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Justin Boone provides a weekly look at undervalued fantasy football players to consider starting this week and potential busts you might want to leave on your bench.

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For the rest of your fantasy football lineup decisions, consult his Week 10 rankings.

Starts

Matthew Stafford, QB, Rams

at 49ers

Stafford has put his preseason durability concerns behind him and is having an outstanding season. The 37-year-old currently leads the league in passing touchdowns and is sixth in passing yards.

He’s also thrown at least three touchdown passes in four of his last five games.

Meanwhile, the 49ers defense is struggling after losing several key players to injury. San Francisco has allowed four top-12 fantasy QB finishes in the past five weeks, including Stafford’s QB8 performance in Week 5.

You can expect a similar result in this matchup.

Other QBs to start:

• Jaxson Dart at Bears – Dart has finished as a top-seven fantasy QB three times in the last month and now gets a Bears’ defense that’s giving up the sixth-most fantasy points to the position. Chicago is also vulnerable to rushing quarterbacks.

• Jared Goff at Commanders – The Commanders have allowed at least three touchdowns passes in three straight outings. Washington is quickly becoming one of the best matchups for fantasy QBs.

Quinshon Judkins, RB, Browns

at Jets

Judkins was a top-12 fantasy running back through his first seven NFL games, before exiting early with an injury in Week 8.

Now fresh off his bye, he’s practicing in full and preparing to take on a Jets’ defense that just lost their two best players at the trade deadline.

Even with Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams, the Jets were still the seventh-easiest opponent for fantasy RBs. In their last appearance, the Jets gave up at least 100 scrimmage yards and a TD to both Chase Brown and Samaje Perine in the same game.

Get ready for Judkins to have a monster day with the Browns as road favorites against a franchise that’s adjusting to their new reality after throwing in the towel on the 2025 season.

Other RBs to start:

• Rico Dowdle vs. Saints – In his three starts this season, Dowdle has put up scrimmage yard totals of 234, 239 and 141. He also found the end zone at least once in all of those games. He’s moved into RB1 territory in my rest-of-season rankings.

• Jaylen Warren at Chargers – The clear lead back in Pittsburgh is coming off of a two-touchdown game and continues to find ways to produce regardless of his opponent. He’s also ninth in receiving yards among running backs this season.

• D’Andre Swift/Kyle Monangai vs. Giants – After missing one game, Swift is practicing in full before a matchup with the third-most generous defense for fantasy backs. That makes Swift a solid fantasy RB2 and Monangai a startable RB3 this week.

Ladd McConkey, WR, Chargers

vs. Steelers

McConkey brushed off a slow start to the season and has re-emerged as the WR13 in fantasy points per game over the last five weeks.

Next up is a Steelers defense that’s allowing the third-most fantasy points to receivers.

Last week alone, Pittsburgh let Michael Pittman Jr. (9-115-0), Alec Pierce (6-115-0) and Josh Downs (6-57-1) all have big fantasy performances against them.

You can start McConkey as a low-end fantasy WR1 in Week 10.

Other WRs to start:

• Zay Flowers at Vikings – Flowers is always a threat to blow up now that Lamar Jackson is back under center. The Vikings have given up six TDs to wideouts over their last three games and five top-16 fantasy WR finishes during that span.

• DeVonta Smith at Packers – Smith is on a heater with stat lines of 8-114-0, 4-49-0, 9-183-1 and 6-84-0 in his past four appearances. He’s also accomplished the feat against a variety of opponents, so don’t be scared off by the Packers defense.

• Stefon Diggs at Buccaneers – With Kayshon Boutte’s status in doubt for Week 10, expect Diggs to see more work. Touchdowns have kept his fantasy value afloat in recent weeks, but you should expect an all-round strong performance from him here.

Colston Loveland, TE, Bears

vs. Giants

Loveland’s six-catch, 118-yard, two-touchdown breakout in Week 9 is the kind of performance you can’t put back in the box.

Even if Cole Kmet (concussion) is able to return this week, Loveland’s arrow is on the rise as a first-round talent who can excel as a pass-catcher and a blocker.

With several Bears’ receivers working their way through injuries, expect the rookie tight end to see plenty of volume against the Giants.

We’re at the beginning of Loveland’s ascension into fantasy stardom, but he’s a top-12 tight end in my rankings this week and for the rest of the season.

