Fantasy Football 2017 - Week 4 Studs & Duds, Rising Stars + Biggest Surprises

Also scored a rushing touchdown, eight carries for 44 yards. Cam Newton. Was that misdirection, all that coach talk about, hey, we're not going to run the ball with Cam. Was that just playing poorly the first couple weeks? Well, here, Mike, this might speak more. Now, it's New England, but it might speak more to what you said, which is he was getting healthy during the year. Sure. Also had Kelvin Benjamin back for the full allotment of slaps, snaps, not slaps. The snaps.

I don't know what to do with this Patriot defense because quarterback like Watson last week. Quarterbacks are having these huge games. But is it is it that confidence boost that all this sudden propels you like, oh yeah, I'm actually a good quarterback. Let's let's put this to the test. You have you have really liked Detroit's defense this year. You rolled them against Minnesota. Cam is going to Detroit next week. I'm rolling the Detroit defense.

Okay. Yeah, I'm playing them again. If you are playing, if you've got Cam and you've got Watson on your roster. Watson. All right. Yeah, I was going to ask you rest of the season, Watson, Newton, Dalton, actually. Dalton had a monster week. We expected as much against Cleveland. 25 for 30, though, for 286 and 4. Andy Dalton, even when he tries his hardest, can't normally accomplish this level of accuracy. So he's making some improvements and that offense is getting better.

They have Buffalo then the buy. Not a great start next week against Buffalo. I would not do it. He was the start of the week this week against Cleveland. Not going to do it. But this is one of those situations like Simeon where one week he's good. One week you play the matchup. Winston, Manning, Wilson, they all had great weeks. What are your takeaways from the stud muffins? Prescott. Prescott? Prescott. Prescott.

I know Mike had already claimed he said yesterday. He's like, my start of the week, this week's going to be James Winston because he's playing against New England. But the guy that sticks out to me the most is Russell Wilson. Russell looks like the offensive line. Russell Wilson. The offensive line for Seattle looked.

you know, strong enough to where they could run some of his design plays. I realize it was against, you know, the Colts and it was in Seattle. But this is back-to-back weeks now. He did it the week before against Tennessee, where he is doing what he's done for fantasy. You've got to erase those first two weeks. And do not watch the first half.

Yeah, well, that's my piece of advice. If you have Russell Wilson as your fantasy quarterback, you know what he figured out? Don't watch the first half. Because we've been talking about how Russell Wilson's a bad first half of the year quarterback, a really good second half of the year quarterback. Maybe he figured out, because this is the same in the Tennessee game. Let me just be a good second half quarterback of the game. I think you're on to something. Every game I can be all right because he wasn't good the first half of either game. But I believe Russell Wilson will be top five quarterback the rest of the way.

All right. Let's move on to some running backs here. Todd Gurley. My goodness. Todd Gurley. Keeps getting it done. Yeah. He has the gauntlet. Seattle, Jacksonville, Arizona, but it's not much of a gauntlet. Seattle, they're banged up. And they've been able to be run on this year. Jacksonville just had 250 plus put up by.

The Jets. And Arizona's defense has been at best. A dumpster fire. At best, a mediocre defense when you expect it. They don't have Clias Campbell anymore. Let's not be afraid anymore of this schedule. I do not think that you can trade girly.

Don't do it. The thing that gives me hope about Gurley is what he's been doing in the passing game. You look at your Levion Bells and your David Johnson, the guys who are at the top that are matchup proof, that are game script proof. It's because of how involved and successful they are in the passing game. That's what you've seen from Todd Gurley. I agree. I am not afraid of the gun. I'm not going to ever bench him. I'm not going to drop him outside of my top 12 in my rankings. However, I disagree with you a little bit.

on the unwillingness to trade him, just because I don't, if you can capitalize on the value, if you could trade Todd Gurley for a Levi-on Bell right now when Todd Gurley looks like he is on fire, I think then you are maximizing, look, nobody is going to keep the pace that he's had for an entire season. And so over this next stretch, if you can capitalize on that value and still have a, a,

just as good or a better running back in a trade for him, I would be willing to do that because now he's got nowhere to go but down. At this point. That's not to say that he's going to fall out the bottom. Well, Mike, I'll let you speak. I'm not trading to talk early. All right. No, I mean, I just don't know. I'm not saying you should or have to. I just don't understand that there's no, it's not fair. It's not fair if you're not sitting here saying trade Kareem Hunt.

