Don’t rush to lineup decisions
THE KEY to winning your weekly fantasy football matchups is making the right lineup decisions. Which of your quarterbacks is going to pass for the most yards and throw for the most touchdowns? Will your running backs find the end zone this week? Which wide receiver is going to have the breakout game you need?
Whether you won or lost your first matchup, the knee-jerk reaction is to study your roster Tuesday morning and figure out where you went right and where you went wrong. The dust has barely settled on Week 1 and you’re already deciding who to start in Week 2. You read the news, study some matchup data, ask your favorite expert and you start making choices. The problem is, these are not well-informed decisions. They are rash reactions to what happened this past Sunday and they are far from well-informed.
If the key to winning is making the right lineup decisions, you need to gather as much intel as possible. Injury updates, practices and coaching decisions are taking place throughout the week and what could seem true on Tuesday may not be what is true on Sunday.
Do I start Leonard Fournette or T.J. Yeldon? On Tuesday, you would have said Yeldon, but Thursday came and Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone said Fournette would be a game-time decision and he also wants to get Corey Grant more involved. Come Sunday, you may not want to start any of them for fear of the dreaded “backfield committee.”
Do I start Aaron Rodgers this week? Packers coach Mike McCarthy isn’t making his decision until late in the week, so why should you? And attached to that is the question of whether or not to start Davante Adams, who showed up on the injury report with a shoulder issue. If Rodgers plays and Adams is healthy, you start them. If Rodgers is out and DeShone Kizer starts, does starting Adams make sense even if he is healthy?
Decisions like these are going to plague you throughout the season, so it is best to learn now that waiting for as much information as possible is vital to your success.