The New England Patriots will face the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 7. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Patriots skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 7 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Drake Maye, QB
The rookie showed well in his first career start last week with 19.5 fantasy points (Jacoby Brissett didn’t have a single game with 11 points this season). Skeptics will point to the blowout nature of that game, and to them, I say … so what? Are you expecting the Patriots to be competitive on any sort of consistent basis?
The 40-yard touchdown to Kayshon Boutte was a thing of beauty and helped make up for his first 13 passes netting just 65 yards. I find it unlikely that Maye makes much noise in the way of wins and losses for New England, but I wouldn’t be shocked if his versatility resulted in a few usable fantasy weeks.
The Jags rank 27th in pressure and 31st in blitz rate this season – I’m using this week as one to further scout Maye and see if I can carve out an opponent profile that works for a late-season spot-start/cheap DFS build.
Antonio Gibson, RB
Gibson had a chance to impress last week, and he fell flat (13 carries for 19 yards). We are three years removed from Gibson being a featured back, and with the Patriots trusting him with just 61.9% of the RB carries with Rhamondre Stevenson sidelined, it’s clear that they don’t view him as a bell cow.
Drake Maye has generated some excitement in New England, but for me, the upside he brings doesn’t impact the backfield in a significant way. Once we get word that Stevenson is healthy, Gibson returns to a ranking outside of my Flex range and could conceivably be cut in a pinch.
Rhamondre Stevenson, RB
The Jaguars have plenty of problems, but they are contacting running backs, on average, less than 2.5 yards downfield, a rate that ranks behind only elite run defenses in Baltimore and Kansas City. With Stevenson trying to come back from a foot injury and producing the worst per-play EPA mark of his career, he’s far from a safe play should he suit up.
Assuming he is back in the mix, his three top-12 finishes this season earn him the nod as a Flex option ahead of Antonio Gibson, though the range of outcomes is wide in a new-look offense that offers more athleticism under center.
Gibson has been productive enough to continue to see 8-12 touches, a role that is just annoying enough to hold Stevenson back from RB2 status, but not enough to hold standalone value in an offense that is still limited.
DeMario Douglas, WR
Douglas hauled in six of nine targets for 92 yards and a score against the Texans last week in Drake Maye’s first career start, resulting in the first New England WR top-20 finish of the season.
The early returns were positive, but I’d caution against getting over your skies after a single game. Douglas earned the right to be my highest-ranked Patriots pass catcher this week in a matchup with the worst EPA pass defense in the league, but that only lands him in the middling Flex tier.
Maye offers plenty of upside that this offense didn’t have access to prior, but don’t mistake a ceiling for stability.
Ja’Lynn Polk, WR
The 1-5 Patriots are motivated to see what their future looks like, and Polk is likely a part of that. Polk turned four Drake Maye targets into a whopping four yards last week. While that’s not exactly what we had in mind, remember that it’s only a single data point.
I saw enough from the rookie QB to think that there might be some value to extract from this offense as we approach the second half of the fantasy season, which makes Polk a reasonable luxury stash. There might not be redraft value here, but we don’t know that for sure, and I’m happy to invest in some uncertainty for a few weeks to see how this offense develops.
Hunter Henry, TE
Henry saw his most targets in a game since Week 2 and caught his first touchdown of the season in Drake Maye’s starting debut. His slot rate is up for a second consecutive season (40.4% through six weeks this season, 35.3% a season ago). That puts him in a position to soak up efficient targets in an offense that might have a touch of upside moving forward.
My concern here is the replication of skills. DeMario Douglas is valuable close to the line of scrimmage and so are the running backs on this roster, leaving Henry, for now, as more risk than reward when I stack up the position.
I like his role potential more than Dalton Schultz or Zach Ertz moving forward. But with those two possessing so much more scoring equity due to the potency of their offenses, I need more than a single Maye Day for me to rank Henry as a viable option every week.