Fantasy football start/sit advice, Week 5

You guys will have to forgive me, and those of us who double as baseball fans for the next month. The baseball playoffs started this week, and there is just so much to pay attention to with baseball playoff games and NFL games overlapping.

As I write this, I'm flipping back and forth between the Texans-Colts game and Game 1 of the Astros-Royals series. I watched today's Rangers game (go Rangers!) while running the War Room. In short, attentions are divided. I won't intentionally tell you to start Eric Hosmer, sit Yasiel Puig, but if it comes out ... just go with it, OK?

Anyway, we're coming up on Week 5. This is the first four-bye week, meaning big names like Cam Newton, Greg Olsen, Jarvis Landry, Adrian Peterson, Brandon Marshall and Chris Ivory are off the table for the week. Let's run through the guys who are around, who has a good matchup, who has a bad one, for your fantasy football lineup.

Marcus Mariota vs. Bills
The Bills have played two kinds of games this year: Strong defensive efforts in which they win handily, or miserable failures. In the miserable failures, the opposing quarterbacks (Tom Brady, Eli Manning), have put up fair numbers as their teams took leads. In the strong efforts, the opposing quarterbacks (Andrew Luck, Ryan Tannehill) had to throw to catch up. Luck and Brady had season-best fantasy totals against the Bills, Manning was one point off his best, and Tannehill managed 15 points. No matter how Sunday shakes out, Mariota looks promising.

Jay Cutler vs. Chiefs
In the two games Cutler has played beginning-to-end this season, he's put up 31 combined fantasy points with 250 passing yards per game and three total touchdowns. Interestingly, those numbers look even better if you extrapolate the half of a game he played in Week 2, as Cutler was 8-of-9 passing before he got hurt. In short, injuries have held him in check, but when healthy he's been average or a little above. Sunday, the Bears play a Chiefs team that has given up more fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks than any other team this year. Cutler could be a sneaky play.

Todd Gurley vs. Packers
Sometimes it's as easy as "Did you see that guy?" The Rams were patient with Gurley, easing him into the offense. In his first game in Week 3, he had 14 total yards. Well, in Week 4, the chains were off, and Gurley was, for all intents and purposes, the team's only running back — Benny Cunningham and Tre Mason had two carries each, while Gurley had 19. He had 146 rushing yards with 7.7 yards per carry. Did you see that guy? That guy's really good.

LeGarrette Blount vs. Cowboys
Everyone, take off your Dion Lewis blinders. He's been unexpectedly great through the Patriots' first three games, though it's all explainable: In Week 1, Blount was suspended, so Lewis was the bellcow. In Week 2, the Patriots played Buffalo and their elite run defense, so it made sense to lean more heavily on the joystick-style back, and the pass-catcher. And in Week 3, his score came early, when the game was close. When the Patriots are up big, it has been and will be Blount's job. Well, Sunday, a New England team with an extra week of rest plays a Dallas team that has lost a crazy number of players to injury and has Brandon Weeden at quarterback. You want up big? You'll get up big.

Travis Benjamin vs. Ravens
It was easy to predict regression out of Benjamin after the first two weeks. Four total touchdowns despite seven receiving targets, a bunch of long, fluke-looking plays? Players don't do that over an extended period. Well, that much is true; Benjamin hasn't continued to put up big yardage on few targets. On the other hand, while the quality has slid a little, the quantity has shot up, as Benjamin has gotten 10 targets in each of quarterback Josh McCown's last two starts. Meanwhile, the Ravens have allowed monster receiving days against both Oakland and Cincinnati.

Kamar Aiken vs. Browns
Simply put, Joe Flacco has to have someone to throw to. Steve Smith Sr. is out for the game and tight end Crockett Gillmore appears likely to join him. Breshad Perriman is still a while from his debut. That leaves Aiken, Marlon Brown and Chris Givens at wide receiver. While picking the best of that group is all very "tallest short guy," Aiken is better than the others. With Joe Haden banged up on the other side, Aiken should be have the chance to take advantage.

