Fantasy Football Week 14: Start or Sit Matt Stafford, Kirk Cousins, or Carson Wentz?
It’s the first week of the fantasy football playoffs in most leagues, and that means, statistically, fewer people than ever should be reading this article. Nevertheless, if you are reading this, congratulations on the playoffs! Our weekly start or sit articles hope to help you make some informed decisions in your league every week, and we continue by highlighting three quarterbacks with bad matchups this week. Pay attention, or else you might be sent back from Wentz you came.
Start or Sit Matthew Stafford at Arizona
Arizona’s done a really weird thing recently. They’ve made Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, and Philip Rivers look mortal. C.J. Beathard’s desperate garbage time efforts that led him to 22.66 fantasy points are the only time this season that any QB topped 21 fantasy points against them, despite going against not only Mahomes, Rodgers, and Rivers, but Russell Wilson, Jared Goff, and Mitchell Trubisky. The Cardinals have gone toe-to-toe with some of the best fantasy quarterbacks in the league and came away punching the QBs in the nose. What does that mean for whether you should start or sit Matthew Stafford? Well, you can see where this is going: Matty Snapbacks hasn’t posted a 20+ fantasy point day since week four and hasn’t thrown for more than two touchdowns since week two. He’s gotten even worse lately, throwing for as many touchdowns (five) as picks (five) in his last five games. The interceptions aren’t bad, but those touchdown numbers are miserable. Those statistics probably explain why he has fewer than 15 fantasy points in four of his last five games. He’s been a wreck lately, yet he’s owned in two-thirds of Yahoo! leagues. It’s not a question of if you should start or sit Matthew Stafford, really. It’s a question of if you should roster him. He has bad matchups for the next three weeks, and then the season is over. There’s absolutely no reason to own Stafford anymore, and you should sit him all the way to the waiver wire.
Start or Sit Kirk Cousins at Seattle
The Seattle Seahawks haven’t given up three touchdowns to a quarterback since Case Keenum inexplicably pulled it off week one, but they have allowed two passing touchdowns to quarterbacks for six straight weeks, with the capper being a third-string Nick Mullens throwing for 414 yards and two scores en route to the best fantasy day a quarterback’s had against these here Seattle Seahawks. They aren’t quite the Legion of Boom, but they are still a stifling defense that limits the upside of opposing QBs. The six-game streak of only two touchdowns came against guys like Cam Newton, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, and Jared Goff. That feat sounds more impressive now, doesn’t it? Cousins has some okay upside, yet nothing out-of-this-world. We’ve seen three exceptional games from him this season, but we’ve seen the lows with Cousins, with him notching 10.04 or fewer fantasy points in two of his last four games. In the end, Kirk Cousins is the platonic ideal of an end of season QB9. He has some highs, and some lows, but he stays healthy enough and mitigates the lows sufficiently to prevent him from tumbling out of the ranks of consideration next season. Weekly, however, it’s a different story. He offers a limited upside against a strong secondary and has shown a significant chance of downside lately. If I have another quarterback and I’m considering if I should start or sit Kirk Cousins, I would probably sit him this week with so much on the line.
Start or Sit Carson Wentz at Dallas
Carson Wentz had a perfectly tidy and acceptable Monday Night Football game, going for a ho-hum 306 yards, two touchdowns, and a pick. That’s… kind of a best-case scenario for Wentz this year. He hasn’t been himself, and we’re only about a week and a half out from an Ian Rapoport report that Wentz still has awkward mechanics due to not being fully healed from a sudden case of knee exploditis last season. His talent, brain, and arm get him far enough, but can’t quite get him over the hump to get him back to his torrid 2017 pace. Case in point: Wentz’s twenty point game last week came on the heels of a thirteen point game in week twelve and a three-point game in week eleven. Like Kirk Cousins above, he has had both his downside and his limited upside on display in recent weeks. This week, he gets a Dallas Cowboys team that has been an inexplicable thorn in the side of opposing QBs. Their stymying tendencies were on full display last week, as they held Drew Brees to just 127 yards and one touchdown (with an interception). On the season, they’ve allowed multiple touchdowns five times this year, and one or fewer QB touchdowns seven times this year. While Carson Wentz chewed them up for 360, two touchdowns and a pick in week ten, that was a road Dallas defense. At home, Dallas allows only 15.85 fantasy points per game. Carson Wentz was a midseason replacement If you’re checking in to see if you should start or sit Wentz, you should definitely go for a midweek replacement. Sit Wentz this week in a bad matchup.
None of these guys have great matchups this week, and all have firmly landed as valid start or sit questions this year. I wouldn’t want to start any of them, but if I were forced to start one, I would go for them in this order:
- Kirk Cousins
- Matthew Stafford
- Carson Wentz
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