The Game Plan For Week 4 (#FantasyFootball)

Going For 2 fanbase my name is @TheBLeagueSays and in this week’s ‘Gameplan for the Week’, I will give to you some plays to make for seasonal and daily roster construction, prop bets, and dynasty evaluations. Before you make any start and sit decisions this weekend make sure you check out our weekly rankings also.

Thank you, and enjoy!

Slant Route

I have been writing for @GoingFor_2 for over two years now and I am yet to make a tight end joke:

And today is still not that day which is amazing considering I live for the feeble, but I digress. Of late the New Orleans Saints have been a gaping hole to opposing tight ends, as O.J. Howard, Darren Waller, and Robert Tonyan collectively whistled straight past them for a weekly TE1 performance, with an average of 19.36 ppg in PPR in the opening three weeks of the season.

Now on the peripheral (and by the graphics, let’s not pretend I’m not pandering to the obvious here), T.J. Hockenson is going to get all the talk, and the chalk, and will be a smash in DFS at $4800 is the easiest decision you will ever make as his Lions are at home to the Saints this week. But if you are the streaming type, guys like Ian Thomas and Jimmy Graham (now with the Nick Foles accessory) will likely be available on your waiver wires so have a look to see their availability. However, if you are playing the long game, the current TE14 Hayden Hurst sees them twice later in the year and has had a solid start to the season if you feel the need to get your trades on. It’s a player like that with those sorts of positive matchups that could be the difference on whether or not you do or don’t make your playoffs.

Flat Route

So it’s come to this?:

The Philadelphia Eagles’ best wide receiver is Greg Ward. And no, this isn’t a knock on the guy or the Eagles because I’ve been calling for this all preseason. I’m an absolute fan of the guy who produces every time he has been required to step up so to see him put up solid numbers and be their best wide receiver option is no surprise to this guy. But everyone else? JJ Arcega-Whiteside has been non-existent. Remember that guy? The guy who was going to ‘take over from Alshon Jeffery‘? Alshon Jeffery? Who? Haven’t heard from him! DeSean Jackson; hurt. Jalen Reagor; hurt.

The Eagles got so desperate that they went and grabbed Hakeem Butler off the Carolina Panthers practice squad with hopes he transitions into a tight end, as Dallas Goedert is now on the injured reserve. Add to it the injury of Jalen Reagor and it’s open season for anyone willing to try to make a play for Carson Wentz before he ultimately gets hurt again, while he waits for someone to make a play for him. Hakeem Butler is a big lump of a lad and showed nothing in his rookie season due to injury. But, the move to tight end intrigues me enough to buy in, even just to see what he can do while Goedert is away from the team. Butler will likely be out there on your dynasty waivers, it’s worth it to me to throw a couple of FAAB bucks at him to see if this could work out.

Comeback Route

From ‘meh’ to ‘maybe’:

The Houston Texans have looked shocking to start the year off but let’s not pretend that this start including road trips to Superbowl champions Kansas to open the season and to Pittsburgh also. Oh, yeah I almost forgot, they played the Ravens between those games as well. That has to be the worst starting schedule I have seen in I don’t know how long! But, the silver lining has to be their next month of matchups before their bye round which includes the Vikings, Packers, Titans, and Jaguars, who are all teams that have been in high-point scoring shootouts of late.

As it stands, none of the Texans wide receivers are in the Top 30 of their position for points, and while likely overpaying someone for Will Fuller could have some immediate success, that price is probably not ideal. However, Brandin Cooks is the WR67 right now with a shocking 7.6 ppg in PPR and if the person in your league who has Cooks is losing patience with the guy, then he may be someone who you can get on the cheap with that similar schedule upside. For more Brandin Cooks fun, check out my first ever article for @GoingFor_2 on him, a little column I wrote called ‘Pros and Cons’. I promise it isn’t a 5000-word article like Geoff Lambert says it probably is.

