On Thursday night, the Cleveland Browns will host the Pittsburgh Steelers at Huntington Bank Field. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Browns skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 12 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Jameis Winston, QB
The Browns are embracing the Jameis Winston experience (133 pass attempts in his three starts), and that’s all fantasy streamers could possibly ask for.
This play-calling style has resulted in a pair of top-10 finishes, but asking for a ceiling outcome against the best defense, for my money, in the league, one that just held the Ravens to 16 points, is tough. Winston will likely have his moments in this game, but I’m not at all comfortable in assuming that the good plays come close to outweighing the negatives.
I have my concerns about Cleveland being able to establish anything close to a viable run game, and the second you become one-dimensional against Pittsburgh, you’ve lost. I don’t think we’ve seen the last peak in the Winston rollercoaster, but you can cut ties in single-QB formats given that the Browns get the Broncos, Steelers, and Chiefs following this game.
Nick Chubb, RB
In his four games back, Nick Chubb doesn’t have a touch gaining more than 15 yards, and he has just two receptions on the ledger. D’Onta Foreman was inactive last week, and yet Chubb left the week with an underwhelming 55% carry share.
On the bright side, the plan was to get him involved. Chubb carried the ball on four of Cleveland’s first six offensive snaps, but by getting stuffed on fourth down, the floodgates were open and the game script got away from the Browns.
This story is a good one (the Steelers were the opposing team when Chubb was hurt last season), but that doesn’t make him a top-25 running back, even with a pretty clear lead role. Not only are the Steelers allowing the fourth fewest yards per carry after contact to RBs this season (2.61), but their offense grades as the eighth slowest, putting this at risk of being a low-possession game.
Chubb is nothing more than a low-end Flex, ranking alongside secondary options like Austin Ekeler and, this week, Isiah Pacheco.
Elijah Moore, WR
Elijah Moore owns a stable skill set in an unstable situation with Winston pulling the levers, but the condensed nature of this higher-volume passing offense is truly remarkable.
Active receiver streaks, games with 8+ targets:
- Justin Jefferson (eight straight)
- CeeDee Lamb (seven)
- Malik Nabers (seven)
- Courtland Sutton (four)
- Ja’Marr Chase (four)
- Cedric Tillman (four)
- Jerry Jeudy (four)
- Elijah Moore (three)
You read that right — three Browns on this eight-receiver list. Moore’s production relative to expectations has improved over his past four games than through the first six weeks, and while I believe the upside is capped (6-66-1 in New Orleans last week is about as good as it gets), you don’t need him to be a week winner.
Elijah has officially passed DJ as my Moore of choice when plugging in a Flex option this weekend.
Cedric Tillman, WR
After back-to-back-to-back top-12 finishes at the position, Cedric Tillman let all of fantasy nation down last weekend against the Saints with three catches for 47 yards and a WR50 finish.
Your thought process, for the most part, was sound in trusting Tillman. We aren’t sure of the exact hierarchy in Cleveland, but the idea was to chase the volume, and that came through with eight targets. If you were excited to play him last week, I don’t blame you, but you may have been blinded by the production over the profile.
The volume is nice, but the type of volume needs to be considered. Tillman owns a 15.5-yard aDOT this season, and a role like that is always going to carry a low floor, especially when the play under center isn’t the most stable.
There are spots moving forward where I’ll rank Tillman as a starter, but this isn’t it. The Browns have an implied point total of 16 and face a defense that ranks in the top six in both touchdown rate and interception percentage on deep throws. A repeat performance is roughly what I’m expecting this week, and that relegates Tillman to fantasy benches, but don’t dismiss him completely when planning out your future lineups.
Jerry Jeudy, WR
Jerry Jeudy recorded his first 80-yard game of the season on a single play (an 89-yard touchdown in the first quarter against the Saints) and now has 30 targets over his past three games. In each of those contests, he’s reached 70 receiving yards — the only Browns player with such a streak within a single season since 2016 is Donovan Peoples-Jones (2022).
Can he keep producing?
Jeudy’s air yards by week, 2024:
- Week 5 at Commanders: 47
- Week 6 at Eagles: 79
- Week 7 vs. Bengals: 94.8
- Week 8 vs. Ravens: 103
- Week 9 vs. Chargers: 131
- Week 11 at Saints: 160.6
You love to see the upward trajectory, but it might not mean much in this specific spot against the second-best defense in opponent passer rating on deep balls. I’ve moved Jeudy up in my ranks over the past month, but the range of outcomes remains concerning and has him slotting in as just an average Flex option in PPR formats for me this week.
JEUDY 89-YARD TD!! 😳
📺: #CLEvsNO on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/pPwT9dYWZs— NFL (@NFL) November 17, 2024
Anything can happen in a Winston-led offense, but with the Steelers (twice), Broncos, and Chiefs on the schedule over the next four weeks, I’d try to avoid the temptation to overreact to the big Week 11 that may have well come on your bench.
David Njoku, TE
David Njoku has at least five catches (and seven targets) in five straight games. Last week against the Saints, he showed me an important tweak in his usage under Winston.
It’s easy to fall in love with the YOLO stylings of Winston, and we’ve seen it pay off for a receiver in this offense consistently. However, it comes with a wide range of outcomes (just ask any Jeudy or Tillman manager).
On Sunday, Njoku was hyperefficient (nine catches on nine targets). It was by design, with eight of those looks coming less than five yards downfield.
While the athletic profile is a ceiling elevator, I’m more interested in a heightened floor at the TE position these days, and what we saw in Week 11 has me optimistic that we are looking at a top-five tight end due to consistency.
The Steelers have recorded their top two blitz-rate games of the season over the past two weeks. If that level of aggression is here to stay, we could be looking at a handful of quick hitters (be it screens, slants, etc.) to Njoku, a role that would give him the potential to swing matchups in your favor this week.