Fantasy University: Course 401 — Making the best start/sit decisions

Start/sit decisions are keys to any successful fantasy football season, but they come with some anxiety. It’s easy to question yourself before the games, and it’s almost routine to second-guess yourself after the results are in. Every NFL season and week is weird in its own way, and you’ll have to make peace with the quirky results that start to feel commonplace.

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want you to make the best decisions you possibly can, and with a few tweaks to your process, you can improve your winning chances. Stay with us, let us help you.

Consider your stars as auto-starts

This is the long-heralded “Always Start Your Stars” concept.

You’re not looking for cute reasons to bench Patrick Mahomes or Tyreek Hill or Christian McCaffrey, all else equal. To be clear, there are conditions where anyone can be benched — maybe it’s a late-season game and a team is toying with resting starters early; perhaps someone is dealing with a major injury and might be on a limited snap count. But for the most part, your start/sit process does not filter up to the best players on your roster.

Audit the recent usage of your players

Fantasy football is a game of stat accumulation, and you can’t collect those numbers if you’re on the bench or not touching the ball. There are several different ways to count player participation — there’s a time and place to consider snap share, route participation, targets and catchable targets, among other data.

It’s also important to consider the percentage of your player’s usage — not just his raw target count, per se, but factoring in his target share relative to the entire offense — and the specific instances your player is seeing opportunities. Is your running back still included with third-down and hurry-up packages? Are your players getting chances to touch the ball close to the goal line? And you also have to balance this with the overall effectiveness of the player’s offense, and the run-pass splits the team is likely to use for upcoming games. Eventually, you’ll come to know every offensive coordinator and play-caller reasonably well — that’s good when it’s Andy Reid; that’s not so fun when it’s Arthur Smith.

Evaluate your defensive matchups

What is the opposing team good at? Stopping the run? Shutting down the pass? Do they generate a reliable pass rush? Are they dealing with cluster injuries at a key spot, or missing a notable star player? Is an opposing defensive back among the best or worst at his position? Once we get a few weeks into the fresh season, I’ll start to consider the statistical ranks of defenses — both NFL-centric stats, and specific defensive stats that are centered on fantasy points allowed to specific positions.

Keep in mind, we’re usually looking for outliers when it comes to defensive strength and defensive data. I’ll often shift my start/sit strategy when a defensive opponent is particularly great or horrid at defending something specific; as for the defensive matchups that cluster in the middle, I tend to ignore them. In those latter cases, I’ll focus on my analysis of the offenses and offensive players I’m working with.

Yahoo is here to help

The Yahoo Fantasy analysts produce a wealth of content in a variety of forms every day. There’s something for everyone to save you time and help you make better decisions.

Making sure push notifications are turned on in your settings in the award-winning Yahoo Fantasy app will steer you to critical injury news and fresh fantasy content.

Our weekly rankings can serve as a cross-check on start-sit decisions, but shouldn’t be your absolute final source of truth (more on rankings in the next class), especially with all the written content we produce along with our shows.

Our weekly digital show, Fantasy Football Live, offers last-minute advice leading up to kickoff and will feature several segments that are directly aimed at the hardest start-sit questions.

We have a podcast five times a week from August through the fantasy season, with each episode targeted to help you navigate the fantasy week (more on the daily cadence in class 403).

The @YahooFantasy handle on X/Twitter is also a fountain of fantasy intel, especially on game days. Every Sunday, the team runs a 60-minute Q&A prior to kickoff based on start/sit questions submitted by managers.

There’s even more data and information within the Yahoo Fantasy app itself. From weekly player projections that give you a sense of expectations heading into a matchup, to updates on each of your players’ performance and health status throughout the week, to transaction trends that can be a visual cue it might be time to add or drop a player — it’s all there and much more.

You deserve all the glory at the end, the fruits of a Championship Season. But there’s nothing wrong with picking up some timely tips along the way.

Another way Yahoo tries to help fantasy managers is by offering draft and in-season rankings. Let’s explore what role they should play in your decision-making process.