NFL Fantasy Football Start 'Em, Sit 'Em Week 6: Quarterbacks

Look. If you haven’t enjoyed the series finale of Fitzpatrick as starting quarterback in the NFL, then you hate football. Although I will tell you, I’m also a sucker for final seasons. Even How I Met Your Mother wasn’t terrible in its final season, though I’ve never seen the final three episodes. I could tell where they were heading with that so I couldn’t watch. And this will always be my HIMYM final episode. I WILL NOT ARGUE THIS. My point about Fitzpatrick is that he is playing some amazing football. However, and we have to talk about this. Him crushing the 49ers and returning home to put up a dud against the Jets would be as on brand for him as Hawaiian shirts and beards. But in a double REVENGE GAME, I’m going to roll with Fitzpatrick one more time. I’ve devoted this much time to his career, I might as well ride it out until the end.

I always feel bad for Matthew Stafford. He’s been a great quarterback for an organization that hasn’t done much to surround him with a championship team save a few years (and firing the coach who consistently won nine games and put them in position for the playoffs every year). And as a Bears fan you wonder what he could have done in Chicago for the past decade or so. Instead, we will look to what he can do for my fantasy team. He’s had multiple touchdown passes in three consecutive games. Including three against the Saints right before the bye. The Jaguars have allowed the seventh-most fantasy points to quarterback this season, and 11 touchdowns through the air.

We were pretty hyped for Watson last week. I thought he was going to have that Jon Moxley moment where he was able to finally be himself again and not be the victim of bad creative. And he was good. He went for 359 and three touchdowns. But also had two picks. Watson has been good historically against the Titans. Not great, but good. He’s run well against Tennessee. And with the Titans coming off a shorter week than usual, I have no hesitation. My only polite suggestion is that he get the ball to Will Fuller a little bit more. I mean, Fuller had a good game last week. Again, I just wanted that huge moment.

Speaking of starts I’m going to regret, here comes Cousins. A quarterback I picked up late last week as a “break in case of fire” option for Josh Allen. And when I had to choose between starting Cousins in Seattle or possibly risking a zero for Allen, well, I took the latter. But Cousins wasn’t a disaster in Seattle. I mean, he could have had a great day if not for the interceptions. Which I understand is like getting food poising at a restaurant but bragging about how great the table linens were. And holy crap, I can’t remember the last time I went to a place with table linens. Or even a restaurant. Still, if Cousins can throw the ball to his own team this week

Look, I know this will seem like I’m just trying to chase the points that Fitzpatrick put up on the 49ers last week. And there is no doubt the 49ers are going to be highly motivated to beat the Rams who might low-key be the best team in the NFC. The truth we must recognize is the 49ers are a different team without Nick Bosa. You can see it on the field. I don’t know if it’s bad enough for them to get into the mix for Trevor Lawrence, but then think of the way they got Bosa in the first place. The Rams run the ball a lot, they are seventh in rushing yards per game. And just 16th in passing yards. But Goff has thrown for at least 260-plus yards in all but one game this year. He’s had multiple touchdown passes in three of his last four. It’s a low-end start. But one I’m confident to make.

Look, I could have taken the coward’s way out and not listed Brady at all in this space. But I know you’re going to have questions about it. I have questions about it. Brady played really well against the Broncos and Chargers, posting more than 600 passing yards and eight touchdowns. The Bears brought some reality back to him. Sacking his three times. Holding him to 253 yards and only a touchdown. Ten days off to prepare for the Packers should improve that total. But the Packers have been good on defense this year, an underreported story. Which isn’t a surprise when your quarterback would rather just run around telling everyone how great he is during his appearances on the Pat McAfee Show. The Packers played great against Matt Ryan and Matthew Stafford. Kirk Cousins got most of his points in garbage time. And Drew Brees dumped off to Alvin Kamara, who did all of the work. I see Tom having similar production to what he did against the Bears (around 250 passing yards) with the touchdowns being volatile. I don’t know what that means for you. If you only have Brady on your roster, I’m probably not going to the wire to grab another guy. But if you’re rotating him with another quarterback, you might want to go with that dude. Or just bench him outright and blame me if he throws five touchdowns. It works for others. But the Packers have allowed seven passing touchdowns this season, second-fewest in the NFL.

Ryan is also going to have a new coach this week, with Raheem Morris taking over as head coach after Dan Quinn was fired Sunday night. And it’s great Morris is being given another opportunity as a head coach (he was 32 when he was hired to lead the Buccaneers). And Matt can be really excited for this opportunity. But I imagine that all goes away when you go out to the practice field and Dirk Koetter is still the offensive coordinator. And maybe I’m still a bitter ASU fan who harbors a grudge, but I would have moved on from Koetter, too. I have a hard time trusting Ryan this week because he’s thrown one touchdown in his past three games. The matchup against the Vikings seem favorable, but I was impressed they held Russell Wilson to less than six touchdowns last week.

Teddy was a hot pickup last week against the Falcons and it worked out really well. In fact, he’s done really well in the past two weeks. But we won’t start him against the Chicago Bears. The Bears have been really tough on opposing quarterbacks this season. Khalil Mack has had an awakening, and he rattled Tom Brady so hard, the G.O.A.T. was seeing fifth downs. (But the resulting memes have been amazing.) The way to attack the Bears is on the ground. And the Panthers have been one of the best at running the ball, even without the services of Christian McCaffrey. So let’s put Bridgewater back on the waiver wire for now.

I had a lot of faith in Joe Burrow last week and the Bengals offensive line let me down. And I’m fearful the same thing is going to happen to Wentz this week. Baltimore has allowed just 11.94 fantasy points to every non- Patrick Mahomes quarterback it has seen this season. Wentz is currently the QB20. I love Travis Fulgham, his newly discovered wide receiver from Old Dominion. But it’s really going to be hard to trust him this week. Plus, Wentz leads the NFL with nine interceptions this season. I don’t know how much Wentz has been started in recent weeks. And there are a bevy of quarterbacks off this week (including my new favorite player Justin Herbert). But even so, he’s far down the list for me.

Dude, I know he got pulled from the game. And I could sit here and list another quarterback you’re not going to start like Nick Foles or Burrow and it’s not really going to matter. Instead I'll take my platform to tell 49ers fans that I know Jimmy G didn’t look great on Sunday. But a lot of you are acting like you haven’t enjoyed rooting for a franchise that had Joe Montana and Steve Young. And maybe you are too young to remember, but your parents remember them, so you’re fine. Try being a Bears fan. Where the best quarterbacks of my lifetime are Jim McMahon, Jay Cutler and Walter Payton on the halfback option. And speaking of Foles, the Carolina Panthers have allowed the third-fewest points to quarterbacks this season. You might want to note that moving forward.