Unlocking Secrets: What Happens Next Will Surprise You

Feeling confident about your fantasy football picks after two weeks—or ready to ship half your roster off to the waiver wire? Yeah, I see you. The 2025 NFL season is still young, but if you’re already drafting your blueprint for glory or mentally trading players for next year, it might be time to hit pause and reassess. In our Week 3 fantasy start and sit guide, we’re not just parroting the same old expert opinions. Nope, we’re letting the cold, hard data do the talking—sometimes agreeing, often challenging the consensus. What if the player everyone doubts is actually about to explode? Or that early-season darling might be all sizzle and no steak? Let’s shake things up and see which yays and nays truly move the needle this week—with a little fun thrown in (two truths and a lie, anyone?). Stick with me, because hindsight’s too late and blind faith isn’t a strategy. Ready to flip the script on Week 3?

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In our 2025 NFL Week 3 fantasy football start and sit, we let the data give another perspective that likely varies from the overall expert picks.

Through two weeks, I’m willing to bet that most fantasy managers are either thrilled with a player, or ready to trade them the heck away. Same with your team. You’re either envisioning the trophy at the end of the year or already beginning prep for 2026.

Remember, we still have a ton of season left. Plenty of time for things to change. So, let’s play a fun icebreaker. What follows is two truths and a lie, fantasy style. Each trio of statements contains one that is false.

There are only three quarterbacks with at least 20 fantasy points in each of the first two weeks, and they are Lamar Jackson, Daniel Jones and Patrick Mahomes.
Only three quarterbacks have surpassed 30 fantasy points in a game this season: Josh Allen, Jared Goff and Russell Wilson.
Only three of the top-16 quarterbacks through two weeks were selected outside the first round in their respective NFL draft: Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson and Jalen Hurts.

Travis Etienne Jr. has more fantasy points than Derrick Henry, Jahmyr Gibbs and Bucky Irving.
Javonte Williams through two weeks has more games with 20+ points (two) than he has had in any full season since his rookie year in 2021.
Chuba Hubbard, RB7 through two weeks, has two receiving touchdowns, which equaled his career total entering this season.

The top six wide receivers on the season all went crazy last week. Puka Nacua, Malik Nabers, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Rome Odunze (more on him later), Zay Flowers and Ja’Marr Chase combined for 187.7 PPR points in Week 2. That total is more than the top nine scoring rookie running backs and wide receivers – Dylan Sampson, Ashton Jeanty, TreVeyon Henderson, Cam Skattebo, Bhayshul Tuten, Jacory (Bill) Croskey-Merritt, Emeka Egbuka, Tetairoa McMillan and Elic Ayomanor – have on the season.
We just mentioned the top six wide receivers. CeeDee Lamb is 10th. The other four in the top 10 are Deebo Samuel, Quentin Johnson, and Wan’Dale Robinson.
The only teams with two wide receivers among the top 25 at the position are the Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Chargers and Carolina Panthers.

The Week 3 Fantasy Football Yays: Players Projected to Overperform Consensus Rankings

Note: We’re comparing our rankings to the expert consensus rankings (ECR) from Fantasy Pros. These rankings update throughout the week (we pulled these numbers from Thursday). Once again, we are using PPR unless noted otherwise.

Daniel Jones, QB (IND) vs TEN (ECR: 11, Our Rank: QB4, Projected Points: 18.21)

We mentioned Jones in the first bullet point of the intro and spoiler, and it’s true. If Week 1 could have been considered a potential fluke given it was the first game of the season against the seemingly woeful Miami Dolphins defense, last week brought that theory crashing down.

Against a Denver Broncos defense that was among the best in the NFL last year, Jones diced them up to the tune of 316 passing yards and two touchdowns (one passing and one rushing). Meanwhile, the Tennessee Titans defense is coming off a week in which it just allowed 298 yards passing yards to the Los Angeles Rams and Matthew Stafford.

Oh, now seems like a good time to mention our model has been roughly 10 spots higher on Jones than industry consensus during the first two weeks. Now, that’s almost entirely because he has been among the quarterback leaders in projected rushing touchdowns, but with three in two games, there’s no reason for the good times to come to a halt.

Bucky Irving, RB (TB) vs NYJ (ECR: 8, Our Rank: RB2, Projected Points: 18.37)

If fantasy points were doled out for looking good, Irving might only be behind Bijan Robinson in terms of pure electricity and excitement per touch. As it is, Irving is RB11 through two weeks and picking up where he left off after his sensational rookie season.

He’s 11th, by the way, without a rushing touchdown through two games. Rachaad White has the lone TD for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ ground game this year, but facing the New York Jets is a good situation to remedy that. James Cook just recorded a monster 132-yard, two touchdown performance against the Jets.

In the Bucs’ first home game of the year, Irving isn’t just a must-start player. He is projected to lead all running backs in rushing yards this week. Overall, he is our model’s RB2.