Scott Chandler vs. Cowboys
This is the same point I made all last season about Tim Wright, but it bears repeating: Tight ends are a fungible lot and, once you get past the first few, they all have a zero-point floor in any given game. Heck, Jimmy Graham and Travis Kelce were second and third in our preseason rankings, and the two of them have combined for three games of two or fewer fantasy points this year. So when a bunch of guys have a low floor, you look at ceiling, which means looking at likelihood of scoring a touchdown. And in any given week, maybe no tight end other than Rob Gronkowski has a better chance of scoring a touchdown than Chandler. He's as likely as any to have no catches, of course, which limits his upside, but if you're trolling the middle of the position, he warrants a look.

Drew Brees vs. Eagles
In the end, Brees had fine numbers in Week 4, with 359 yards, two touchdowns and 22 fantasy points. Take out the game-winning touchdown, though — and it was a total fluke play allowed by awful coverage — and he loses 80 yards, one of those touchdowns and seven of his fantasy points. That makes his game a very ordinary performance, not a sign that he's "back," and frankly, that's how the game should have shaken out if not for a missed field goal. Meanwhile, the Eagles have more or less kept strong quarterbacks like Matt Ryan and Tony Romo in check this year. Brees is still not really the Drew Brees we've come to know.

Sam Bradford vs. Saints
Week 3 was Bradford's best game as an Eagle, which is sort of like saying To Kill a Mockingbird is Harper Lee's best book. He had three touchdown passes with the team before Week 4, equaling that number in the single game alone. His passer rating was at a season high, as was his yards-per-attempt average. But it was one game. The Bradford we saw the first three weeks, the guy with three scores against four interceptions, who looked scared of football and/or like an alien trying to blend in? We've seen that guy three times as often as we've seen competent Bradford in 2015. Maybe he's turned a corner, but he should sit on the benches for another week until he's proven as much.

Marshawn Lynch vs. Bengals
Conventional wisdom says that you start your studs if they are available to you; after all, they're studs for a reason and come with extreme upside. With Lynch right now, though, there are so many worries. In Week 3, he was active, didn't start, came into the game and then left early; a repeat of that would ruin some fantasy weeks. His backup, Thomas Rawls, is no great shakes himself, meaning your insurance policy might not help as much as you'd like. And the Seahawks' Week 4 opponent, Cincinnati, has yet to give up a rushing touchdown all season. You might not have any other choice if you're a Lynch owner, but if you do have a choice, you might want to look into it.

Chris Johnson vs. Lions
Johnson looks rejuvenated in Arizona. In the three games Andre Ellington has missed, he's averaging 105 yards from scrimmage per game, and is on pace for more than 1,200 rushing yards on the season. Of course, barring a late-week setback, Ellington is back, and while Johnson has been good, this isn't a situation like the Falcons, where a surging Devonta Freeman supplanted an injured Tevin Coleman. Ellington is better (and more established) than Coleman, and Johnson's numbers, while good, aren't as blow-you-away as Freeman's. Johnson will likely be the No. 1 back, but Ellington's return puts a decided cap on his ceiling.

Amari Cooper vs. Broncos
Sometimes, these aren't that difficult. Cooper has been great through his first four games (two touchdowns, almost 85 yards a game, over 100 yards twice), and has seen heavy usage, with 10 targets per game. But the Raiders face the world-crushing Denver defense in Week 5, and while some elite wide receivers are matchup-proof, that quality generally requires a strong quarterback, and while Derek Carr has had his moments, he isn't matchup-proof. Cooper could struggle this week.

Mike Evans vs. Jaguars
The party line in preseason was that Mike Evans was a great talent, but simple touchdown regression (fewer for him, more for Vincent Jackson) would render him less valuable for fantasy even if he played exactly as well as 2014. So far — and yes, it's early, as Evans has played only three games — that's proven true. He scored a touchdown last year in every game he had more than 72 yards; he had 101 yards in Week 3 without finding the end zone. A Mike Evans who isn't such a touchdown maker is a notch or two below where he typically falls in most rankings.