Fire & Ice: Top starts, sits and sleepers in fantasy football for Week 5

• Rhamondre Stevenson is a top-12 RB play as the New England Patriots enter Week 5 as favorites: Stevenson finished as a top-10 fantasy RB in both Weeks 1 and 2 when the Patriots were in close matchups. The Patriots enter the weekend as 1.5-point favorites against the struggling Miami Dolphins.

• Jayden Reed is an elite fantasy wide receiver with Jordan Love under center: Reed is averaging 18.1 fantasy points per game since Week 10 of last season, which ranks seventh-most among all wide receivers who have played five or more games during that span.

• Unlock your edge with a PFF+ subscription: Get full access to all of our in-season fantasy tools, including weekly rankings, WR/CB matchup charts, weekly projections, the Start-Sit Optimizer and more. Sign up now!

Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Are you struggling to set your fantasy lineups? Maybe I can help… Below you can find my top fire (boom) and ice (bust) players at each position for Week 5 I also include my sleeper of the week at each position in case you are in a deeper league or in need of a replacement for an ice player.

Don’t miss my Fire & Ice chart at the bottom of this page. There, I have listed out all of my fire, good, sleeper and ice plays for Week 5 of the 2024 fantasy football season.

Quarterbacks

Fire QB Start of the Week: Jordan Love (at LAR)

Jordan Love may be a turnover machine, but that hasn’t stopped him from putting up fantasy points. Last week, Love threw three interceptions but still finished the day with 28 fantasy points against the tough Minnesota Vikings defense. He has now finished as a top-five fantasy quarterback in three of his last five games played dating back to last season, with six straight games as a top-12 QB.

The Los Angeles Rams allowed both Kyler Murray and Brock Purdy to throw three touchdowns and zero interceptions in their matchups against them this season — both Murray and Purdy scored 26-plus fantasy points against LA.

Sleeper QB of the Week: Geno Smith (vs. NYG)

Through four weeks of the 2024 season, Geno Smith leads the NFL in passing attempts and passing yards. He has finished as the QB8 in three of the four weeks this season despite not throwing for multiple touchdowns in any game. He and DK Metcalf are on fire, connecting for over 100 yards in three straight weeks. This is a nice matchup for Smith, as the New York Giants have allowed the third-highest completion percentage in the NFL this season while Smith ranks second among qualified quarterbacks in completion percentage.

My only fear is that if Malik Nabers is out, the Giants may not be able to keep this game competitive, which would allow the Seattle Seahawks to have a run-heavy offense in the second half.

Ice QB Start of the Week: C.J. Stroud (vs. BUF)

A trend may be developing when it comes to C.J. Stroud’s fantasy production. Over his seven career games against divisional opponents, Stroud has averaged 21.2 fantasy points per game. However, in hs 12 career matchups against non-divisional opponents, he has averaged just 16.1 points per game. This season, his two poor fantasy performances have come against non-divisional opponents — he scored just 14.3 points in Week 2 against the Chicago Bears and 9.8 points in Week 3 against the Vikings.

Even if you aren’t concerned about his division/non-division splits and believe it's just a coincidence, this Buffalo Bills matchup is particularly tough for Stroud, who has found great success against man coverage but not so much against the zone this season. The Bills defense has played zone coverage on 81.3% of their opponent’s dropbacks this season, ranking them the fifth-heaviest zone defense in the NFL.

Running backs

Fire RB Start of the Week: Rhamondre Stevenson (vs. MIA)

Rhamondre Stevenson has scored just 8.5 fantasy points over the last two weeks combined as the New England Patriots were blown out in back-to-back games. However, the Patriots actually enter Week 5 as the favorites in their matchup as they face the pitiful Miami Dolphins offense without Tua Tagovailoa under center. In Weeks 1 and 2, when the Patriots kept their matchups close, Stevenson finished as the RB5 overall with 21.6 fantasy points against the Bengals and the RB10 overall with 17 fantasy points against the Seahawks.

Stevenson has played on 75% of New England's offensive snaps when the Patriots are tied or holding a lead at the time of the snap. As long as the Dolphins don’t magically fix their broken offense and quarterback situation by Sunday, Stevenson should see a ton of volume against a soft run defense. Over the last three weeks, James Cook (28.5), Zach Charbonnett (25.7) and Tony Pollard (18.8) have each scored over 18 fantasy points in their matchup against Miami.

Sleeper RB of the Week: Kareem Hunt (vs. NO)

Last week was Kareem Hunt‘s first game back with the Kansas City Chiefs since 2018, but the team instantly trusted him to take the majority of snaps and carries in the backfield. Hunt was given a team-high 14 carries in Week 4 and also led the Chiefs running backs with two receptions for 16 receiving yards. I expect his workload will only increase this weekend now that he has a game under his belt this season. I also expect him to be the Chiefs' goal-line back moving forward, not Samaje Perine who stole a rushing touchdown in Week 4.

