StatLogic Sports NFL Fantasy Football Focus: Decisions, Decisions

While the approach to managing Week 2 full-season NFL fantasy football rosters should be similar to the way way recommended approaching Week 1, it's natural to have more decisions - and more difficult decisions - to make as the season progresses.

For Week 1, we discussed keeping it simple so that all the time and work that went into draft preparation wasn't for nothing. In nearly all cases, the stud players and those who were selected to round out the starting lineup should have found their way into Week 1 lineups. And hopefully for those who drafted well there might have been a decision or two to make at the WR3 or Flex spot.

Fantasy teams that bomb in Week 1 generally do so because their top guys performed well below their normal levels. Barring injuries, these are not players anyone should be giving up on after one bad week. Everyone on the field in the National Football League professional athlete, and all of the players literally are the best in the world at what they do.

Elite athletes rise to the heights that they achieve because their compete levels far surpass that of ordinary mortals. When the best play against the best, almost any player on the field and virtually any team have the ability to shut down the other side. Bad games happen, but it's the absolute best athletes who rise to the occasion more often than those they compete against.

Just because last week was the first week of a new season doesn't make it any different from any other week of the year. Some great players rose to the occasion, others faced defenders who stepped up to the challenge and shut them down and another group came out of nowhere to perform well above expectations.

The key for Week 2 is to not overreact by benching the proven top guys or elevating the potential one-week wonders without doing the necessary due diligence and figuring out where the numbers might be misleading. We discussed this in our Week 2 waiver wire article that posted earlier this week.

Now is not the time to bench Nico Collins, Ja'Marr Chase, Chase Brown, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Joe Burrow, AJ Brown or Brian Thomas Jr.. Nor is it time to anoint Quentin Johnston, Hollywood Brown, Keyshon Boutte, Justin Fields, Aaron Rodgers, Daniel Jones, Harold Fannin or "Bill" Croskey-Merritt as every-week starters.

Those managers who remained patient and stuck with players who have always flashed top-tier potential and figured to see enough volume to be fantasy starters such as Breece Hall, Travis Etienne, JK Dobbins and Javonte Williams were rewarded, while those who took a chance on rookies such as Kaleb Johnston, RJ Harvey and TreyVeon Henderson were left wondering if they had made huge mistakes.

That all may change this week, but no matter which side a team fell on, it is worth taking a close look at why certain players underperformed and where there might be enough red flags that a manager should consider beginning to think about a Plan B. Again, a good draft may have provided some strong bench options who might be able to step in and start or at least provide sufficient temporary options until a permanent solution can be found. As we mentioned in our waiver article, there's no rest for the successful fantasy football manager. Football is a violent, contact sport and injuries can send a fantasy team that was blowing everyone else out of the water spiraling toward the bottom of the standings in a hurry. Just ask the managers who drafted George Kittle, Brock Purdy, Xavier Worthy and Drake London. Jonathan Taylor also is battling through an injury, too.

The good news about injuries is that sometimes they take the difficult decisions out of our hands. If a player is hurt and can't play, he can't be in a fantasy lineup. There are times that injuries can make a fantasy manager's life easy, but if a team's draft didn't provide the depth necessary to weather an onslaught of early season setbacks and the waiver wire is thin, injuries can turn a promising season into a disaster quickly.

And for leagues that used FAAB bidding for free agents, a manager facing injuries may need to consider committing a large percentage of the free-agent budget to finding replacements way earlier in the season than planned. The season is a marathon, so managers must do whatever it takes to stay in the fight and be competitive enough to make a late-season run if everyone gets healthy and returns.

Since we have teams in 10 money and high-stakes leagues, we thought it would be beneficial to take a look at our pressing lineup decisions each week in hopes of helping other managers understand our thought process and what goes into determining the final lineups we send to battle on a weekly basis.

Quarterback

Unlike many fantasy football analysts, our philosophy is not to punt on drafting a backup quarterback. One of our targets this year was dual-threat Kyler Murray, because he was available as late as the middle portions of many drafts and is able to produce consistent numbers even when he struggles to pass for big yards. There were a few drafts in which elite QBs such as Jayden Daniels and Jalen Hurts dropped below their ADP and we were very satisfied with our first three or four selections. So, in those cases we where more than happy to select either of them.