Other TEs to start:

• Kyle Pitts at Colts – Pitts has been busy with at least seven targets in three consecutive outings and now faces a Colts defense that’s giving up the fourth-most fantasy points to tight ends.

• Cade Otton vs. Patriots – With the injuries at receiver, Otton has at least 40 yards in four straight games. The Patriots’ defense is good, but they’ve been the eighth-best matchup for fantasy TEs.

Sits

Jordan Love, QB, Packers

vs. Eagles

Love is the QB14 in fantasy points per game this year. However, he’s finished outside the top-15 fantasy QBs in three of his past four contests and five of his eight outings on the season.

Now, he’s lost his top pass-catcher and arguably the team’s best offensive player in TE Tucker Kraft for the remainder of the campaign.

To make matters worse, Love has to deal with an Eagles defense that’s permitted the second-fewest passing yards and sixth-fewest passing touchdowns.

You should be treating Love as a QB2 streamer, who you only consider starting in good matchups.

Other QBs to sit:

• Jacoby Brissett at Seahawks – Brissett has been a top-12 fantasy QB in all three of his starts this year, but Seattle has only given up 260 passing or more to one quarterback all season.

• Trevor Lawrence at Texans – The injuries at receiver are problematic and Jakobi Meyers is still learning the offense, so Lawrence simply doesn’t have the firepower to deal with the league’s worst matchup for fantasy QBs.

Breece Hall, RB, Jets

vs. Browns

We all know Hall wanted to be traded at the deadline, so it’s fair to consider how that will affect his mindset moving forward. It’s also realistic to wonder how the entire Jets’ locker room is feeling after losing two of their best players before the deadline. 

This is a team that’s coming off its first win of the season prior to the bye, but they return as underdogs at home to the 2-6 Browns.

Hall will have to contend with Cleveland’s defense that’s granted the second-fewest fantasy points to running backs and haven’t allowed a touchdown to the position in over a month.

That makes Hall a risky low-end RB2 and someone you’re likely not going to be happy having in your lineup this week.

Other RBs to sit:

• Rachaad White vs. Patriots – White hasn’t reached double-digit fantasy points in his last two outings and now has to face the fourth-hardest opponent for fantasy backs in the Patriots.

• Alvin Kamara at Panthers – Kamara has been held under 10 fantasy points six times in the last seven weeks. It doesn’t even matter what the matchup is at this point, Kamara is just a risky RB3/flex.

• Jacory Croskey-Merritt vs. Lions – Better days will come for Bill (like the Dolphins in Week 11), but he hasn’t even topped six fantasy points in a single game over the last month. The Lions third-ranked fantasy defense against RBs is not a get-right spot.

DK Metcalf, WR, Steelers

at Chargers

Metcalf is a boom-or-bust WR2 most weeks thanks to his big-play ability and touchdown scoring.

Trips to the end zone have done a lot of heavy lifting for his fantasy production this season, since he’s been limited to 55 yards or less in five of his past seven games — but scored a TD five times during that stretch.

While the Chargers aren’t a shutdown defense, they do present the toughest challenge Metcalf has faced since the opening month. The Bolts have given up the sixth-lowest fantasy point total to receivers this season.

You might not have a better option than Metcalf, just know that he’s a riskier play than usual in this matchup.

Other WRs to sit:

• Jauan Jennings vs. Rams – The Rams defense is heating up, having kept all wideouts under 70 yards over the last month and not allowing a touchdown to the position during that time.

• Keenan Allen vs. Steelers – Allen has played 25% and 37% of the Chargers’ snaps over the last two weeks as tight end Oronde Gadsden II became a bigger part of the offense and Quentin Johnston got back to full health. It’s hard to trust a part-time player like that in your fantasy lineup.

• Jakobi Meyers at Texans – Meyers just joined the Jags at the trade deadline and draws one of the toughest possible opponents in his first game with the team. Let’s give him some time to get situated before we start him in fantasy.

Zach Ertz, TE, Commanders

vs. Lions

Ertz is a touchdown-or-bust TE2 streamer, who tends to score his TDs when Jayden Daniels is throwing the ball.

His production in Marcus Mariota’s three starts has been far from fantasy relevant with stat lines of 3-38-0, 2-21-0 and 4-16-0.

