yards higher than his closest teammate. Baltimore has given up the most completed air yards this season and is sixth in net yards allowed per pass attempt. On top of that they are a top-3 matchup for receivers and have allowed 8 touchdowns to the position. All this to say, McLaurin is the clear top dog in Washington and could be in for a big game on Sunday.

🔻 Darnell Mooney and Drake London have 40 and 44 targets this year respectively. Ray-Ray McCloud is at 31. All three are in play against Carolina which has allowed the second-most touchdowns to the position.

🐆 We saw what the Bears’ defense did to Carolina last week, and it wasn’t pretty. I think the Jaguars are going to try and move the ball on the ground against Chicago in London this week. With that, I’m content to sit Brian Thomas Jr. and Christian Kirk this week. One of them likely catches a touchdown, and that’s something I’ll have to live with.

@garrettbff

I made this TikTok last week about Calvin Ridley and how he could be a second-half sleeper in 2024. His opponent, the Colts, isn’t all that fantastic against the pass, and if Will Levis can return and limit his mistakes, Ridley might be in for a decent game. We will know pretty quickly whether Levis can turn the corner or not, and if things don’t improve after a few games, you can cut bait on both Ridley and Levis.

🐻 Forgive me for focusing on the AFC South so much in this section, but I wanted to bring up the Bears pass catchers. DJ Moore finally had the big game we’ve been waiting for, ironically against his old team, Carolina. Rome Odunze has flashed for the Bears but hasn’t put much of a game together with Keenan Allen back. I don’t that is a knock on either player, both are good and can take targets from each other. I’d start Moore against the Jags and Odunze and Allen are holds for me while Caleb Williams starts to figure things out.

⚡️ Ladd McConkey has been a WR2 twice and Quentin Johnston once, despite scoring three touchdowns. I get they are fresh off a bye, but please don’t start your Chargers receivers against the Bronco’s defense alright? In the future though, they do have some decent matchups and I think McConkey especially can be a decent contributor to a fantasy squad.

Tight Ends

🧀 Arizona is only a middling matchup for tight ends so far this year, but I don’t really care. Tucker Kraft is a great start this week, especially with Luke Musgrave out. He’s been the TE2 and TE1 overall over the past two weeks and should be a high-end option yet again this week.

🏙️ If Malik Nabers misses again, and even if he plays, Theo Johnson is on my streaming radar this week. It’s been a fool’s errand to chase tight-end performances this year, but he’s been the Giants TE1 by a wide margin in target share, plus he’s been playing nearly 80% of the snaps on offense. He’s coming off of a 5-catch, 48-yard performance and is worth a start. It helps the Bengals are a good matchup for tight ends too.

That’s all for this week!

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