We also looked to provide insurance and depth at quarterback by looking to select dual threats such as Justin Fields or Drake Maye a little earlier than others might have picked them. If that didn't work out, the goal was to grab proven, consistent veterans such as Justin Herbert, Brock Purdy, Trevor Lawrence or Dak Prescott as bench QBs. We ended up with a few shares of Fields, not as much Maye as we had hoped for, one share of Prescott (with Maye as a backup), a couple shares of Purdy (paired with Fields and Murray) and Lawrence.

That leaves us with some tough decisions this week, but this philosophy has served us well in the past as QBs such as Purdy, Kirk Cousins and Jared Goff have led teams on deep playoff runs after our starters have suffered injuries.

Purdy's injury makes decisions involving him automatic, but we are forced to decide between Murray and Herbert, Herbert and Lawrence, Prescott and Fields and Murray and Fields. Maye really is not worth considering as a starter for our teams at this point.

We are confident in Murray's ability to put up between 18-24 points consistently. Despite his running ability, though, his 30-plus-point outings have been few and far between. He's what we call a high-floor player. They are good to have when the rest of the lineup is deep but not when the QB is needed to carry the offense. Most of our teams are pretty deep coming out of the draft as our full-season teams went 9-1 despite some of our bench players having big weeks.

Fields scored more than 30 points against a tough Steelers defense last week and faces a Buffalo D that surrendered more than 40 points to the Ravens this week. Herbert lit up a good Chiefs D in Brazil in his opening game. Lawrence played like a game manager in a workmanlike victory vs. Carolina.

Most likely we will stick with Murray over Fields and Lawrence, because we need a larger sample size before moving them into the starting lineup. Herbert and Lawrence have similar floors, but we will go with the upside of the Chargers' QB on the team that has them both on the roster. We are comfortable playing Fields where injuries make it necessary, because even if he struggles through the air his ceiling is high thanks to his legs. We will give Prescott one more chance to perform as expected vs. the Giants this week instead of turning to Maye after the New England offense struggled in Week 1.

Running Back, Wide Receiver & Flex

We drafted well later in most of our drafts, grabbing players like Williams, Dobbins, Brown, Keenan Allen, Deebo Samuel, Jakobi Meyers, Chris Olave, Zach Charbonnet, Croskey-Merritt, Dylan Sampson, Jerry Jeudy and Juwan Johnson late in drafts.

Because of our keep-it-simple Week 1 philosophy, we ended up with strong performers such as Brown, Williams, Dobbins, Sampson, Allen, Deebo Samuel, Olave and even Aaron Jones on our benches. Based on their usage and performance, we will be sliding Williams, Dobbins, Brown and Samuel into the staring lineups for their teams. Croskey-Merritt also is likely to make the jump given that Ekeler has a banged-up shoulder and "Bill's" volume figures to continue rising week to week.

There are some players we were counting on as weekly starters such as Tyreek Hill, Kenneth Walker, Isiah Pacheco and Tyrone Tracy who are concerning based on their volume, the amount of snaps they played, the vibes surrounding the team or the look and performance of their offenses. Hill has too much of an upside to give up on him at this point, but given the targets, usage and production enjoyed by Dobbins, Brown, Samuel, Allen and Jones, we have absolutely no hesitation using those players in the WR2, WR3, RB2 or Flex slot.

We also have James Cook, who is an every-week starter, on two teams. He got beaten up a bit in Buffalo's miracle win vs. Baltimore and may be out. Fortunately, our drafts provided us with depth players we are very confident moving into his starting position.

Saints tight end Juwan Johnson always has been moved around and split out like a receiver at times during his career. He had a high snap count and ran a high percentage of routes in the Week 1 loss to Arizona, compiling nearly 20 points. If he continues receiving that level of usage, Johnson might become a potential Flex starter some weeks. While we are not ready to use him in that manner quite yet, it's a very difficult decision whether to start him or Kyle Pitts on one of our teams in Week 2.

Pitts also had a strong Week 1 showing, but given his roller-coaster history and the amount of opportunities that Johnson received, we are most likely to plug in the Saints' tight end this week. He literally was our last pick in two drafts and we also grabbed him off waivers on a team this week.