Fantasy Football Week 8: Start or Sit Uzomah, Njoku, or Howard?

Fantasy Football Week 8: Start or Sit C.J. Uzomah, David Njoku, or O.J. Howard?

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 a#Fantasy Football Week 8: Start or Sit Uzomah, Njoku, or Howard?

Start or Sit C.J. Uzomah versus Tampa Bay

It feels like every week I have to write about C.J. Uzomah. It makes sense, as before this season he was a complete unknown. He is literally the third choice for the Bengals at tight end and only got into this position because the Tyler Twins died. He’s the TE12 since Tyler Eifert went down, and that’s only because of a little thing called bye weeks. His ownership on Yahoo! (51%) shows that we still need to have a conversation about C.J. Another example of why Zero TE works, Uzomah is wonderful in great matchups and needs to be shuffled out for another TE in bad ones. This weekend, he gets the best possible matchup. He takes on the defense that allows the most fantasy points to tight ends. They fired their defensive coordinator before last week’s game, and in a fit of brilliance and exuberance, the defense allowed… David Njoku 13.2 fantasy points. To be fair, the 13.2 fantasy points was the fewest the Bucs D had allowed since Ben Watson’s 6.4 in week one. If you’re wondering if you should start or sit C.J. Uzomah this week against the Bucs, let me put it this way: if you don’t start him now, you never will.

Start or Sit David Njoku at Pittsburgh

If C.J. Uzomah has the “if you don’t use him this week, you never will” matchup, then Njoku has the, “of course you start him, idiot!” designation. Njoku has been on fire over the last four weeks, turning in at least four catches for 50 yards in that time frame. He’s scored two touchdowns in his last two games. This week, he continues to be the apple of Baker Mayfield’s eye as he will get his requisite nine targets he’s had with Mayfield under center. There are only two matchups that he could have that would lead to more production than the Steelers. Pittsburgh allows the third most yards to tight ends and has given up double-digit fantasy point days (half-PPR) to five different tight ends in the last five weeks. This is probably the last time I write about if you should start or sit David Njoku, as he likely has arrived at must-start status.

Start or Sit O.J. Howard at Cincinnati

If you watch the Cinci-Tampa Bay matchup this week, expect to see a lot from the tight ends. I already outlined C.J. Uzomah above, but O.J. is the preferred play in this matchup (despite being alphabetically inferior to Uzomah). If you toss out the very weird half-Fitzmagic, half-Jameis week four game against Chicago, Howard’s gone for at least 62 yards in each game, and has two touchdowns in his last four. He’s shed Cam Brate as competition for Jameis Winston, and has 129 yards on nine catches in the last two games. This week he gets a Cincinnati squad who is #4 against tight ends on the year. Seven tight ends have at least 7.5 fantasy points against them this season (which is usually good for backend TE1 numbers), and only one TE has more than eight targets, so it isn’t like volume is killing them. What’s killing them is being bad at guarding tight ends. Howard has reached must-start territory, so this is likely the last time he gets a nod in the weekly start or sit articles.

All these tight ends are great options, but if you own more than one and you can’t decide who to start or sit, I would play them in this order: