Fantasy Football Start em, Sit em: Baker Mayfield, Bucky Irving, Darnell Mooney (Week 5)

Start or set? Starting or seating decisions in fantasy football can be agonizing. While it feels great to make the right decision and achieve fantasy glory, it hurts just as much when someone throws a tantrum on the bench. You can use our “Who should I start with?” Tool to help you get advice from fantasy football experts as you make your lineup decisions. And you can also sync your fantasy football league for free with our My Playbook tool for customized advice, rankings and analysis.

Let's take a look at some polarizing players and the advice of fantasy football expert Derek Brown. And for all of DBro's fantasy football prospects, check out this week's Fantasy Football Primer.

Fantasy football starting and sit-em lineup tips

Baker Mayfield (QB)

Mayfield is humming along in fantasy points per game as QB4. Among the 36 qualified quarterbacks, he ranks 11th in yards per attempt, fifth in passer rating and 12th in most accurate throw rate. Atlanta was a mediocre matchup overall as a pass defense. They've held quarterbacks to the seventh-fewest passing yards per attempt and the 11th-fewest fantasy points, but this secondary has also allowed the ninth-most CPOE and ranks 15th in passer rating. Mayfield should post strong QB1 numbers again this week and have enough time to deliver accurate passes. Atlanta is 15th in pressure time and 18th in pressure rate.

Bucky Irving (RB)

Last week, Irving saw his role in the Bucs' backfield increase. He played a season-high 42% of snaps with 11 touchdowns and 55 total yards. Irving had a 50% snap share on rushing plays and a 34% snap rate on passing downs, and he led Tampa Bay with a 67% snap share inside the 20-yard line. White was dealing with food poisoning last week, so maybe we can attribute it to that. It's equally possible he'll eat up the workload of one of the NFL's most inefficient rushers. Irving was explosive when given opportunities. Among the 55 qualified backs, he ranks seventh in explosive run rate, 12th in forced missed tackles per attempt and 11th in yards after contact per attempt. Irving has a difficult task on early downs this week. Atlanta hasn't been an easy team this year, allowing the eighth-lowest explosive run rate and the fifth-lowest yards after contact per attempt. The only glimmer of hope for Irving is that Atlanta has also given up the second-highest success rate of gap runs (Irving 54% gap).

Darnell Mooney (WR)

Mooney is the WR44 in fantasy points per game with two weekly top-36 finishes (WR18, WR36) this season. He posted a 19.3% target percentage, 32.9% air yard percentage, 1.97 YPRR and a strong 24.3% first read percentage. Tampa Bay used a single-high on 55.7% of its defensive snaps. From the single high, his target share has dropped slightly to 17.6% and his YPRR has plummeted (0.94). Mooney is best left on the bench this week. Tampa Bay has allowed the fourth-fewest PPR points per score and the ninth-fewest receiving yards per game to perimeter wide receivers. Mooney will run about 58% of his routes against Zyon McCollum (37.5% catch rate and 43.0 passer rating) and Jamel Dean (68% catch rate and 95.8 passer rating).

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