The Biggest Start/Sit Decisions for Week 9 (Fantasy Football)
Welcome to Week 9, FootClan. We are officially at the halfway mark. The Steelers and Titans are on bye, and the waiver wire looks like a yard sale at 4 p.m. on a Sunday. If you are staring at your lineup wondering how it came to this, do not worry; you are not alone. The FootClan has flooded The Fantasy Footballers Start/Sit tool with fantasy dilemmas they’re facing this week. I’ll grab a few of the most searched lineup decisions and break down the toughest calls of the week.
Malik Willis or C.J. Stroud?
Detroit has given up a top-12 finish to every QB it has faced this season except Jordan Love, and even Love finished QB13. That list includes Bryce Young and Jacoby Brissett. Yes, really. The Lions have allowed the most fantasy points to QBs in the league, and Kurt Mullen noted in his Streamers to Consider article that they have given up 20-plus fantasy points to opposing QBs in six of seven games. Add a 50.5 O/U, and this one has shootout written all over it. Willis has been the QB7 in fantasy points per game since Week 5, with 20.9 and 26 fantasy points in Weeks 5 and 7. Vegas has Detroit at a 28.75 implied team total and Miami at 21.75, so there is a good chance Willis spends the afternoon throwing from behind. Garbage time counts the same in your league. The rushing is the wild card. He averages 5.2 rush attempts per game, but last week he ran for two yards on one carry, and he has three games this season with 12 or fewer rushing yards. When the legs show up, he is a QB1. When they do not, it can get rough.
Need a QB to start off waivers this week? We like Malik Willis against the Lions 👍 pic.twitter.com/1A2j1iC5xi
— Fantasy Footballers (@TheFFBallers) November 4, 2026
Stroud, on the other hand, has been steady with 11 TDs and one INT on more than 34 pass attempts per game. The problem is who he is facing. The Chargers have let exactly one QB top 20 fantasy points this season (Kirk Cousins). They held Josh Allen to 17.46 in Week 3, and kept opposing QBs under 14 points in four straight games. The O/U sits at 40.5, which is one of the lowest on the slate.
Verdict: Malik Willis. The floor scares me a little. The matchup does not scare me at all. I will take the QB facing a defense that turns almost everyone into a QB1.
Xavier Worthy or Tetairoa McMillan?
The Chiefs are simply not getting enough out of Xavier Worthy. Rookie RB Emmett Johnson‘s emergence has begun to eat into Worthy’s opportunity. Coach Reid has to find ways to get the ball into Johnson’s hands, and that comes at the expense of Xavier Worthy. Worthy has only one career game with 100+ receiving yards. ONE. Emmett Johnson just did that last week. Rashee Rice has been dealing with a hamstring injury but was a full participant in Thursday’s practice. If Rice plays, that is one more mouth to feed. The good news is the matchup. The Jets give up an average of 10.7 receptions and 133.3 receiving yards per game to WRs. Over their recent games, they rank around 12th in yards per target and fourth in fantasy points per opportunity allowed to perimeter WRs.
McMillan came out of the gate hot, averaging 15.4 fantasy points per game with a 26-385-2 line across Weeks 1 to 4. Since the Week 5 bye, that has dropped to 8.8 points per game and 16-184-0. The frustrating part? His role has not shrunk at all. He still has an 87% route rate, a 32% air yard share, and a 33% end-zone target share. The issue is the guy throwing him the ball. Bryce Young has completed 53.3% of his passes since the bye and has been sacked 11 times in his last two games, after just 12 sacks in the five games before that.
Remember that Broncos vs. Panthers game we love for Jonah Coleman? Flip it around. Denver ranks fourth in both sacks and pressure rate (per Next Gen Stats), has Pat Surtain II, and allows the sixth-fewest fantasy points to WRs. Sure, Carolina could be throwing from behind, but extra volume doesn’t help much when your QB completes about half his passes and spends the rest of the time on his back. That is a long day at the office.
Verdict: Tetairoa McMillan. Neither of these guys is giving you warm-and-fuzzy feelings, but Vegas is not torn at all. DraftKings has McMillan’s receiving yards line at 67.5 with 5.5 receptions. Worthy sits at 34.5 yards and 3.5 catches, and the juice leans toward the under on his receptions. That is a lot of daylight between two guys we are supposedly debating. Yes, Bryce Young has been rough, and yes, Denver can get after the QB. But McMillan’s role has not budged, and if Carolina falls behind, the volume should follow. Worthy has a great matchup on paper, but with Rice back at full practice, his slice of the pie just got smaller. Give me the guy the sportsbooks still believe in.
Jonah Coleman or Josh Jacobs?
Jonah Coleman played 66% of Denver’s snaps last week. J.K. Dobbins played 21%. That gap is a big reason Mike made Coleman his RB Start of the Week. With RJ Harvey on IR, the rookie turned 11 carries into 41 yds and a TD against a tough Chiefs defense, added 5 targets, and handled four of the five carries inside the 5-yard line. That added up to 20.4 fantasy points. On the season, he has 231 yds and two TDs on just 39 touches. Now he gets Carolina, and this is where it gets fun. The Panthers rank 31st in fantasy points allowed to RBs, give up 4.73 yds per carry to the position (fifth-highest in the league), and just fired their defensive coordinator. Denver is a three-point favorite. A back with a growing role against a defense in that much chaos? It does not get much better.
The GB Packers rushing leader and yards per game:
Week 1 – Lloyd, 37 yards
Week 2 – K. Johnson 32 yards
Week 3 – Lloyd, 11 yards
Week 4 – K. Johnson 42 yards
Week 5 – Lloyd, 31 yards
Week 6 – Strong, 28 yards
Week 7 – Jacobs, 36 yards
Week 8 – Jacobs, 39 yardsWOOF.
— Andy Holloway (@AndyHolloway) October 30, 2026
Josh Jacobs has back-to-back 20-point games, but look under the hood, and things look shaky. Green Bay is dead last in rushing at 60 yards per game, Jacobs is averaging 2.3 yards per carry, and 47% of his fantasy points have come from TDs. That is not a recipe that holds up for long, especially against a New England defense that allows the fifth-fewest fantasy points to RBs and has not allowed a single 20-point game to an RB all season.
Verdict: Jonah Coleman. One guy has a growing role and a smash matchup. Give me the young legs.
Kyle Pitts or T.J. Hockenson?
Last week, Pitts drew a 22% target share in a game where his QB completed eight passes to his own team and four to the Buccaneers. It was ugly. Mike still made Pitts his TE Start of the Week, and I am right there with him. Before that mess, Pitts had three straight top-12 finishes. This week, Bengals vs. Falcons in Madrid carries a 52.5 O/U, tied for the highest total on the slate. You have to throw last week’s rainageddon game out the window.
Hockenson is not a bad option either. He is the TE12 this season, with top-eight finishes in three of his last four games, an 18.7% target share, and seven red-zone targets. Buffalo has allowed 10-plus fantasy points to TEs in five of seven games. Still, Wentz is starting because Kyler Murray is out with a hamstring injury, and this game total is low.
Verdict: Kyle Pitts. Both have nice matchups, but Pitts has the bigger role and the better game environment. Also, not knowing how Carson Wentz will operate in 2026 isn’t something I want to gamble on.
I hope this helps you lock in those tough calls. If you have any start/sit questions, hit me up on X. And catch Mike every Sunday morning before kickoff for his last-minute start/sit decisions. Good luck in Week 9, FootClan!
Comments
How far Tet has fallen for me….put him on the Chiefs and he’s a top 5 WR in fantasy