Fantasy Football Warning Signals From Week 4

October 8, 2020

Bruce Matson lists players at each position (QB, RB, WR, TE) who have struggled ahead of Week 5 of the 2020 NFL season. These players could be fallers worth benching, trading, or dropping soon in fantasy football.

We are now four weeks into the season. We’ve gained a lot of knowledge about some of these players from a fantasy football perspective. As the sample size of information increases the easier it is to evaluate players. The warning signals get brighter by the week.

Some of these players are dead weight in fantasy leagues and some of them are just experiencing a dry spell of production.

With that being said, let’s take a look at the warning signals from Week 4.

Quarterback

Nick Foles, Chicago Bears

The expectations might have been set too high after Foles led the Bears from a 16-point deficit against the Atlanta Falcons in week three. The Indianapolis Colts brought Foles back to reality on Sunday. The Bears offense as a whole managed just 269 total yards and only 28 of those yards came from the run game.

His play prevented the offense from being able to keep the chains moving. The Bears didn’t score their first touchdown until the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter. Not to mention he completed just 61.90 percent of his passes while throwing one interception.

The Colts have one of the toughest defenses in the league. They were also able to shut down Chicago’s run game which didn’t help matters either. Foles will get his opportunity to redeem himself this Thursday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The sample size is completely too small to judge whether he’s a good fit in Chicago. With four weeks down in the NFL season, he needs to turn things around to help his fantasy manager make a year-end playoff push.

Running Back

Kenyan Drake, Arizona Cardinals

Drake was projected to be one of the top running backs going into the season. Unfortunately, things are not going to plan. In four games, he has rushed for just 254 yards and one touchdown. Kyler Murray has taken over the rushing attack by rushing for 50 yards or more in three of his four games this season.

On top of the limited production in a plush matchup on Sunday, Drake exited the game with a lower-body injury. His injury status will be in question throughout the week. The last thing fantasy managers needed was an injury slowing Drake down.

In 2019, Drake showed a lot of promise rushing for 643 yards and touchdowns in just eight games with the Cardinals. His performance created a lot of optimism going into the season. The fact that he seemed to be gelling in one of the most fast-paced offenses in the NFL made fantasy gamers drool with excitement. Now we are four games into the season, and the fantasy players who selected in the first two to three rounds in drafts are not getting what they paid for. Drake might turn into one of the biggest busts of the 2020 season.

Wide Receiver

D.J. Moore, Carolina Panthers

A lot of changes took place in Carolina this off-season. The team named Teddy Bridgewater as the new quarterback. The Cardinals hired Matt Rhule to be their head coach along with bringing in Joe Brady from LSU to be the team’s offensive coordinator. Robby Anderson was added to the roster through free agency. Rhule and Anderson developed a special bond during their days at Temple and the player-coach relationship made for an easy transition during a condensed off-season due to restrictions presented by the Coronavirus.

Since the season has started, it has become more apparent that Anderson, not Moore, is the alpha wide receiver in the offense. One of the factors that are causing a shift in the team’s passing production is that Moore is running more of the deeper routes while Anderson is lobbying for the targets in the intermediate parts of the field. Moore has 403 air yards on the season compared to Anderson’s 312 air yards.

Moore is still holding his own in fantasy, but with just 288 yards and zero touchdowns, he’s not delivering the WR1 results many fantasy gamers hoped for at the beginning of the season. With Anderson stealing a large portion of the workload. It appears that Moore’s ceiling is capped and will not deliver a return on the investment many fantasy managers made on draft day.

He is still a very good player and will help your team in fantasy. However, the odds of him churning out enough production to finish the year as a WR1 are slim to none.

Tight End

Austin Hooper, Cleveland Browns

Against the Cowboys, Hooper reeled in five of his seven targets for 34 yards and one touchdown, sparking his best fantasy performance of the season. Everything wasn’t sunshine and rainbows in this game. Rookie tight end, Harrison Bryant, was also used heavily in the passing game. The extra competition for targets is going to prevent Hooper from hitting his upside.

With Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry both siphoning a large portion of the targets along with the Browns having a run-first offensive philosophy, it’s going to be hard for Hooper to deliver consistent production for his fantasy managers.

Breakout Alert!

Justin Jefferson, Minnesota Vikings

The rookie from LSU is heating up with back to back 100-yard games. Not only has he been productive, but he has looked smooth on the field, demonstrating speed, quickness, and smooth route running.

With a 1-3 start to the season, the Minnesota Vikings needed Jefferson to step up. After Stefon Diggs was traded to the Buffalo Bill during the off-season, the team needed an added spark in the passing game. Jefferson appears to be the next big thing to come from this year’s draft class.

With him being a major part of LSU’s championship run last year and him being a first-round pick, the stars might be aligning for his fantasy managers as it looks like he’s going to be a top-shelf fantasy asset for a very long time. All fantasy managers need to be plucking Jefferson off the waiver wire if he's still there.

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