Rome Odunze, WR (CHI) vs DAL (ECR: 15, Our Rank: WR6, Projected Points: 18.26)

It’s been a rocky start for the Chicago Bears. It’s been a rocky start for Caleb Williams. It’s been a rocky start for a Bears defense that just surrendered 52 points to the Detroit Lions. It has, NOT, however, been a rocky start for Rome Odunze.

The first-round pick from last year is reminding people of his talent and why he was selected so highly. Through two weeks, Odunze is tied for the NFL lead in receiving touchdowns while averaging 6.5 receptions and 80 yards per game. Here is the entire list of players who averaged at least 5.5 receptions and 75 yards per game from last season: Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Malik Nabers, CeeDee Lamb and Davante Adams.

Odunze is producing elite numbers, while also having eight more targets than the next-closest player on the Bears. Now he faces a Cowboys team that just allowed Russell Wilson to throw for (checks notes) 450 yards as two New York Giants receivers accounted for more than 140 receiving yards. Odunze is a plug-and-play top-10 receiver.

Marquise Brown, WR (KC) vs NYG (ECR: 33, Our Rank: 13, Projected Points: 16.75)

Kansas City Chiefs wide receivers not named Hollywood Brown have 11 receptions this season. Brown has 15.

What we have here is an industry that is so low on a below average (so far) Chiefs offense that the No. 1 receiver for Patrick Mahomes is considered a low-end fantasy WR3. Now, maybe that makes sense when Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy come back, but until then, Brown is the only reliable wide receiver and that makes him absolutely fantasy relevant.

Through two weeks, he is fifth in the NFL in receptions. He’s tied for sixth in targets and this week, our model has him projected for the third-most targets of any wide receiver with just under 11. Brown is a worthy start.

The Week 3 Fantasy Football Nays: Players Projected to Underperform Consensus Rankings

Kyler Murray, QB (ARI) vs SF (ECR: 10, Our Rank: QB17, Projected Points: 14.96)

The entire NFC West is 7-1, with the lone loss being a Seahawks loss to the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers are 2-0, as are Kyler Murray’s Arizona Cardinals. But here’s the thing, for the Cardinals, those first two games were against the New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panthers.

The 49ers might be quite young on defense, but they’re still a massive step up in quality. And that might prove to be difficult for Murray, who is averaging fewer than 200 passing yards per game. But most concerning, Murray is 16th among quarterbacks through two weeks because he hasn’t created explosives in the running game. Of his 14 rushing attempts, only one has gone for 15 yards and because of that, he is only averaging 3.5 fantasy points per game on the ground.

Now 200 passing yards, 30 rushing yards and one passing touchdown is 15 fantasy points. That is, essentially, what the model has projected Kyler to finish with for three weeks. He’s the rare quarterback who is dependent on rushing touchdowns. That makes him a borderline starter.

Kenneth Walker III, RB (SEA) vs NO (ECR: 18, Our Rank: RB30, Projected Points: 10.06)

On the one hand, Walker was awesome last week, finishing with 13 carries for over 100 yards and a touchdown. Even better for his fantasy managers, Zach Charbonnet was, well, not awesome. With 15 carries for an astounding 10 yards, it was only the fifth performance by a running back this century with at least that many carries and 10 or fewer yards.

On the other hand, this game was just one week after the season opener when Charbonnet was decidedly better than Walker, who finished with 10 carries for 20 yards, leading to an increase in backfield usage in Week 2.

Until we, and the Seahawks themselves, have a better handle on this backfield, it’ll be like playing duck, duck, goose trying to start the right running back. Maybe it’s better to stay away.

Tetairoa McMillan, WR (CAR) vs ATL (ECR: 19, Our Rank: 33, Projected Points: 11.91)

Emeka Egbuka is stealing all the attention as the flashy rookie wide receiver, but with a quality quarterback in Baker Mayfield throwing to him and Mike Evans on the other side of the field, that production is greatly aided. McMillan, on the other hand, is going at this without much help at all.

Pop quiz. Can you name the player on the Panthers with the second-most receiving yards through two weeks?

If you answered Ja’Tavion Sanders, well done. Point being, McMillan is the No. 1 focal point for defensive coordinators. And now feels like a good time to mention the Panthers lost their starting center and one of their starting guards last week. With Young being on the smaller side, interior pressure bothers him even more than it does a normal quarterback.

It’s a decent bet that McMillan will have a couple big plays. But will he score a touchdown? Unlikely. And will he have enough production to not need a touchdown? Also seems unlikely.

Answers (False statements):

Jackson was the No. 32 pick – the last pick of the first round – in the 2018 NFL Draft.
Williams also had two such games in 2023. He only had one such game last year.
The rookies slightly outscored the wide receivers with 197.1 PPR points.

Didn’t see the names you were after? Be sure to check out our full Week 3 fantasy football projections. And follow along on Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook and X for more.

The post Fantasy Football Week 3 Start ’Em, Sit ’Em: Our Yays and Nays vs. Consensus Rankings appeared first on Opta Analyst.