The Lions won’t make life easy on him either. Detroit is a negative matchup for fantasy tight ends and have only given up one touchdown to the position in the last five games.

Other TEs to sit:

• Luke Musgrave vs. Eagles – Musgrave is worth stashing, but you might not want to start him this week against an Eagles’ defense that’s the third-most difficult matchup for fantasy tight ends.

• Mason Taylor vs. Browns – Taylor hasn’t topped 35 yards in any of his last three games. Given the uncertainty at QB and the potential for this offense to go off the rails, let’s avoid Taylor this week.

There is some good news on Friday regarding Jayden Daniels' dislocated left elbow.

According to multiplereports, the Washington Commanders quarterback's injury may not keep him out long-term. An MRI revealed that Daniels does not have any ligament damage in the elbow and he will not need to undergo surgery.

Daniels will not be placed on injured reserve, which would have ruled him out for at least an additional four weeks. The Commanders will re-evaluate the second-year quarterback following the team's bye in Week 12.

Multiple medical opinions were sought and the Commanders believe Daniels, who is reportedly “feeling a little sore," could possibly return at some point this season.

Daniels was injured during Sunday night's loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Afterward, head coach Dan Quinn said the elbow was not broken, but was unsure of a timeline for return.

"It'll knock him out for a while," Quinn said of the injury.

Daniels, who was still in the game and running the ball in the fourth quarter despite the Commanders trailing by 31 points, was spun around on a tackle and landed awkwardly on his left non-throwing arm.

Teammates surrounded Daniels on the field Sunday night as he got looked at by the athletic training staff. Daniels had a temporary cast put on his left arm, he walked to the sideline and to the locker room.

The Seahawks ended up winning the game, 38-14.

In his postgame news conference, Quinn said that he didn't consider pulling Daniels while trailing big late in the fourth quarter.

"I’m gutted by it. Bummed," Quinn said. "It’s a bummer, man, in a big way."

On Monday, Quinn placed the blame of the injury on himself.

"I've been thinking about it nonstop too, and, man, I missed it. ... That is 100 percent on me."

Quinn said the play during which Daniels was injured wasn't a designed quarterback run, and he would usually hand it off or throw it short.

"If we run it 50 times, it's either a handoff or a throw I'd say 50 times," Quinn said.

It's not Daniels' first injury this season. He had missed time with knee and hamstring injuries. The NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year from last season was making his return to the lineup Sunday night. The game itself wasn't going well for the Commanders, but with the outcome not in doubt and less than eight minutes left, Washington saw its star quarterback suffer a brutal injury.

The Commanders, who made the playoffs last season with a 12-5 record during Daniels' magical rookie season, are 3-6 this season and sit in third place in the NFC East, two games out of the playoff mix for a wild card spot in the conference.

BERLIN — Above the Savignyplatz train station in Berlin looms a massive mural, four stories high and a city block wide, heralding the arrival of the NFL in Germany’s capital. In the graffiti-ringed mural, Bjorn Werner, a former Colts defensive end and a Berlin native, looks like he’s taking a line to bring down Godzilla. But it’s the mural’s other figure — a massive, hairy beast with the head and claws of a bear and the brawny arms and legs of a dual-threat quarterback — is the centerpiece, not just of the mural but of the NFL’s entire international effort.

The bear is the symbol of Berlin itself, and this particular bear-man sports a helmet with the NFL’s shield on its side. In a city where art and architecture carry deep symbolic weight, the message is clear and unmistakable — the NFL is lining up alongside Berlin, and woe to those soccer squads and exotic race car drivers who stand in their way.

Every NFL International Series game is now a mini-Super Bowl, a multi-day extravaganza celebrating and promoting American football. If you want a look at the future of the NFL outside the United States, don’t look on the field … look on the streets here in Berlin, where there's shield branding and merch-laden shops and kids running go routes in front of the Brandenburg Gate, a bring-the-house blitz of activation to make this game not just a game, but a happening.

“Replicating a Super Bowl-inspired week of programming, city takeovers, halftime performances and a robust game day experience is very intentional,” NFL SVP Jon Barker, Global Head of Major Events and International Games, told Yahoo Sports in an email. “We want to make these games special for our international fans and for our fans travelling over from the U.S.”

