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Matt's wide receiver (WR) fantasy football start 'em, sit 'em picks for Week 4 of 2026. His WR lineups advice for Week 4 fantasy football start/sit decisions.
Week 4 is here, and the wide receiver position is loaded with some serious boom potential—but there are also a few names I’m not willing to trust. We’ve got bounce-back candidates, elite matchups, and some players whose usage hasn’t matched the fantasy price tag.
Tetairoa McMillan gets a dream matchup with Detroit, Zay Flowers could make plenty of noise against Tennessee, and George Pickens finally has the opportunity to break out. But on the flip side, Rashee Rice faces a brutal Raiders secondary, Jameson Williams is giving me trust issues, and Deebo Samuel Sr. has a matchup that makes me nervous.
Let’s break down the numbers, the matchups, and the usage trends to find the wide receivers ready to explode—and the ones who could leave your fantasy lineup wishing you went another direction.
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Week 4 Starts - Potential Fantasy Football Booms
Tetairoa McMillan- WR, Carolina Panthers vs Detroit Lions
If you were burned by McMillan’s quiet Week 3, don’t overreact. This is a prime bounce-back spot, because the Detroit Lions have been one of the most generous secondaries in fantasy football. Detroit is giving up a league-high 39.7 fantasy points per game to opposing wide receivers, along with 2.02 fantasy points per opportunity.
TMAC OMG
📺 FOX#CARvsATL pic.twitter.com/F5v6tLraB0
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) September 20, 2026
Through three games, the Lions have surrendered 30 receptions and 437 receiving yards, both league highs, while allowing 10.66 yards per target and two touchdowns. We just saw Garrett Wilson take advantage of this secondary in Week 3, piling up 10 catches for 107 yards and a touchdown for 26.7 fantasy points. This is a matchup we should be attacking, and McMillan is in position to be the next wide receiver to cash in.
McMillan only managed two catches for 17 yards in Carolina’s loss to Cleveland, but the circumstances around him are changing.
WR2 Jalen Coker left that game early with a quad injury and could be limited, at best, heading into Week 4. That potentially puts even more work on McMillan’s plate. With the matchup, the expected volume, and Coker’s uncertain status, I’m firing up McMillan with confidence. Double-digit targets are firmly in play.
Zay Flowers- WR, Baltimore Ravens vs Tennessee Titans
Zay Flowers didn’t even need a full workload last week to remind us what kind of upside he brings. Returning from a hamstring injury and playing an international game on some of the worst turf we’ve seen, Flowers still caught five of six targets for 84 yards, averaging 16.8 yards per reception.
At the same time, Baltimore exercised plenty of caution with his workload. When he was healthy in Week 1, Flowers went off for five catches, 150 yards, and a touchdown.
LAMAR TO FLOWERS WITH 1 SECOND LEFT@BALvsDAL on CBS/Paramount+
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/waTW7TbhSQ— NFL (@NFL) September 27, 2026
The encouraging part is that Flowers came out of the Rio game without a setback, and now he gets a dream matchup against Tennessee. The Titans are allowing 32.9 fantasy points per game to opposing wide receivers and 1.90 fantasy points per opportunity this season.
If Baltimore jumps out to a big lead and the game gets out of hand by halftime, that could limit Flowers’ opportunities—but against this secondary, he may not need four quarters to make an impact.
Here’s where the Flowers hype gets really interesting: he leads the NFL in yards per route run at 9.0 among players with at least 25 routes. Jaxon Smith-Njigba is second at 4.6, meaning Flowers is operating on another planet in terms of efficiency. Overall, he has 10 catches for 234 yards on just 41 snaps this season. That’s an absurd amount of production in barely more than half of a typical game.
We also have to remember just how limited Flowers was last week. He played only 29% of snaps and posted a 64% route share, while Rashod Bateman led the team with 91%. Despite that massive difference in playing time, Flowers still out-targeted Bateman 6-to-3. If Flowers gets closer to his normal workload in Week 4, the opportunity for a monster fantasy performance is obvious. Start him confidently.
George Pickens - WR, Dallas Cowboys at Houston Texans
Houston has been a fantasy-friendly matchup for wide receivers all season, and that makes CeeDee Lamb and Pickens two receivers I want in my lineup this week.
The Texans are allowing 40.0 fantasy points per game to opposing wide receivers, the second-most in the league, while giving up 2.03 fantasy points per opportunity, the third-highest mark. That’s the kind of matchup where Dallas’ passing volume could create multiple fantasy winners.
Lamb has already taken advantage of the Cowboys’ pass-heavy offense, averaging 23.6 fantasy points per game and entering Week 4 as the WR3 in fantasy. Pickens hasn’t quite delivered on his draft-day price tag, averaging 10.3 fantasy points per game and sitting at WR30, but signs point to a possible breakout.
Pickens posted double-digit fantasy performances in back-to-back weeks, and now he gets a Houston defense that just watched Indianapolis’ Keenan Allen and Josh Downs combine for 11 receptions, 140 yards, and a touchdown on 20 targets.