I don't hear that. Why aren't you saying that? After, I mean, that's the pace. You can't, the amount of 50 plus yard touchdowns for Cream Hunt is unsustainable. Whereas Todd Gurley, he didn't score rushing touchdown in this game, put up 35 fantasy points. I was saying to try to trade Cream Hunt for Levy on Bell. And a lot of people actually did that. Lev Bell is the only situation that I'm moving Todd Gurley right now. Lev Bell had 35 carries this week for 144 yards and two touchdowns. But I just love what I'm seeing from Gurley.

And those of you that grabbed him in the third round, congratulations. Yep. Todd Gurley is, he's winning. He's won me over. Zeke, big game. Yeah. Two touchdowns. And one half a yard short on that fourth down that would have moved them. Hey, the Rams won. They did. Almost upset. That was a full upset, but I definitely. No, I'm always. Yes. No, I get it. You called the shot. Anytime I don't have, there's no segment called Andy's upset of the week.

It's called The Almost Upset. I'm happy when they win. All right. You like being wrong. Lamar Miller. Yeah, I do. My guy, Lamar Miller, got it done big time. He looked. Now he's your guy again. Welcome back. Are you kidding me?

for years for this. Don't you take this away from me? Groundhogging. This is, this is a rough. The Houston Texans. The Houston Texans. Nope. Okay. Come on. I have stuck with Lamar Miller through the gutter. You have, you have equivocated. Oh, my goodness. I'm not trying to take it away. There's nothing to take away because you haven't stood up for it. He has stayed with Lamar Miller. The offense of the Houston Texans, if what we're saying is true about Watson.

We said before the year, the running quarterback, if you don't understand why we're laughing, Andy did a full groundhog peeking up. Oh, two weeks of winter. Yeah, you got to check that one out on the YouTube. Summer has gone. But if rushing quarterbacks are good for the running back. I mean, statistically, historically, those have always been good. This was just volume. I mean. But he's had the volume all year, too. But Devon.

Deontiformant didn't take away anything this week, despite the fact that, you know, he could have. So I'm excited. I'm just encouraged by that. Deont deformed. He had 50 yards plus on the ground. I mean, this is just like what you were saying. Alfred Blue had 100 carries last year. If the offense is chugging, Lamar Miller, that's really nice. It's almost like 57 points were scored in this game. Almost. Blah, plow! Hey! Blah, plow! I mean, it should be more like, brawl, back from the grave. Bro. Eating some brains. Zombies.

Zombie. He gets Cleveland next week, and Forte's, even if he's back, Forte is probably going to be a little bit limited. The trouble with Powell, I'll start with the bad. The bad part is Forte does what Powell does. He catches the ball. He's tougher than Powell, and therefore his role is pretty darn secure in that offense. That being said, Powell took full advantage of his opportunity and took full advantage of his opportunity to discourage me, a person that has...

shipped him off, and then Forte got hurt, and Powell went insane. Why do you think he came back from the dead, Andy? The Fantasy Reaper shipped him out, and Blau Pao came back from the dead. He's got Cleveland. And then we had Matt Forte on the show, and Matt Forte was been injured. And, yeah, Reaper strikes again. I'm fully responsible for Powell's success, is what you're saying. Yes, in the negative. Blah, wow. Cleveland and the Patriots are his next two matchups. So I think you can, I expect Forte to miss a couple weeks.