The NFL is exporting a whole lot more than just football, and its aims are much larger than just bringing first downs and field goals to the worldwide masses.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NFL vs. F1?

The NFL long ago demolished competition from any stateside rival leagues like the NBA and Major League Baseball. Now, the NFL has its eyes on becoming a major international player, exporting the game in the manner of Premier League soccer and Formula 1. Will the Chiefs’ arrowhead or the Eagles’ wing one day possess the international awareness and fandom of, say, the Arsenal cannon or the Ferrari prancing horse? That’s yet to be determined, but the NFL is going all-in with its aims of exporting the game.

Previous NFL international attempts have struggled due to unstable foreign markets, inconsistent league efforts and player pushback. The NFL's most widespread and longest-lasting attempt, the World League of American Football, lasted roughly 16 years and went through multiple name changes, including NFL Europe, before folding in 2007. (Kurt Warner, Adam Vinatieri and Jake Delhomme all played in NFL Europe at one point in their careers.)

Since then, the league has focused on playing games in international markets ranging from Europe to Mexico to South America, with Australia on the docket for 2026. The league had previously capped the number of potential international games at four, but starting in 2024, the league upped that number to as many as eight. This year, the NFL will play six games internationally, its highest number to date. Locales in 2025 have ranged from Dublin to São Paulo to London to the season’s final two international games, this weekend in Berlin and next weekend in Madrid.

(Trivia: You probably already know the team that’s played the most international games — the Jaguars, 14 times including this season — but which team has played the fewest? That would be America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys, who have played just once outside of the United States. Washington also has only played once overseas, but is scheduled for next week in Madrid.)

This weekend’s Colts vs. Falcons game in Berlin — the first regular-season NFL game ever in the nation’s capital — is of particular significance to the NFL.

“Germany has a rich history of American football,” NFL Germany CEO Alex Steinforth told Yahoo Sports. “It dates back to the post-Second World War and American troops bringing over the game. It was one of the first markets outside of North America that ever established a local league. The German football League is live since the ‘70s.”

Since then, Germany has long been one of the NFL’s most reliable and durable markets, with more than 20 million self-described NFL fans in a nation of 82 million — the largest fanbase in Europe. By the time NFL Europe ceased operations, the league featured five teams in Germany and one in the Netherlands.

“You have to be super passionate to get up in the middle of the night to follow your team,” says Steinforth of German fans. “It’s an interesting merger of German fan culture. … It brings together the best of both worlds. You have fans that have only recently joined the sport, you have fans who started watching the ‘70s or ‘80s when they went to the U.S. for a high school year, and then you have lots of people who joined us during the NFL Europe days. On average we can say the age of a football fan is significantly younger than in the U.S. It’s a sport that’s very popular especially among the younger demos, 15 to 39.”

Berlin itself hosted a number of preseason games in the early 1990s in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall; the league has enough history in the city that, for a 1990 Rams-Chiefs preseason game, the city was still known as “West Berlin.” Germany as a whole has hosted five games since the 2022 season, two in Frankfurt and two in Munich in addition to Sunday’s game.

“A majority of people still identify themselves as fans of the league rather than fans of a team,” Steinforth says. “So you can get into this market as a team and really grow new fans. That is much more difficult in a more established market like the U.S., where (fandom) gets passed on from one generation to another.”

Maja Hitij via Getty Images

Will the world embrace the NFL?

Looming over all this international pomp and circumstance is a single, dominating question: Will this work? Will NFL football connect with international audiences the way it has with American ones? Football is a uniquely American sport; its combination of violence and frequent ad breaks can be jarring to audiences accustomed to, say, the constant action and embedded advertising of a soccer match. Yes, it’s fun to don the uniform of a new team and proclaim yourself a fan of the Patriots or Rams or (heaven help you) the Jets, but will that translate to the kind of lifelong fandom that soccer clubs enjoy?

Barker believes so. “The beauty of NFL football lies in its captivating unpredictability. It’s a powerful blend of strategy, intensity and emotion,” he says. “Every play lasts only seconds, yet it can redefine the entire game. There’s a remarkable tension between structure and spontaneity: coaches and players executing complex plans that, in an instant, hinge on instinct and precision.”

