Ja’Tavion Sanders start or sit: Week 1 fantasy football advice

Week 1 of the 2025 NFL season is finally here and opening weekend will continue on Sunday with the Carolina Panthers visiting the Jacksonville Jaguars at 1 p.m. ET on FOX.

The Panthers experienced their seventh straight losing season last year at 5-12, but did show a pulse at the very end of the campaign. The team is hoping that Bryce Young can take a step forward in his third season and he’ll have some weapons to work with on offense, one of which being second-year tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders. He enters the year with an ADP (average draft position) in the 29-30 range across multiple scoring formats according to FantasyPros, meaning that he’ll be sitting on the waiver wire in most leagues to start the season.

Below, we’ll go over Shaheed’s outlook in fantasy football for Week 1.

Drafted out of Texas in the fourth-round of last year’s draft, Sanders did well for himself in place of an injured Tommy Tremble with 33 receptions for 342 yards and a touchdowns. His rookie-year numbers could’ve been even higher had a neck injury he suffered in November not limited him in action for the next several weeks. Sanders now enters his second season as the starting tight end in Carolina and some believe that he could become a breakout star for the team. He notably led the team in average yards after catch last season at 5.6 and that ability to extend plays could be very beneficial for both Young and fantasy managers alike.

Sit. Jacksonville was very vulnerable against tight ends last season, yielding eight touchdowns and an average of 8.4 fantasy points per game in standard leagues. That’s extremely tempting for savvy fantasy managers who decided to pick up Sanders, but I say wait. Start whatever tight end took ahead of him and see if the Panthers TE can actually prove himself worthy of a starting slot. If he does that against the Jags, then you have an absolute steal on your hands moving forward.