The New Orleans Saints have allowed 7.3 yards per carry to running backs over the last two weeks. Saquon Barkley destroyed them for 33.6 fantasy points in Week 3, and Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allegeir combined for 21.4 points against them in Week 4.

Ice RB Start of the Week: De’Von Achane (at NE)

After a huge first two weeks, the wheels have fallen off for De’Von Achane — he scored just 8.8 and 5.9 fantasy points in Weeks 3 and 4. Achane is averaging a measly 3.1 yards per carry this season after averaging an absurd 7.8 yards per carry in his 2023 rookie season.

The Patriots have allowed only one running back to put up more than 55 rushing yards against them in a game this season. They have allowed four running backs to score a rushing touchdown this season, but fantasy managers shouldn’t be banking on Achane finding the end zone in Week 5. For one, there will not be many scoring opportunities with how poorly the Dolphins' offense is performing, and then also Achane has failed to get into the endzone on all three of his goal-line carries over the past two weeks.

Wide Receivers

Fire WR Start of the Week: Jayden Reed (vs. LAR)

Over his two games played with Jordan Love in 2024, he finished as the WR1 and WR2 overall on the week — scoring over 27 fantasy points in both Week 1 and Week 4. Dating back to last season, Reed has finished as a top-six fantasy wide receiver in four of his past six weeks played with Love. Reed’s production was limited in Weeks 2-3 with Malik Willis under center, yet he still only trails Nico Collins in scrimmage yards at the WR position this season. Reed is the only WR to have 400-plus yards and at least three touchdowns this season.

Reed gets a juicy matchup against the Rams, who have allowed Jauan Jennings, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Jameson Williams to each put up 120-plus receiving yards and at least one touchdown in their matchup against them this season.

Sleeper WR Start of the Week: Courtland Sutton (vs. LV)

Courtland Sutton and Bo Nix haven’t quite built a strong connection just yet, but Sutton is seeing a ton of targets — he has had at least nine targets in three of the four games this season. Three wide receivers have had nine or more targets in their matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders in 2024: Diontae Johnson, Zay Flowers and Jerry Jeudy. Johnson and Flowers each scored over 22 fantasy points against the Raiders, while Jeudy had a solid 13-point performance.

Over the last two weeks, Sutton has been a viable fantasy starter, scoring 13.8 points in Week 3 and 15 points last weekend. He is a top-30 WR option this week.

Ice WR Start of the Week: Garrett Wilson (at MIN)

Aaron Rodgers has not been Garrett Wilson’s savior like fantasy managers were hoping for heading into this season. Wilson has yet to record more than 60 receiving yards or finish higher than WR29 in any week this season. He is even being outproduced by teammate Allen Lazard, who is leading the New York Jets in receiving yards and touchdowns despite having 10 fewer targets than Wilson on the season.

The Jets' offense is struggling to move the ball consistently and score points. I think it is time to admit that Wilson is what he is … a viable, but not exciting, WR2/flex option in fantasy lineups.

Tight Ends

Fire TE Start of the Week: David Njoku (vs. WAS)

There is optimism that David Njoku will be ready to return from an ankle injury this Sunday that has kept him on the sidelines the last three weeks. If he is indeed active, Njoku should be back in your fantasy lineups immediately.

The Cleveland Browns offense has been desperately missing Njoku’s presence in the middle of the field and he should see heavy utilization as soon as he is back on the field. Njoku sustained his ankle injury in Week 1 on the Browns' first drive in the second half, and he still led the team with 44 yards on four receptions in that game.

Sleeper TE of the Week: Dalton Schultz (vs. BUF)

Dalton Schultz has yet to score more than six fantasy points in a game this season, but he is on the field running a lot of routes. Schultz has run 135 routes in 2024, which ranks second most among all tight ends.

This Bills zone-heavy defense, which is fantastic at limiting big pass plays, should force C.J. Stroud to attempt shorter passes and find the holes in the middle of the zone. This matchup projects to be very positive for Schultz. He is a viable streaming option for Week 5.

Ice TE Start of the Week: Brock Bowers (at DEN)

After a great first two weeks of his NFL career, Brock Bowers‘s production has greatly declined. Over Weeks 3 and 4 combined, he has just five receptions for 60 receiving yards. The Raiders offense is struggling to get anything going, especially without Davante Adams on the field and they have to go face a tough Broncos defense that held both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jets to fewer than 10 points over the past two weeks.

The Broncos' defense is allowing only 34.3 receiving yards per game to the tight end position in 2024 and has yet to let a starting tight end to score a touchdown. Fantasy managers will likely have to start Bowers this week, but I expect a third straight disappointing week.

Fire & Ice Fantasy Football Plays

Here, I categorize every relevant fantasy player into five different buckets: (1) fire starts (best starts of the week); (2) thumbs up (good starts); (3) Risky players with upside (sleepers); (4) Ice starts (predicting bad performance from good player); (5) Stop (must sits).

Note: If a player/defense is not listed, I am not considering starting them in Week 5. I did not include Falcons/Buccaneers players as they played on Thursday night.