Fantasy Football Week 13 Wide Receiver Start/Sit: Jakobi Meyers, Jauan Jennings, Darnell Mooney, DeAndre Hopkins, Deebo Samuel, Amari Cooper

Welcome to FantasySP’s Week 13 fantasy football wide receiver start/sit breakdown! With the holidays, this article’s recap of last week’s selections will be abbreviated. For the Starts: D.J. Moore — excellent; Quentin Johnston — terrible; Christian Watson — terrible. For the Sits: DeAndre Hopkins — finished as a bad pick but I feel fine about the process; Jaylen Waddle — terrible; Jayden Reed — good. 

Overall, that’s a pretty atrocious week, including fading the WR3 on the week and backing two players who combined for a grand total of 0.4 points. Hopefully, this week, we can have some better results. Let’s get started!

For more help with your toughest Week 13 Start/Sit decisions, check out FantasySP’s NFL Start/Sit tool!

Fantasy Football Wide Receivers To Start Week 13

Jakobi Meyers, Las Vegas Raiders @ Kansas City Chiefs

In games where Davante Adams is not on the field for the Raiders, Meyers is averaging 11.7 Half-PPR points per game on a 25% target share. I know that 11.7 points may not sound that impressive, but that would actually land him as the WR21 for the season. Plus, it’s well below his expected fantasy points per game of 15.8. Some underperformance is expected, given the Raiders’ QB situation, but not that much.

This week, Vegas should be dropping back early and often to keep up with the Chiefs. Kansas City’s defense is a tough matchup, but with a 25% target share in what should be a pass-friendly script, I like Meyers’ chances to get the job done.

Jauan Jennings, San Francisco 49ers @ Buffalo Bills

If Brock Purdy plays this week, Jennings will be a must-start. But even if he doesn’t, I think you can still consider the fourth-year breakout for your lineups this week. Last week, with Brandon Allen under center in a game where the 49ers got absolutely nothing going offensively, Jennings still managed five catches for 40 yards. He tied for the team lead with a 21% target share and led the team with a 30% first-read target share.

This continued a trend since Brandon Aiyuk was sidelined. In three games as San Francisco’s primary X receiver, Jennings has averaged absolute elite usage: a 29% target share, a 33% air yards share, and a 38% first-read target share. Combine that with how well he has been playing this season (a stinker last week caused him to fall from top five to “just” 10th in PFF Receiving Grade), and I’m trusting Jennings no matter who his QB is. 

Darnell Mooney, Atlanta Falcons vs. Los Angeles Chargers

I was surprised to see so much doubt as to whether to start Mooney this week, as the former Bear has been remarkably productive throughout his first season in Atlanta. He ranks as the WR13 in total points, and if we cut out his abbreviated appearance in Week 11, he would be the WR20 in points per game. Those numbers paint the picture of a must-start player, even on a week with no byes. 

Mooney’s usage backs up his production, as he ranks 10th in the entire league in air yards and 18th in targets for the season. Those numbers are partially inflated by the fact that he has been mostly healthy, only missing half of that aforementioned Week 11 game. But he also ranks in the top 30 in both air yards and targets per game. The Falcons have been one of the most pass-happy teams in the league, and they use the same personnel on essentially every play. That means, even as the clear WR2 behind Drake London, Mooney has a 21% target share that converts to solid production. Assuming he’s good to go coming back off an Achilles injury (which he should be, given that he was a full participant in Thursday’s practice), get him in your lineup. 

Fantasy Football Wide Receivers To Sit Week 13

DeAndre Hopkins, Kansas City Chiefs vs. Las Vegas Raiders

As I said in the intro — the results of listing Hopkins as a Sit last week weren’t ideal (he finished with 12 points, thanks mostly to a touchdown), but I still stand by my process. With that in mind, I’m doubling down on recommending you bench the former All-Pro this week. 

The problem with Hopkins is simple: He isn’t running a full share of routes. Instead of ramping up from the 62% participation rate he posted in his breakout Week 9 game, he has trended consistently downward: from that 62% to 59% to 51%, all the way down to 48% in Week 12. There is simply no receiver in the league worth playing with a route participation rate below 50%. He can punish me with a TD or two (as he did last week), but I’m willing to take my chances here given he won’t even be on the field roughly half of the time.  

Amari Cooper, Buffalo Bills vs. San Francisco 49ers

Another veteran WR who was traded mid-season, Cooper has the exact same issue as Hopkins. The last time we saw the Bills on the field, he posted just a 49% route participation rate. That was even with Keon Coleman, his most direct competition for the Bills’ X Receiver spot, out with an injury.

The only reason I’m not quite as confident about this suggestion as the one for Hopkins is that Cooper himself was returning from an injury in that game. He has only played three games in a Bills uniform — two in the first two weeks after his trade, then the one in Week 11 returning from an injury — so there’s a chance the Bills still intend to have him running a full complement of routes when he is fully integrated. But until we see that, I recommend you leave him on your bench, especially facing a 49ers defense that is the second-worst schedule-adjusted matchup for wide receivers.  

Deebo Samuel Sr., San Francisco 49ers @ Buffalo Bills

All that elite usage I was talking about with Jennings has to come from somewhere, and Deebo Samuel has been the biggest loser in the 49ers’ offense so far this season. He is currently just the WR43 in Half-PPR points per game, and I don’t necessarily expect things to get much better. I even listed him as a Sell Low candidate in my trade suggestions article for this week. 

The issue with Deebo is that he has always had mediocre volume for an elite fantasy receiver, instead relying on truly elite efficiency to provide results. This year, the mediocre volume is still there: He is averaging an 18% target share and an 18% air yards share, plus 2.7 rushing attempts per game. But the efficiency is gone, especially in the TD department: After scoring a TD on 7.9% of targets and 13.5% of rushes in 2023, he is down to just 1.8% and 3.7% TD rates, respectively. We can’t necessarily expect positive regression, as those latter numbers are much closer to the league average than Deebo’s previous outlier-level TD rates. He’s more worth considering if Purdy is back, but I lean toward leaving Samuel on your bench regardless this week.

Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for FantasySP. Find him on Twitter @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.