Week 6 Start or Sit: The Most-Asked Calls, Answered

Five of the week's biggest calls are not calls at all

Minnesota, Miami, Cincinnati and Detroit are on the bye in Week 6. Checked against this week's ten most-opened start/sit comparisons, five of them name a player from one of those four teams, which makes the pick for you: the other man starts.

Kyler Murray plays for Minnesota now and is on the bye, so the Aaron Rodgers or Kyler Murray question (one of the week's most-read) is really just "start Aaron Rodgers," and Jordan Addison, also a Viking, makes the Jordan Addison or Matthew Golden call "start Matthew Golden." Ollie Gordon is a Dolphin, out twice over: he is on this week's bye and was already listed Questionable before that. Both pairs that feature him, Ollie Gordon or Omarion Hampton and Kyle Monangai or Ollie Gordon, resolve to the other back. Malik Washington, also Miami, makes Malik Washington or Rome Odunze a start for Odunze by default.

None of those five needed a projection to answer. The table below marks all five, so you can skip straight past them to the calls that are actually close.

The ten pairs readers opened most

Source: compare-page demand map, read 12:11 PM ET. "Readers" is separate people, not page loads.

The backfield cluster: Allen, Wilson, Tuten and Judkins

The single most-read comparison in fantasy right now is Braelon Allen or Emanuel Wilson, and it is close for a reason: both are early-down answers on offenses that still split work. Allen has played 56% of the Jets' snaps, carried 45% of their runs and drawn 8% of the targets, good for 14.5 projected points against the Patriots. Wilson has taken 42% of Seattle's snaps and 5% of its targets for a 12.7 projection, and the site's own verdict favors Allen.

Wilson shows up twice more. Against Bhayshul Tuten (56% snap share in Jacksonville, 7% targets, 12.1 projected), the page gives Wilson the edge again at 12.7 to 12.1, even though Tuten plays more snaps; Wilson's role carries a larger target cut. And against Quinshon Judkins, who is Questionable in Cleveland after taking 60% of the Browns' snaps and 14% of their targets, the verdict again sides with Wilson, 12.7 to Judkins's 12.3. If you roster Wilson, he is the common thread in three of this week's top twenty most-asked calls, and he is the one the site likes in every one of them.

The low-end quarterback stream: six names, one order

Six quarterbacks nobody drafted are tangled across four of the week's most-read pairs: Bo Nix, Deshaun Watson, Geno Smith, Jameis Winston, Sam Darnold and Tyler Shough. Our Week 6 board ranks four of them: Tyler Shough 11th at the position (16.8 points, hosting a Giants defense that has allowed the 9th-most points to quarterbacks this season), Deshaun Watson 12th (16.6, vs. Baltimore), Geno Smith 16th (16.1, at New England) and Jameis Winston 21st (14.8, vs. New Orleans). Sam Darnold (14.8 on his own page, 81% snap share) and Bo Nix did not have enough of a current-season projection to place on this week's board at all, which is itself the tell: Nix lost both head-to-heads shown here, to Watson and to Shough.

One cleaner call in the same group: Jayden Daniels or Tyler Shough. Washington's own board has Daniels 5th at the position, projected for 19.1 against a 49ers defense allowing the 5th-fewest points to quarterbacks, well clear of Shough's 16.8 against a Giants defense allowing the 9th-most. That is the gap to start with if you only need one of this cluster.

Two backs stuck behind Will Shipley questions

Will Shipley, Philadelphia's fifth running back on the depth chart and Doubtful this week, is the other name in two more top-twenty pairs. J.K. Dobbins, Denver's lead back at 9.1 projected points (RB27 on our board), and Tony Pollard, Tennessee's starter at 10.9 (RB22), both have a season-long market projection; Shipley has none, carries no snap or target share worth citing, and is not on our board at all. Start the man who is actually your team's back.

What to do with this

1. Don't spend a roster decision on a player who is on this week's bye. Check the Week 6 injury report and this week's rankings before setting a lineup, not just the comparison page for the two names in your head.
2. If Emanuel Wilson is on your roster, he is the lean in every pairing above he appears in; see the full Allen or Wilson breakdown for the usage numbers behind it.
3. For the deep-league quarterback stream, Tyler Shough, Deshaun Watson and Geno Smith all project ahead of Bo Nix and Sam Darnold this week; see the Week 6 start or sit board for every pair, not only the ten most searched.
4. The Week 6 waiver wire guide covers the add-or-drop side of this same backfield cluster.