The volume is also difficult to ignore. Dallas is running the league's most pass-heavy offenses. While Lamb clearly commands the larger share of targets, Pickens still owns a meaningful role as the Cowboys’ secondary receiving option with a 21% first-read target share. That combination of opportunity, recent production, and matchup puts Pickens firmly on the bounce-back radar.
Lamb is an obvious start, but don’t overlook Pickens here. Houston is giving us every reason to attack this secondary, and Pickens has the role to take advantage. I’m starting both Cowboys receivers in Week 4 and expecting plenty of passing volume to go their way.
Week 4 Sits - Potential Fantasy Football Busts
Rashee Rice - WR, Kansas City Chiefs at Las Vegas Raiders
Rice’s early-season usage has been ugly. He’s sitting at just a 9.5% target share, 1.62 yards per route run, 0.063 first downs per route run, a 13.7% first-read share, and a 28.6% designed target rate. None of those numbers exactly scream “must-start wide receiver,” and Kenneth Walker III’s presence in this passing attack has seemingly nuked a lot of Rice’s expected volume.
But there are finally signs that things are moving in the right direction. Rice went from 2 catches for 19 yards and a touchdown in Week 1 to 4 catches for 83 yards in Week 2, then 7 catches for 88 yards in Week 3.
His usage also took a significant step forward. Rice saw an 8.3-yard average depth of target in Week 3, his second-highest mark in any game of his career, while his target share climbed to 39%, the highest of his career.
Another usage breakdown has Rice at a 37.5% target share, up from just 10.6% and 7.4% over the previous two weeks. Five of those targets came in the second half, even after his drop helped lead to an interception before halftime.
However, there is a major problem this week: the matchup. Las Vegas is allowing just 23.7 fantasy points per game to opposing wide receivers, the third-fewest in the league, while surrendering only 1.23 fantasy points per opportunity. The Raiders did give up nine catches for 107 yards to Chris Olave, but they kept him out of the end zone and ultimately limited his fantasy ceiling.
Jameson Williams - WR, Detroit Lions at Carolina Panthers
I hate putting a Lions receiver on the sit list, and there was absolutely no chance I was going to get cute and sit Amon-Ra St. Brown. I know we’re supposed to be making bold calls here, but that’s a little too spicy even for me. So instead, Williams—you made the list. Look, I don’t hate Williams. I just have some deep-rooted trust issues when it comes to starting him in fantasy.
This catch by Jameson Williams 😮💨@NYJvsDET on CBS/Paramount+
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/Yl5raMMlmp— NFL (@NFL) September 27, 2026
Last week, Williams caught just 4 passes for 49 yards, while Isaac TeSlaa actually finished with 60 receiving yards. Williams was on the field plenty, playing 87.9% of the snaps with an 87.6% route participation rate, but the opportunity simply isn’t translating into fantasy production.
A 14.7% target share and 0.15 targets per route run aren’t numbers I want to rely on, especially when the competition for targets inside this offense is so strong.
The year-over-year trends aren’t exactly helping Williams’ case. His route share has dipped from 95% to 88%, his target share has fallen from 18.5% to 15.7%, and his PPR points per route have dropped from 0.37 to 0.21.
The interesting wrinkle is that the Late-Round expected points model sees almost no difference in his expected production—10.7 PPR points per game last season versus 10.5 this year—but that still isn’t enough actual fantasy production for me to trust him.
Now Williams gets a Panthers defense that has been extremely difficult on opposing wide receivers, allowing just 23.5 fantasy points per game, the second-fewest in the league, along with 1.41 fantasy points per opportunity.
Maybe Williams breaks off a long touchdown and makes me look foolish. That’s always in his range of outcomes. But until the volume and efficiency catch up with the athleticism, I’m keeping Williams on the bench in Week 4.
Deebo Samuel Sr. - WR, San Francisco 49ers vs Denver Broncos
Samuel might look like an obvious volume play heading into Week 4, especially with Ricky Pearsall, De'Zhaun Stribling, and now Mike Evans dealing with injuries. But if Evans is unavailable, San Francisco’s passing attack could become almost entirely dependent on Samuel and tight end George Kittle—and against Denver, that’s not a situation I’m eager to chase.
The Broncos have been extremely difficult to attack, allowing just 1.65 fantasy points per opportunity while surrendering only 27.4 fantasy points per game to opposing wide receivers, the fourth-fewest in the league. Samuel could see a massive workload, but volume alone doesn’t guarantee fantasy production in a matchup this difficult.
Let’s be honest, a huge chunk of Samuel’s Week 3 production came from the hook-and-ladder play involving Evans. Take that explosive play away, and the fantasy outlook changes considerably. With Evans potentially sidelined, no hook-and-ladder play is coming to the rescue this week. Samuel may be one of the last healthy veterans standing, but that doesn’t automatically make him a fantasy start against Denver.
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Below are some popular searches and comparisons from our Who To Draft tool for 2026 drafts for Tetairoa McMillan, Zay Flowers, George Pickens, Rashee Rice, Jameson Williams, and Deebo Samuel Sr.:
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