The NFL only needs to look at the way that soccer has wrapped itself around the DNA of European countries as a guideline. European crowds bring a unified euphoria to a stadium that even the most raucous Packers or Cowboys fans can’t match. 

“At international games, something that is always fun to see is the sea of NFL jerseys in every crowd. Fans come repping their teams — which tend to include a complete variety of all 32 clubs,” Barker says. “As fans become more knowledgeable about our game, international games now feel increasingly like a home game for participating teams. The energy across every international game is unique and inspiring.”

Europe’s stadium-wide unity is bred around the soccer pitch and now applied to an NFL game … and that’s exactly what the league would like to commandeer and redirect. It’s why the league has created a Global Markets program, where teams can build their fanbases through a series of international events. Eleven teams — the Falcons and Colts, plus the Panthers, Lions, Packers, Chiefs, Patriots, Giants, Steelers, Seahawks and Buccaneers — all have a presence in Germany, and all will have representation in Berlin this weekend at fan events.

The league is also hoping to snag international fans when they’re still international kids. It’s why the NFL now places such an emphasis on flag football in its various host-city outreaches; it’s a whole lot easier to introduce a new sport to a country if that sport involves running rather than smashing.

The international conundrum: When to kick off?

One logistical challenge for the NFL in its international expansion efforts is the increasing time difference between potential host cities and the league’s domestic fanbase. There are three factors to consider here:

• By placing games in Western Europe, 5 to 6 hours ahead of U.S. time, the NFL effectively creates an entire new fourth block of football — Sunday mornings — that’s simply not realistic if you’re playing all your games stateside.

• The further away from the East Coast you go, the more you have to inconvenience the host fans. This is the problem the Olympics often faces: Do you put on your marquee event in the morning so that it’s on in prime time in America? A Western Europe start of 3:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. ET) isn’t a huge sacrifice, but Australian audiences might face an 11:00 a.m. Monday kickoff for a game that would air at 8:00 p.m. ET Sunday night.

• On the flip side, the NFL could adopt the F1 approach, which is to say: cater to the host fans and let those in the rest of the world set their alarms. This works for F1 because of its globally dispersed fanbase; this might not play so well in, say, Pittsburgh if fans have to get up at 3:00 a.m. to watch the Steelers. But that sort of host-based scheduling does have the effect of targeting a new market in its prime time, while assuming — probably correctly — that one game’s worth of inconvenience isn’t going to cost the league its stateside fans.

picture alliance via Getty Images

The NFL’s worldwide party

The league is now deeply committed to spreading the NFL gospel to its host nations. For instance, this week in Berlin, the NFL has held flag football clinics and a Special Olympics Flag Football tournament. The Colts and the NFL contributed to the creation of a new elementary school playground. Both teams have dedicated pubs focusing on their new fans, complete with team-relevant experiences — the Falcons’ pub features Atlanta-style lemon pepper wet chicken wings and mac n’ cheese. (How that tastes filtered through German sensibilities is anyone’s guess.) Massive fan zones and NFL shops dominate the city’s center, and the league created an enormous flag football field right in front of Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate.

The mural and the Brandenburg Gate field are the most obvious of the league’s branding efforts all around Berlin, but you don’t have to look far to see the league’s influence. Huge posters of Jonathan Taylor and Michael Penix Jr. are visible on kiosks; NFL shield stickers — helpfully pre-printed with graffiti to add that extra touch of Berlin “authenticity”— cover streetlight poles, newspaper bins and post office boxes.

“Watching kids around the world playing flag football, or hearing from U.S. fans who travel abroad and are genuinely surprised by how passionately fans in places like Brazil, Germany and the U.K. understand and love the game,” Barker says, “those are reminders that football really does have a global heartbeat.”

An International Series game is not merely a football game, in other words. This is an entire experience, a road show designed to promote the NFL as game, sport, brand, lifestyle and state of mind. Sunday’s game is the culmination of the week, yes, but it’s only one element of the overall journey — one the league hopes will continue long after the Colts and Falcons leave town.

“This is generational work,” Barker says. “I don’t expect to see the full impact in my lifetime — maybe my kids will, or their kids. In many ways, it reminds me of the early days of the NFL, when a small group of visionaries came together in Canton, Ohio, with a shared love for the game. I’m sure they couldn’t have imagined what it would one day become.”