Week-4 Fantasy Debrief with Chace Daskalos

0:12 What's up everyone welcome into the show i am your host chase daskalos and every single monday we're going through the numbers of what happened in the fantasy football world player performance opportunity uses trends team trends league trends you name it i got it featuring next gen stats and nfl pro We're gonna go through my biggest takeaways from most of the games and what I would call a weird, wild, pretty brutal week four. We're gonna tackle the Thursday night game first, the surprising Browns taking down the Steelers to move to three and one. Gonna start with Quinshawn Judkins who scored a touchdown on the ground, also saw a career high seven targets, caught six for 43 yards. This is a very interesting data point for Judkins because he

0:59 now has a 15.1% target share over the Browns' last three games, which coincides with the Browns putting Dylan Sampson, their normal pass catcher, on IR. Last season as a rookie, in his healthy games, Judkins had just a 7.3% target share, which led to practically no receiving upside. He needs this doubling in target share. His rushing efficiency, quite frankly, it has not been there so far this year. 3.0 yards per carry ranks fourth worst in the NFL. 27.1% rushing success rate. That ranks third worst. With that type of struggle on the ground, Judkins was pretty benchable in most leagues, but as long as that receiving production is keeping him afloat with Dylan Sampson out, he's a decent RB3 or

1:44 flex play each week. The very exciting pieces of the Browns offense is both the rookie wide receivers, Denzel Boston and Casey Concepcion. Boston now sits at 2.3 yards per route through four weeks. That is the 12th best start by any rookie wide receiver through four games since 2016. And when I quickly tell you the 11 names ahead of him, you'll be pretty impressed by the company. Justin Jefferson, Puka Nakua, A.J. Brown, Jamar Chase, Malik Neighbors, Chris Olave, Drake London, Brian Thomas Jr., Marquise Brown, Michael Wilson, and Tank Dell. Pretty elite company. I think there's something special going on here with Denzel Boston. And that's on a 17.8 air yards per target, which is awesome for his

2:30 downfield usage. And that is the main difference between him and Concepcion, who sits at 6.2 air yards per target. Concepcion has a 24.3% target share right now, Boston at 19.1%. So Concepcion is just getting a handful more of those easy layup gimme targets, while Boston is being used more downfield.

2:51 Concepcion is certainly the safer weekly play because of that target share. Boston has a bit more upside week in, week out, but both are great flex plays moving forward. Deshaun Watson, nothing special here, but much improved from the disasters we saw from him ever since he was traded to Cleveland. 16.7 fantasy points per game. He actually has 31 carries so far this season. That's the second most among quarterbacks behind only Josh Allen. So he carries a little bit of this rushing upside. He's probably available on your waiver wire as well. And friendly reminder that bye weeks start this week in week five. That's the Chiefs and the Panthers. So if you're a Patrick Mahomes owner or a Bryce Young owner and you need a streaming

3:32 option in week five, the Browns get a pretty soft matchup against the Jets. On the other side, Jalen Warren with a massive workload, again with Rico Dattel out with his toe injury, though it does sound like Dattel has a decent chance of playing in week five. Weeks one and two with Dattel active, Jalen Warren 55% snap share. 55% running back carry share. But over the last two weeks with no Rico in weeks three and four, Jalen Warren, 94% snap share, 89% carry share. So one of the best workloads in the NFL with no Rico. The week five matchup against the Colts is a very good spot. The Colts have struggled against the run this season. Jalen Warren is a must start regardless of Rico Dattel's status. DK

4:18 Metcalf finally sort of put a decent game together. Five catches for 115 yards. I'd like to say we could sort of see this one coming in weeks one through three. He had 241 unrealized air yards, which is air yards on incomplete targets. That was the second most in the NFL over that span. That's a signal that the downfield opportunity had been there for him. He just hadn't quite capitalized or connected on anything with Aaron Rodgers yet. DK Metcalf is going to be a roller coaster basically all season with this usage. Personally, it's not for me. If you're able to sell off of a primetime 150-yard game, that's a move I'd be looking to make. Colts commanders in London. Pretty classic Jonathan Taylor game. 20 carries for

5:02 95 yards, two touchdowns. Seth McGowan mixed in a little bit, but JT still handled 77% of the Colts running back carries. He ran 18 routes to just three for McGowan. Pretty disappointing fantasy box score for Josh Downs. Four targets. three receptions for just 16 yards. And that's coming off seven for 72 in week two and five for 77 in week three. This felt like a smash spot considering his recent production and the matchup. Just didn't really do a whole lot, but I will say the underlying usage, the numbers there are still really strong. He led the team in routes with 30. That was on 37 Daniel Jones dropbacks.

