NFL Week 7 fantasy football start ’em, sit ’em

• Start Trevor Lawrence: He is slowly but surely becoming a fantasy starting quarterback and has a great matchup to take advantage of.

• Bench Melvin Gordon III: He might be starting for the Broncos, but his quality of play mixed with a three-man rotation won’t be enough for him to be starting for your fantasy team.

• Start Romeo Doubs: Doubs has been worthy of fantasy starting lineups since becoming a clear starter in Green Bay, and he has a solid matchup to sweeten the deal.

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Deciding who to start or sit can be as easy as looking at the PFF rankings and starting the player ranked higher. This start ’em, sit ’em column digs a step deeper, looking into why someone you might typically start might not have a good week, or why someone overlooked might have a good week. In many cases, it’s the usual starters who should star, but we want to explore the borderline players, too.

QUARTERBACKS

START

Derek Carr, Las Vegas Raiders

Carr has finished as a top-12 fantasy quarterback in three of his past four games.
He’s thrown 20 passes into the end zone — the most among quarterbacks.
All eight of Carr’s touchdowns have occurred this season when he wasn’t under pressure.
He has an 86.6 PFF grade without pressure and a 46.6 mark with pressure over the past two seasons.
The Raiders' offensive line has the ninth-best matchup against the Texans' pass rush, according to PFF's offensive line/defensive line matchup chart.
Houston has a 61.3 team pass-rush grade, which ranks fourth-worst, and 71 total pressures, which ranks fifth-fewest.

Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars

Lawrence finished as QB4 last week, which was his second top-four finish of the season and third game as a top-12 quarterback in the past five weeks.
His 0.49 fantasy points per dropback are 11th-most among quarterbacks.
The Jaguars have the seventh-best matchup for quarterbacks, according to PFF's strength of schedule tool.
The Jaguars face the Giants, who have the 10th-worst secondary so far this season.
Lawrence has a 5.6% big-time throw rate against man defenses compared to 2.5% against zone in his career.
Similarly, Lawrence has thrown a touchdown on 4.2% of his passes against man defenses compared to 0.7% against zone.
The Giants are one of three teams to run man defense on over 47% of pass plays.

SIT

Daniel Jones, New York Giants

Jones has finished as a top-12 quarterback only once in his six games this season despite currently sitting at QB16 on the season.
His 0.6% big-time throw rate is the lowest among quarterbacks this season.
The Giants will likely still be without their top two outside wide receivers.
Their game against the Jaguars is expected to be one of the lowest-scoring contests of the week.

Russell Wilson, Denver Broncos

Wilson has finished as a top-12 quarterback only once in his six games this season despite currently sitting at QB17 on the season.
His 58.7 PFF pass grade is the lowest for a quarterback with over 200 dropbacks, in part thanks to his 70.5% adjusted completion percentage, which is also the lowest.
The Broncos face the Jets, who have the eighth-best secondary so far this season.
Denver is a slight favorite, so they can employ a good run-pass balance that might not accumulate many passing yards.

RUNNING BACKS

START

Ken Walker, Seattle Seahawks

Walker was RB8 in his first game as a starter after finishing RB19 the week before.
He received a clear majority of snaps on early downs and saw encouraging usage on third downs.
His 0.39 fantasy points per snap is the 12th-highest mark among running backs this season.
He’s averaged an avoided tackle every other carry, which is the best rate among running backs this season.
The rookie is running behind an offensive line that used to be a liability but has slowly but surely climbed to an average unit.
The Seahawks face the Chargers, who have allowed the third-most fantasy points to running backs this season, including the fourth-most rushing yards (694).