I think Blau Powell is going to be a good start here. Leonard Fornett, dominant once again. This time, four receptions, 59 and a touchdown. And then Alvin Camara had a monster game, 10 receptions. And we'll talk about him more on the Rising Stars as well. It was interesting. You see, well, you can't see it if you're not looking at a show dock here, but all of these running backs in the stud muffin section at least four receptions. Yep.

That's a good point. I mean, receiving is huge. We're going to talk about Duke Johnson as well. Had a good week, and then he'll be mentioned later. Wendell Smallwood, 10 for 34 and a touchdown on the ground, 4-4-45 through the air. Not insane. Like, Garrett Blunt had a very good game, 16 for 136. You know, this was, you're going to see it shake down, I think, both directions the rest of the year. You're going to have a good blunt game. You're going to have a good Smallwood game, and you're going to have games where neither of them.

does very much and you're throwing the ball 40 plus times. He gets made fun of a lot because he looks slow and bet. But we got to say he looked good. Like, you know, there were a couple runs where it was like, wow, there's some power and is that a hint of speed? Yeah, I saw it. I just want to give him credit where credit is due. Yeah.

All right, wide receivers, stud muffins of the week. DeAndre Hopkins, 10 for 107 and a touchdown on 12 targets. Love that efficiency. Has Kansas City Cleveland. Love that volume. Love that volume. He's the target leader in the NFL. So we've always said Hopkins needs a quarterback. When you give him competence at the quarterback position, he's one of the best receivers in football. We know that Jordi had a great game on Thursday.

Let's talk about Devin Funches, seven for 70 and two touchdowns. Benjamin still had more yardage in this game, but the touchdowns went Funches way. And the targets have been going his way. This is three weeks in a row where Funches is getting. No Olson. Yeah, Olson is gone. Funches is giving enough targets to be involved and to be successful if he can actually reel the ball in the last couple weeks he has. I think he is someone that should be picked up and in the right matchups.

I think you can play him. Detroit, Philly, Chicago is one of those a correct matchup. Not especially. I mean, I don't look at any of those and say he's a must start, but I do believe because of the target volume, because of how many targets he's getting, if you are in a deep league or if you have really, really bad options, he might be a flex-worthy start. I might give you some of the target leaders from this week, and you guys tell me your thoughts on them. You had Michael Thomas with 11, Keenan Allen with 11.

You also had Mike Evans with 11, but here's one that's interesting. Mike Wallace, 10 targets this week, 6 for 55 in a touchdown. Geron Brown, 12 targets this week for Arizona in that matchup that went to overtime against the 49ers. Anything to say about those guys? I mean, Geron Brown has, he's been getting the snaps. He's been getting the targets. He didn't have those big, sexy numbers like J.J. Nelson, who was, I mean, scoring touchdowns every single week. But Geron Brown was the safe.

target share guy and it was when you look at those you're like okay this this offense is okay I guess that's the best you can say about the cardinals right now but when you have an offense that's at least okay and you're seeing a player get the healthy target share is usually just a matter of time before something big happens yeah and that player and he is he's developed into that uh michael floyd role and he is six to use the two and

And sometimes the one. Right. So he's a guy that should be picked up. Now, it's worth noting because when John Brown came in, he took all the snaps away from J.J. Nelson. But in the press conference afterward, Bruce Ariens was talking about how that was the game plan because both guys are dealing with injuries. They wanted to basically have them take one roll and, you know, half. Each one is getting half the snap. So it'll be interesting next week if they're both healthy to see now does.

Geron Brown come out. But if he stays in that wide receiver two role, or like you said, even that wide receiver one in one wide receiver sets, he's been the guy out there a lot of times, then I think you got to start him. All right, tight ends that stood out this week. Tyler Croft had two touchdowns in the other Tyler. In place of Tyler Eifford. Brate, Derby, Clay, Howard. What are the rest of season implications of this week's stud muffins at the tight end position?