5:39 So at 81% route participation. Bigger days ahead for Josh Downs without Pierce on IR. So I would not let this dud of a game kind of scare you from having downs in your lineup moving forward. On the commander side, things definitely much more messy. Marcus Marietta, who played really well in week three in the commander's win over Seattle, he leaves the game in the first quarter with a knee injury. So insert Ethan Kaliak-Manis, the commander's third-string quarterback.

6:08 James Daniels did practice this week, and it sounds like he's pretty confident in his availability for next week against the Giants. I'm going to kind of stray away from any Ethan Kaliak-Manis analysis, but a few takeaways. Terry McLaurin was inactive here with a hamstring injury that he actually suffered in practice. And so rookie Antonio Williams, he ran 30 routes. That was tied for a team high with Stephon Diggs. He saw eight targets, which is one fewer than Diggs' nine, which was a team high. It does sound like a short-term injury for Terry McLaurin, but keep in mind, remember, Terry McLaurin came out of college as an older prospect. He's 31 years old now. You never know kind of at that age, you know, with these hamstrings,

6:46 these tricky hamstrings. I think Antonio Williams is a decent stash for your fantasy bench. Titans Ravens, Lamar Jackson left the game in the second quarter with an ankle injury and then was reportedly seen leaving the stadium in a protective boot. Sounds like he's considered week to week. So I'm not going to speculate on his status. and rather would love to spend time on Zay Flowers, who had another massive performance. Flowers has now generated 6.3 yards per route this season, across his 56 routes. That is the best start on a per route basis by any player to run at least 50 routes through the first four weeks of the season in the Next Gen Stats era, which is since 2016. So over the last 11 years.

7:31 I don't think we can put him in the JSN, Puka, Mark Chase, Justin Jefferson, CeeDee Lamb, Amon Ross St. Brown tier. But rest of season, I do fully believe he belongs at the top of that next tier of elite players. We finally got the big Cornell Tate game as well. He still hasn't scored a touchdown this year, but 12 targets, nine receptions, 145 yards for Cornell Tate. He now has the seventh highest target share in the NFL. He ranks third overall. in air yard share. So the fantasy production hadn't quite been there through three weeks for him, but the underlying usage was great. Then he finally hits this big week. And reminder, this guy was the fourth overall pick in the 2026 draft. He's going to continue to

8:14 have massive weeks with that dominant of target share and air yard share. I'm gonna go to Bears Jets in a game where the final score doesn't look that lopsided. Bears 23, Jets 12. But this is insane. The Chicago Bears ran 89 offensive plays in the game. 89 offensive plays for the Chicago Bears. The New York Jets ran 32.

8:39 In fact, the Chicago Bears offense had more first downs than the Jets ran on offense. That's about as lopsided as you can get. Kyle Menungai himself had 30 carries. So Kyle Menungai almost had as many carries as the Jets ran offensive plays in In the game, Mnangai goes 30 carries, 146 yards, two touchdowns. DeAndre Swift did not play another offensive snap after he lost his fumble in the third quarter. This is a situation and a split to monitor. I think Swift certainly starts again for the Bears in week five at the Packers. He shouldn't be benched for your fantasy lineup. But get this, as a unit, the Bears offense has logged 159 touchdowns. carries through four weeks.

9:24 That is the most in the NFL by 32. The common guy has been incredibly, incredibly effective. He may get more and more work. And as we're seeing the bears, absolutely, absolutely love to run the ball. He did pop up on the injury report, I guess, with a thumb injury with not a lot of detail around it. So something small, hopefully small to monitor, but assuming he's good, good to go.

9:47 Common guy is a, at this point, he, He has a no doubt weekly flex play moving forward. No questions asked for me. We saw some life from Roma Dunzey here too. Six catches for 94 yards. Not bad for Lula. Burden as well. He goes four for 63. Both ran more routes than Kalief Raymond, which is a great sign that maybe the whole Kalief Raymond thing is on the downswing.

10:09 Here's a fun one too. Luther Burden was at 1.5 yards per route with Caleb Williams at quarterback. Roma Dunzey at 1.7. Now with Case Keenum and Tyson Badgen, the quarterback, Luther Burden is at 2.5 yards per route, Roma Dunzay 2.2. So on a per route basis, Case Keenum and Tyson Badgen have been better for Burden and a Dunzay than Caleb was. Caleb Williams was scrambling around and playing off schedule so often. Be very interesting to monitor once Caleb returns from his hamstring injury, just how much he's running around, which he hurt while scrambling, mind you. The Battle of Texas.

