Start him, and stop calling it desperation.
"Upside play for bad teams" is the kind of framing that sounds like analysis and functions as a shrug. The number that matters isn't your roster's quality. It's 41.3.
That's Love's pace in pass attempts this season, a career high, running alongside an 8.7-yard average depth of throw. Together those two figures describe an offense that has handed its quarterback the most reliable currency in fantasy football: opportunities, delivered downfield. Attempts are the closest thing this hobby has to a floor. A deep aDOT is the ceiling bolted onto it.
The package is volatile. Fine. Volatility isn't a disqualifier, it's a format question. In a 12-team league or any superflex setup, a quarterback with this usage is a starter most weeks, no matter how good the rest of your roster looks. In a shallow 10-team league where you're holding a safer option, he isn't. That's the actual dividing line. Not good team versus bad team.
Where the "desperate rosters only" crowd has a point: if you're already projected to win comfortably, you're buying variance you don't need. There's no bonus for winning by 30. If your matchup is a coin flip, though, 41.3 attempts at an 8.7 aDOT is precisely the profile that swings it.
What would change my mind is the source of the volume. A team throwing 41 times because it trails every week is a different animal than one throwing 41 times by design, and the fantasy floor evaporates in the first version. Watch how those attempts distribute across the game script. If they're clustered in the fourth quarter of blowouts, I'm wrong and the pessimists get to keep their label.
One more thing the consensus skips: the same aggression driving the yardage drives the negative plays, so you're not buying a safe 18 points. You're buying a range that runs from top-five week to benchable dud, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to roster when your alternative is a quarterback who caps out at 15.
Verdict: I'm starting Jordan Love in 12-team and superflex formats and sitting him in shallow leagues with a stable alternative. Bad teams don't get an exclusive on 41.3 attempts. That's a cop-out dressed as discipline, and I'll take the volume over the vibes.