Screen Route

He won’t be the first name you think of, however:

Of the ten touchdowns that the Browns have scored, their running backs have accounted for 70% of them in some way or another. Kareem Hunt leads the Browns in receiving touchdowns while Nick Chubb manhandles anyone in his path. This, to some extent, we shouldn’t be massively surprised when we think about how Kevin Stefanki deployed Dalvin Cook last year. He’s just managed to amalgamate the role between the two. Of the three remaining touchdowns the Browns have, two have gone to tight ends, and not one of those has gone to their highly paid free agent addition Austin Hooper. Hooper is yet to register a red zone target or more than 65 total yards in 2020.

I would be however looking to invest in their rookie tight end Harrison Bryant if you can, who not only scored the game-winning touchdown for the Browns last week but has also seen his snap count come up from 42% to 65% over the past three weeks. If you are fading the tight end position this week, Bryant at $2500 is probably as low as you can go, and if you’re banking on his one or two targets to go for a score which slightly more appealing than hoping that Hooper ($4000) can conjure up the same thing. Dallas currently gives up around 6 receptions and 62 yards to the tight end position per week.

Out Route

They might not be “Giants”:

If anyone watched that garbage that the New York “Giants” chucked out last week against the 49ers then I am utterly, utterly surprised you can still read this considering it’s likely you had poured acid into your eyes five minutes into the first quarter. They were so bad, Nick Mullens threw his name into the hat for NFL MVP. Well, maybe not, but you get my point!

The “Giants” travel to L.A. to face the Rams this week and Aaron Donald wanted Christmas in October, well, he sure as hell gets it because this “O-Line” will likely give him the chance to triple his sack total this week. There is not a chance that this game hits the O/U set at 48, and the Rams as heavy home favorites currently at -13 seem (crazy to say) safe as well. The Rams have found ways to put points on the board for fun, and Daniel Jones looks like he couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. The Rams cover with the ‘unders’ hitting.

The 9 Route

By the beard of Thor:

I will go down swinging for the fences with Ryan Fitzpatrick in a possible shootout where he is chasing a game at home to Seattle this week. It is as risky as it is appealing, and I’ll take the shot on him at $5400. To open the season, Seattle has given opposing quarterbacks an average of 440 passing yards and two touchdowns a game. Look, I am aware that the Seahawks have faced some elite competition in Dak Prescott, Matt Ryan, and Cam Newton. I am not putting Fitzpatrick up there with those names but if he gets to chase a game against a non-existent secondary then I am here for that.

And who have benefitted the most in these matchups are the wide receivers. Some of the best (and the odd unknown) receivers in the game have gone nuts and their fantasy finish shows it as Calvin Ridley (WR2), Julio Jones (WR8), and Russell Gage (WR11) for the Falcons, Julian Edelman (WR3) for the Patriots, and Cedrick Wilson (WR5) with Michael Gallup (WR7) for the Cowboys all went off against Seattle. Despite a somewhat slow-ish start to the season, both leading Dolphins receivers DeVante Parker ($5700) and Preston Williams ($4500) this week are extremely easy to stack with Fitzpatrick.

Hail Mary

Rankings are hard:

I’ll keep this one short and sweet – the New York “Giants” are horrific, and they have been gashed by superstars on the ground like Jeff Wilson and Benny Snell. No really. That happened. This week the Giants visit the L.A. Rams and running back Darrell Henderson ($5800), who I don’t believe will have Malcolm Brown or Cam Akers in his way. And that means he gets the entire backfield to himself and if that is the case, you can chalk him up for an easy 130 yards rushing and 2 touchdown afternoon as a minimum. For some reason, I am initially ranking Henderson the highest amongst @GoingFor_2 rankers as the RB11 for the week, and the closer to Sunday I get the feeling that may get even higher.

I want to thank you for checking this article out! As always you can follow me at @TheBLeagueSays and feel free to check out my @BackRowGiants podcast out (https://linktr.ee/TheBLeagueSays) – subscribe, rate, review, share, and listen.

Let’s all get better together!

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