10:48 Holy C.D. Lamb. 21 targets, 17 receptions, 189 yards, and a touchdown. This is just the demonstration of the absolute target hog that C.D. Lamb can be. 32% target share, now ranked second highest in the NFL. That's 12% higher than George Pickens' 20% target share. We know how incredible of a talent CeeDee Lamb is, so I think this discussion needs to be flipped to the George Pickens side of things and kind of where I'm at on the panic meter with him. It has not been good through four weeks, especially after the season that we saw from him last year. He's at 10.1 PPR points per game.

11:30 He has maxed out at 15.2, which was in week three against the Ravens. Now sits at 28 targets on the year. Ryan Flournoy has 23. This is a little bit concerning to me. But we know this is an offense that we want pieces of, so I would not be selling George Pickens. I think he's a hold if you have him. I think he's a decent buy low candidate if you don't have him. Javante Williams is a benefactor of what I just mentioned with the Dallas Cowboys offense, being an offense for fantasy purposes that we want pieces of.

11:59 He secured the ball just 19 times for 62 yards, but bang, scored three touchdowns. This was the main thesis with him during fantasy draft season. He may not be the most efficient runner, the most effective runner in the NFL. There's no one else in that backfield, and the Cowboys are going to score a lot, and we saw it last week. A ground game that is completely broken is the Texans. Through four weeks, Texans running backs rank dead last in yards per carry by half a yard and 30th in yards before contact per carry at. 2. Minuscule.

12:33 David Montgomery is not getting it done on the ground. Woody Marks, he's also not getting it done on the ground. The offensive line play is just very far from being effective as well. Until further notice, both players are not startable in your fantasy lineup. And really the only guy I have extreme confidence in in Houston, week in, week out, is Nico Collins. He missed weeks two and three. He's back, eight targets, seven receptions, 118 yards, two touchdowns. If you told me before the season started that the Houston Texans– who are now 1-4, which is also crazy. But the Houston Texans would rank third in called pass rate through the first four weeks. I would not have believed you, but that's the world we lived in. They projected as

13:17 a team that wants to play defense and run the ball. Yeah, third highest called pass rate for the Texans. They're airing it out because they can't run the ball. Or frankly, their defense has not been playing very well this year either. So Nico is a weekly locked in top 10 fantasy wide receiver. CJ Stroud is one that I have. a little more hesitation towards. I do like him in obvious soft matchups like we saw this last week against the Cowboys, but with his lack of weapons and an incredibly underwhelming offensive line, I do think C.J. Stroud has a very low floor against tough opponents. For me, he's not a weekly starter. Just totally depends on the spot and the matchup of that week. The Texans have the Titans next week.

14:00 You can play him again there, but then it's Jacksonville in week six. I think he should be on your bench for that matchup. In Philadelphia, Puka Nukua returned to the lineup for the Rams in a wild win and really a game of the tale of two offenses. Puka sees 12 targets, catches nine for 125 yards, also had a two-yard rushing touchdown. So he picked back up right where he left off in the same old Puka Nukua game here. Before the game, during the week, the spot I worried most about was Devontae Adams. That kind of turned out to be correct. The matchup with the Eagles corners or really tough, across eight matchups with Rick Wolin, Devontae didn't see a single target. On nine matchups with Cooper Dejean, got just one target that was not completed.

14:44 And then on 13 matchups with Quinion Mitchell, he got three of four targets for 27 yards. A very underwhelming day for Devontae considering his recent success, but definitely had a temporary expectations outlook on him for this game. Who was incredible as a pass catcher was Kyron Williams. 13 targets, which is a career high by three, 10 receptions, 67 yards.

15:07 Also 16 carries for 80 yards and two touchdowns on the ground. He is the fantasy RB1 on the week entering Monday night. I was a big Blake Corum guy during fantasy draft season. It's not looking too good as the gap between Kyron and Corum is getting pretty extreme. In this game, Kyron played 82% of the Rams offensive snaps.

15:30 Corum at just 17%. So now across the first four weeks of the season, the snap share is at Kyron 69%, Blake Corum 28%, and opportunities 79 to 40. Kyron's nearly doubled up Blake Corum in opportunities so far this year. Not what you kind of want or had in mind as a Corum drafter. I think he unfortunately needs to be benched moving forward. Speaking of benching, you might have to sub out every single Philadelphia Eagle right now because wow.

