Fantasy Football Week 8: Start or Sit Tyler Lockett, Devin Funchess, or Marvin Jones?
It feels like the fantasy football season just started, but this is the last week where we can consider ourselves in the midgame. After this week, you’re entering the last third of your fantasy football regular season, and you have to start thinking of things on a week-to-week basis. Thankfully, we always think of you when considering our week-to-week propositions. Our goal is to help you make the hard start or sit decisions every week. We consider six players at all positions, helping you decide if you should start or sit them. Without further ado, in the second half of our start or sit wide receivers piece, we help you decide if you should start or sit Tyler Lockett, Devin Funchess, or Marvin Jones?
Start or Sit Tyler Lockett at Detroit?
If you made a bet with someone that Tyler would score a touchdown, he would Lockett up for you most weeks this season (five-of-six). However, Lockett has done it on an absurdly low target volume since Doug Baldwin returned from injury. His five-targets-a-contest match a struggling Baldwin’s, and his production is much lower. The deep threat’s average depth of target is lower than ten yards, meaning that even if one of those five targets connect, it’s going to take a lot of yards after the catch for Lockett to do anything. His touchdowns are also unsustainable, as his four red zone targets sit below such fantasy football “royalty” as Tajae Sharpe, Gerald Everett, and Dallas Goedert. The Lions have surprisingly stifled wide receivers, allowing just one touchdown per game to the position in a given week. Given his lack of red zone looks, I wouldn’t expect that to come from Lockett. If you roster him, you will definitely have weekly start-or-sit Lockett deliberations. With his talent, it’s entirely possible he will score a long one, but I am going to shy away from that possibility and sit Lockett.
Start or Sit Devin Funchess versus Baltimore?
I am not a huge fan of Devin Funchess the football player. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot that he did at an above-average rate headed into the season, but he’s taken huge strides as a football player. I wouldn’t call him good by any means, but he is certainly a team’s number one receiver. Of course, that’s a team that would rather throw to a beefed up scat back and a 400-year-old, one-footed Greg Olsen than their #1 receiver. Most weeks, he is productive enough to be outside the start or sit discussion (especially in PPR). However, this week he gets a stingy Ravens defense that allows just two touchdowns per game overall. They also give up the fourth-fewest fantasy points to wide receivers on the season. Also, only one player has been nice enough to top 69 yards against them. Outside of a very strange A.J. Green Thursday Night Football explosion, they’ve yielded just four touchdowns to WRs this season. Start or sit Funchess this week? Sit him.
Start or Sit Marvin Jones, Jr. at Seattle?
What’s the opposite of a beneficiary? A maleficiary? We’ll go with that. The biggest maleficiary of the rise of Kenny Golladay has been Marvin Jones, Jr. The third wheel in the Detroit passing game has lost targets as the season has gone along (8, 9, 6, 6, 4, 4). The loss of targets is concerning for Jones, who already operating at an astonishingly low target volume for a weekly fantasy starter in 2017. Not only is he not getting targets, but he has fewer than half as many air yards as both Tate and Golladay. He’s getting no targets, and they aren’t going very far. He has 37 yards in two weeks, and is catching just half of his targets over the last month. He gets one of the best pass defenses in the NFL, so I doubt that’ll change anytime soon. Don’t wonder if you should start or sit MarvinJones, start wondering why he’s still on your roster.
If you’re in the unenviable position that you have to choose among these guys for your start or sit decisions, I would start them in this order:
- Devin Funchess
- Tyler Lockett
- Marvin Jones Jr.
If you need more help deciding who you should start or sit this week, check out these pieces below:
Start or Sit Mitchell Trubisky, Jameis Winston, or Andy Dalton?
Start or Sit Cam Newton, Matthew Stafford, or Deshaun Watson?
Start or Sit Stefon Diggs, Tyler Boyd, or Chris Godwin?
Start or Sit Start or Sit Raheem Mostert, Marlon Mack, or Ronald Jones?
Start or Sit Isaiah Crowell, T.J. Yeldon, or Doug Martin?
Start or Sit C.J. Uzomah, David Njoku, or O.J. Howard?
Start or Sit Kyle Rudolph, Eric Ebron, or Jordan Reed?
Also, we have Hot Takes from Crazy People: Eric Reid vs Malcolm Jenkins Edition
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