Start or Sit Blake Bortles in Fantasy Football Week Six?

Five weeks of the NFL season are in the books, which means that in most weeks, we have only eight weeks left of the fantasy football regular season. The bad news is that for some of us, the season is already over one-third gone. The good news is that we still have nearly two-thirds of the season to dig ourselves out of holes and make a serious run at the fantasy football playoffs. In order to help you with your fantasy football decisions, Football Absurdity keys in on some players every week on the fringes of startability and helps you decide what you should do with them this week. This week, we take a look at whether you should start or sit Blake Bortles, the mercurial Jacksonville signal caller fresh off a top-five quarterback performance in week five?

Forget all the fancy numbers that you can give that lead to you believing that Blake Bortles is a good quarterback because he’s not a good quarterback. He digs himself into massive holes and does just enough to get himself out of jams that when the dust settles, he ends up as a top-fifteen QB more often than not. I often hype the Bort Report as a good fantasy football quarterback option because he sucks so bad, but he sucks in a way that allows him to have some late-game heroics to come storming back. This season, Bortles has flipped that paradigm on its head, and seven of his eight touchdowns this year have come within the confines of a tied game or a Jaguars lead.

Here’s the skinny on Bortles’ 2018 season so far: outside of his four touchdowns, and one pick day against the Patriots, he has thrown four touchdowns and seven interceptions. Blake Bortles hasn’t played well, but he’s played well enough.

Unfortunately for Bortles, he gets what seems to be one of the more surprising fantasy football defenses to face for a signal caller this year. The Dallas Cowboys allow the thirteenth-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks this year. They slow the game down to a crawl, and two-of-five quarterbacks haven’t topped 200 yards passing, and the same number have multiple touchdowns. Deshaun Watson, Eli Manning, and Cam Newton combined for two rushing touchdowns. Somehow, the Cowboys have cobbled together a passable pass defense, which has stymied opposing pass throw mans (sorry, you run out of different ways to say “quarterback”).

Blake Bortles has become Jacksonville’s savior instead of their furious come-from-behind garbage time man. Unfortunately for the Jags and for fantasy football owners, he is a false prophet. This week, he gets one of the worst possible opponents for him to face. He’s been a weekly starter, but this week I shy away from him. There are a ton of great matchups out there, so if you’re wondering if you should start or sit Blake Bortles this week, stay away. Sit him.

If you have more fantasy football questions like “Start or Sit Mohamed Sanu?” then check out our other start/sits for the week:
Start or Sit Jameis Winston?
Start or Sit LeSean McCoy?
Start or Sit Aaron Jones?
Start or Sit Mohamed Sanu?
Start or Sit Allen Robinson?
Start or Sit Austin Hooper?
Start or Sit Jared Cook?