15:59 That offense does not smell good, and it's really bad. And they play Jacksonville next week. The Eagles have gone three and out on 33.3% of their drive so far this year. That's the second highest in the NFL. They're ranked 27th in yards per play. Their average yards to go on third down is eight yards. That's the third most in the league. And it's a big reason why they converted zero of their 12 third downs against the Rams this last week. Zero for 12. Jalen Hurts has scored over 20 fantasy points just once this season. That was back in week one. Saquon Barkley left early with a hamstring injury. His status is uncertain. Devontae Smith didn't even play in this game because of his own hamstring injury.

16:42 Dallas Goddard's week to week with a knee injury. The offensive line isn't playing well. I thought this offense would be much better with Sean Mannion at offensive coordinator. I know they're dealing with a bunch of injuries, but it is kind of looking like a doomsday scenario for this unit Raiders Chiefs was a fun one in Las Vegas actually game that I was at so we get some special I saw it with my own eyes takeaways Kenneth Walker wow another massive performance 22 carries 177 yards two touchdowns he goes for over 30 PPR points for the second time this season he has gone for over 20 in all four games. Next-gen stats were rushing yards over expected number, basically how many yards a running back gained

17:24 versus how many were they actually expected to gain. He sits at 212 rushing yards over expected so far this season. That's the best start through the first four weeks in that stat by any player since 2018 by 27 yards. He's forced 40 missed tackles just on his rushes alone. That is also a next-gen stats record through the first four weeks by six. He is very clearly the RB3 in fantasy. Rest of season behind only Jameer Gibbs and Bijan Robinson. The Chiefs wide receiver room is about to get really interesting. Pretty devastating and gruesome to watch Taequann Thornton go down with a dislocated ankle while having a career game. That was after Rasheed Rice pulled his hamstring in the first quarter and did not return. So there's

18:11 a bunch of Tyreek Hill speculation out there right now. But I will say Jalen Royals was the next man up for Rasheed Rice. He ran 21 routes. He was not productive on those 21 routes, just two targets, zero receptions. If he's out there on the waiver wire, I think I would avoid Jalen Royals and just let someone else spend their money and pick him up. And everyone's favorite preseason player, training camp player, Cyrus Allen. He ran just two routes in a game where both Rasheed Rice and Tyquan Thornton got hurt. So fun preseason story there, but Does not look like it's happening for Cyrus Allen this year.

18:45 On the other side, Kirk Cousins continues to sling it. 31 for 52, 365. Two touchdowns, one pick on the final play of the game. Pretty unbelievable to see the Raiders drafted Fernando Mendoza number one overall and through four weeks. 38-year-old Kirk Cousins is Fantasy's QB 8. He has outscored Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Trevor Lawrence, Matthew Stafford, You name it.

19:12 Kirk Cousins is cooking right now. We saw more of the wide and slot alignments from Brock Bowers again this week. He is now aligned out wide or in the slot on 81% of his snaps this season. Just 16% as an actual in-line tight end. I think that's hilarious. It's pretty insane stuff. So when you have Brock Bowers in your fantasy lineup at your tight end position, you're really actually like starting a wide receiver. It's a positional cheat code and pretty hilarious that he has only played two weeks so far this year, half the season, and he's already the tight end nine for fantasy. All right, as always, going to end each episode with an action item. My biggest move to make for fantasy, whether that be buy

19:56 a player, sell a player last week, it was buys a flowers this week. We're going with sell Tet McMillan. I know, I know. Doesn't sound very fun. Selling a guy coming off a primetime game. where he puts up 14 receptions for 192 yards, two touchdowns and 45.2 PPR points. But this is the absolute peak of his value. This was a game with no Jalen Coker, a game in which Tett McMillan had a 41% target share in weeks one through three with Coker. Tett had a 21% target share.

20:30 Jalen Coker was just one target behind him and at 20%. The Panthers have also had one of, if not the softest, friendliest fantasy schedules, I think I've seen it in a really long time. That was Bears, Falcons, Browns, Lions. They now have a week five bye. They play at the Eagles in week six, who I already talked about being a brutal matchup with their strength at corner. And looking way ahead, we're getting way ahead here, but the Panthers' fantasy playoff schedule is gnarly. Bengals, Steelers, Seahawks. Seattle is about the last team that I think I would want my fantasy players to face with my fantasy championship on the line. All right, that's going to do it for this week four edition of the show. We will be

21:15 back every single Monday throughout the season, sifting through each week's data. Appreciate everyone for tuning in and we'll be right back here for week five.