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Deeper waiver wire sleepers and pickups to add for Week 4 of the NFL season. Justin Carter finds lightly owned players for fantasy football owners to target.
Another week has gone by and we finally--FINALLY--got one of those monster weeks where lots of players go off. ESPN's Bill Barnwell ranked the 1:00 pm games as the seventh-most exciting slate of games since the introduction of the RedZone Channel in 2009. There were a lot of high scores and a lot of big fantasy performances.
Those performances also came from some unlikely sources. If you're one of those fantasy players who stream your quarterback position every week, you had a field day: four of the top six scorers at the position would qualify for this column. Remember last Thursday when everyone looked at Jared Goff's performance against the 49ers and collectively said it was a turning point in his career, that he was a player to watch? Yeah, that performance finished just OUTSIDE the top ten at the quarterback position this week.
Let's look at deeper waiver wire targets and sleepers for Week 4, players whose ownership is currently under 20% and are likely available in many of your leagues. Note: All ownership percentages are for Yahoo leagues.
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Deeper Waiver Wire Targets for Week 4
Note: If D'Onta Foreman and Devin Funchess, both on last week's list and both still under 20%, are available in your league, read what I wrote last week and then pick them up. You won't have many more chances.
Blake Bortles (QB, Jacksonville Jaguars) - 12% owned
2015 was only two years ago, but it seems like a lifetime in regards to Bortles, whose starting role has seemingly been under threat from Chad Henne forever. Bortles went a long way toward proving he can still be Jacksonville's starter with a 244-yard, four-touchdown performance against a Ravens defense that had only given up ten points all season coming into the game. There are obvious concerns--we can't get London Bortles every week, but his upcoming schedule feels conducive to a big offensive run for the team. He gets the Jets this week, who did effectively bottle up Jay Cutler in Week 3, but who allowed Derek Carr to complete over 80% of his pass attempts back in Week 2.
Jared Goff (QB, Los Angeles Rams) - 12% owned
Is Goff for real? After two weeks, the one thing that was missing from Goff's performance was the ability to get the ball into the end zone, but he did that three times against the 49ers. That can partially be attributed to the porous San Francisco defense, but not fully--the Rams adding receiver Sammy Watkins might actually give Goff the boost he needs to be a relevant fantasy quarterback. Look, if you're rolling with a quarterback who isn't in the top tier then you could do worse than taking a risk on Goff.
Brian Hoyer (QB, San Francisco 49ers) - 8% owned
I'm only highlighting three quarterbacks this week despite the strong performances from a number of barely owned players at the position this week--notably Case Keenum and Jacoby Brissett, who don't have great match-ups this week and aren't guaranteed starting roles for too much longer (Note: If Andrew Luck is suddenly ruled out for the year, think about Brissett). Brian Hoyer isn't a name that inspires much confidence--and those first two weeks were ROUGH--but he has value. Don't forget that in the four games he started AND finished in 2016, Hoyer threw for 300 or more yards all four times, with six touchdowns and no interceptions. Hoyer has been solid for most of his career as a starter and the signs suggest that he'll end up with plenty of chances to throw the ball this year for a 49ers team that projects to be behind a lot of the time.
Wendell Smallwood (RB, Philadelphia Eagles) - 6% owned
With Darren Sproles out, someone is going to get usage in Philly. The obvious bet is LeGarrette Blount, but hold on just a minute, because we can't overlook that Blount didn't touch the ball back in Week 2 and there were rumors in the off-season that the Eagles weren't happy with him. He still projects to see goal-line and short yardage work, but he can't fully fill Sproles's role in the offense. That will fall to either Smallwood or Corey Clement. Smallwood had twice as many carries this week and was targeted twice in the passing game, so my money is on him to fill that role.
Alex Collins (RB, Baltimore Ravens) - 2% owned
Baltimore looked very bad in their Week 3 loss to the Jaguars, but Alex Collins was a bright spot: 9 carries for 82 yards. With Terrance West and Javorius Allen still in the backfield, Collins might not put up these type of numbers again--most of his carries did come late in the game after Baltimore had already effectively lost--but he's also another game like this away from staking himself to a big role in an offense that has shown it likes to run the football.
Elijah McGuire (RB, New York Jets) - 0% owned
I'm going to make two bold predictions here: First, Elijah McGuire is going to be the Jets' starter at some point this season. Matt Forte and Bilal Powell are mediocre players who don't make sense seeing snaps on a team as bad as the Jets should be (key word should because, well, they beat the Dolphins pretty soundly). My second prediction is less bold: McGuire probably won't be that great once he takes over the role. But you have a chance to grab a player who will get early down work in the future and will likely be, at the very least, a decent player. Deep leagues only right now, but if you're reading this column then you probably play in a fairly deep league.
Robert Woods (WR, Los Angeles Rams) - 7% owned
After Week 1, Cooper Kupp looked like the Rams number two receiver, but his role in the offense has been fading. The Rams put up 44 points in Week 3, yet Kupp only saw two targets. Where'd the rest go? Woods, who saw seven looks this week. He converted them into a six catch, 108 yard performance. Woods spent his first four seasons in Buffalo, finishing each year with somewhere between 550 and 700 receiving yards. That isn't great, but it also came on a Bills team not known for its explosive passing. Woods has a chance to carve out a larger chunk of the offense if Jared Goff continues to look like the new and improved version of Jared Goff.
Will Fuller (WR, Houston Texans) - 3% owned
The Texans took Will Fuller in the first round in 2016 because the Notre Dame prospect was extremely, extremely fast. He showed that at times last season--he had over 100 yards in both of Houston's first two games--but also flashed his downsides, notably an inability to actually catch the football. Fuller's been out all of this season with a broken collarbone, but signs are saying that Fuller will return soon--possibly as soon as this Sunday. Fuller could provide rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson with a home-run threat that he's been missing.
Austin Seferian-Jenkins (TE, New York Jets) - 4% owned
I don't think there's a single wide receiver on the Jets that I would trust on my fantasy team, which is why Seferian-Jenkins is so intriguing. A second-round pick in 2014, ASJ had a lot of promise and has never lived up to it. He's still young, though, and still a skilled player, and if there's a situation where he can provide fantasy value it's on this Jets team, where he could arguably be the most talented offensive player the team has. Though he only caught five balls for 31 yards this week, I expect to see Seferian-Jenkins become an integral part of this offense.
Ryan Griffin (TE, Houston Texans) - 1% owned
With C.J. Fiedorowicz on the IR, one of Houston's back-up tight ends was going to see an increase in usage. It looks like that's Griffin, who had five catches for 61 yards and a touchdown against the Patriots. It's still possible he loses snaps to the team's other tight end, Stephen Anderson, but Griffin is the better blocker and should be on the field the most. Plus, rookie quarterbacks supposedly love to throw to tight ends!
Marcedes Lewis (TE, Jacksonville Jaguars) - 1% owned
Okay. All the logic in the world suggests that Lewis is NOT a player you want to own. He didn't have a catch coming into the London game. He is 33 and hadn't scored more than two touchdowns in a season since 2013. He's had one season where he finished as a top-ten fantasy tight end--2010. But the Jaguars don't have Allen Robinson and someone will get looks in the red zone, right? It could be Lewis! This is one of those adds that you'll probably regret, but it might be worth it on the small chance that this week's three score performance wasn't a fluke.
