Start Em / Sit Em - Week 9 - Thursday Game

By Brad Kruse

In this Start Em / Sit Em column each week, I'm looking to find some fringe players that you might consider starting each week and comment based on their matchups. Early on, I'll base my selection of candidates on where they were with respect to ADP. I'm not going to try to pad my stats by suggestin your start Drew Brees each week, but instead trying to dig deep and find some nuggets for players to avoid or to go after. These are coin flip guys and if I can finish the year at better than 60% I'll consider it a success. My metrics to get the start decision are: QB 20 pts or more, RB, WR or TE need to score 12 pts or more for a successful endorsement. Defense/Special Teams should put in 8 points or more to get those picks right. I'll look at ~4-6 players on each Thursday night's game and ~ 6 players for the rest of the week to get you going. Good Luck this year!

Player	Pos	Team	Opp	Start / Sit	Comment
Mark Ingram	RB	NOR	CAR	Start	Ingram has played in five games this year. He's turned in 3 startable weeks. The other two he got injured or was slowly being worked into the lineup after a long absense. Similar to last week, there isn't much competition at RB for Ingram. This one's on the road though. However, the matchup is strong and he should get the volume to turn in startable numbers this week.
Cam Newton	QB	CAR	NOR	Start	Newton has had five startable weeks this year out of eight starts. However, they find themselves in the mix for their division and New Orleans coming to town will be a very important game for both teams. One thing that has hurt Newton from a fantasy perspective is the number of snaps his backup (Derek Anderson) has played in one sided affairs. With the importance of this game, and coming off an uninspiring output last week, I suspect Newton should make your lineup.
Kenny Stills	WR	NOR	CAR	Start	Since New Orleans bye, Stills has collected 35% of the fantasy points New Orleans' wide receivers have amassed. Carolina's letting up 33.3 ppg to wide receivers and New Orlenas tends to score ~ 20% more fantasy points at WR than opposing teams allow on average. Therefore, I'd project Stills to have start value in week 9 with six teams on a bye it's hard to have a solid starting lineup this week.