Fantasy Football Week 10: Start or Sit Peyton Barber, Kerryon Johnson, or Mike Davis?
Nine weeks are in the books, and fantasy football leagues are starting to take shape heading into week ten. We here at Football Absurdity try to help you make your weekly start or sit decisions by highlighting players that have an abnormally good, or abnormally bad matchup. We hope that we can help you make the proper start or sit decisions every week, like whether to start or sit Peyton Barber, Kerryon Johnson, or Mike Davis.
Start or Sit Kerryon Johnson at Chicago
As the resident Kerryon Johnson fanatic, it brings me no joy to highlight him in a negative light in this start or sit article this week. There were some extremely concerning developments in last week’s Lions contest against Minnesota that have me shying away from Johnson this week if I can help it. First, Matthew Stafford looked completely lost without Golden Tate as his release valve. 43% of Stafford’s sacks on the season happened at the hands of the Vikings last week, and not much more needs to be said about how much worse he was without Tate. The second concerning thing was the return of Theo Riddick, and his role. The Lions are likely to get shoved around in this one, which means more passing downs, which means more Theo Riddick. It was fun to use Kerryon in that role while it lasted, but it looks like Riddick is back to take that from him. On top of Stafford looking like he’s never played QB before, and Riddick stealing all his targets, consider this when considering whether to start or sit Kerryon Johnson this week: the Bears allow the fewest fantasy points to opposing running backs, have allowed just one game over 57 rushing yards to running backs, and are yet to yield a rushing touchdown to the position. Sit Kerryon Johnson vs. the Bears.
Start or Sit Mike Davis at Los Angeles Rams
Football Absurdity’s favorite whipping boy ends up in the sit section of start or sit. He stinks. The Rams are good. Next.
Oh, you want actual analysis? Fine. Chris Carson is looking increasingly unlikely to play in this one, and bafflingly, players think Mike Davis is someone who can be trusted. He’s still cashing fantasy football starts on his 21-rush, 101-yard, two-touchdown effort in September. It’s November, grow up. He has fewer than 200 rushing yards since then, and he hasn’t done much to inspire hope outside of the Arizona game against the worst rush defense in the league. He followed that effort up with 68 yards and a score against these very Rams. However, that was (1) at home, (2) in an inexplicably close game, and (3) not when the best team in the league was coming off an embarrassing last-minute defeat. The Rams are going to smash the Seahawks this weekend, and that isn’t conducive to Mike Davis doing anything. Stop wondering if you should start or sit Mike Davis: Sit Mike Davis.
Forever.
Start or Sit Peyton Barber versus Washington
Peyton Barber keeps doing just enough in good matchups to keep popping up on the start or sit rundown, unfortunately, it’s usually to throw cold water on him. Despite notching at least 80 yards in two of his last four games (since the bye), the decision whether to start or sit Peyton Barber is a hard pass. He gets a completely obliterated Washington defense that has issues all over the secondary. He also does this with Ryan “The Irish Cannon” Fitzpatrick under center. The Bucs game plan Sunday will be to throw, throw, throw against Washington. It’s also a bad matchup for Barber. Outside of last week’s huge game for Tevin Coleman and Ito Smith, Washington’s defense has allowed just four double-digit fantasy games to running backs this season, and they were to guys like David Johnson, Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, and Mark Ingram. It may shock you, but they are more than slightly better than Peyton Barber. Sit him this week.
All three of these guys are not the best starts, but if you’re looking to decide who to start or sit among them, I would rank them as:
- Kerryon Johnson
- Peyton Barber
- A pile of Carrion
- Your own Barber
- Mike Judge, Creator of Beavis and Butthead
- Mike Davis
If you need more help with your start or sit decisions, we can help you decide who to start with some of our other week ten start or sit articles below:
Start or Sit Baker Mayfield, Philip Rivers, or Alex Smith?
Start or Sit Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady, or Nick Mullens?
Start or Sit Jarvis Landry, Devin Funchess, or Sterling Shepard?
Start or Sit Quincy Enunwa, Marquise Goodwin, or Taylor Gabriel?
Start or Sit Austin Ekeler, Duke Johnson, or Ito Smith?
Start or Sit C.J. Uzomah, Eric Ebron, or Zach Ertz?
Start or Sit Ben Watson, Greg Olsen, or Vernon Davis?
For lighter fare, check out our skewering of bad NFL article commenters in Hot Takes from Crazy People
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