Players to Buy and Sell: Week 4! 📈📉

Wednesdays are just the worst. No football till tomorrow, but no football yesterday, either. 😢

What’s in store:

• It’s Quentin Johnston’s time to bolt up the depth chart ⚡️. It sounds like we’ll be seeing more of the rookie in the Chargers offense moving forward!

• David Montgomery is back already? The Jahmyr Gibbs RB1 train could come to a grinding halt this week.

• Buy and sell THESE players ahead of Week 4. See which players you can move and acquire right now to maximize your fantasy team’s value.

• Kyren Williams is here to stay. He’s taken the league and the Rams backfield by storm in his sophomore year.

• Chargers rookie WR Quentin Johnston to take on a larger role with Mike Williams missing the rest of 2023

  • According to The Athletic’s Daniel Popper, the Chargers wanted to slow-roll Johnston into the offense this season – something that we saw clearly through the first three weeks of the season. With Mike Williams done for the year, though, Popper has suggested that Johnston could be in line to take on more downfield work in the offense. Any upgrade in usage would be a welcome development for those who took Johnston in dynasty drafts or held onto him in redraft leagues, as he’s seen no more than 38% of snaps in any game this season. He’s an intriguing waiver wire pickup for this week, but for the time being, his ceiling will be limited playing behind Josh Palmer.

• Lions RB David Montgomery has a good chance to suit up for Thursday night’s game against the Packers

  • This would be a code red for Jahmyr Gibbs owners, especially those who were counting on more than one game of him leading the backfield like he did in Week 3. While this was always a possibility, it looks like Gibbs could be relegated once again to complementary role with David Montgomery, who was dominating the snap share in the Lions backfield in Week 1 and Week 2 before his injury. If Montgomery is good to go, he would become a mid-low RB2 or solid flex play against a Packers defense allowing the 9th most fantasy points to the position through three weeks. As for Gibbs, there’s a chance that his usage continues to trend in the right direction, but any movement towards dominating the backfield will be gradual with Montgomery healthy and not an overnight phenomenon.

• Christian Watson said that he’s planning to make his 2023 debut Thursday against the Lions

  • After three long weeks of speculation about his return only to have him sit out each contest, Watson looks to be on track to make his first on-field appearance of the season. The Packers have been cautious in their approach to getting Watson back in the starting lineup, which should allow him to be as close to 100% on Thursday night as possible. While we have yet to see what the target distribution will look like with Watson in the lineup, there’s reason to be optimistic about his potential right out of the gate considering the high level of play Jordan Love has treated us to through three weeks. His return should pay dividends not only to his fantasy managers, but also the entire Packers offense as a whole – specifically the passing game, which is already off to a great start.

• BUY QB Trevor Lawrence, JAX

  • I don’t buy the Jaguars struggles on offense so far this season, because it’s even more talented than the one we saw last year and Doug Pederson is still the head coach. Trevor Lawrence was supposed to be a Top 6 or 7 fantasy quarterback right off the gun, but he’s dragging his feet. That’s going to make it easy to buy a premium quarterback on a stacked offense. The Jaguars are one of the more pass-heavy teams in the league according to Fantasy Life’s dropbacks over expectation stat, and they’ve had two tough matchups these past two weeks against a stingy Chiefs defense and a Texans unit that largely kept Lamar Jackson in check. This is a guy that threw for 13 touchdowns in a five game span against just one pick last year, and I think we’ll see more of him soon enough.

• BUY RB Breece Hall, Jets

  • He’s slowly watching his workload get increased, but nobody is noticing because they can’t take their eyes off of Zach Wilson in a tailspin. What’s that going to do when the quarterback situation is a mess on any team? It’s going to drive the price way down on every other asset in that offense. And the great thing about Breece Hall is he’s still not producing at a startable level - but I bet he will. I don’t know how much longer the Zach Wilson project is going to continue, but it looks like he’s getting one more shot under center even with Trevor Siemian signing with the team yesterday. The buy window is so wide open with Breece as long as Wilson is the starter, and that might not be much longer. Hall saw his snaps jump from 32% in Weeks 1 and 2 to 48% in Week 3, and his route participation is up from 19% to 28% in that same time span. He’s only going to get healthier, he’s got two back to back week-losing performances – swoop in and rescue him like a prisoner of war and wait for the changing of the mantle at QB in New York. Hall’s stock will explode.

  BUY WR Zay Flowers, BAL

  • He’s seen his production cool off after a really strong debut in Week 1, but the utilization for Flowers is exactly what we were calling for all offseason. He’s clearly the No. 1 target in this offense, even ahead of Mark Andrews at this point in the season thanks to a 30% target share. He’s got two double-digit target games already and two games with eight or more receptions – and he ran a route on 100% of dropbacks last week. He’s the only Ravens receiver so far to average over 90% route participation and 25% or higher targets per route run. His aDOT is pretty low, which could be a concern, but in a three game sample size, I’m willing to bet on the talent when the opportunity looks as good as it does. The Ravens took him in the first round to use him, and that’s all we’ve seen them do so far. Plus, it won’t take a titanic offer to get him on your squad since he’s produced like a WR3, so go and get him before he separates himself even further.

  BUY TE Darren Waller, NYG

  • Rule number one of the Giants offense: there is no such thing as a fantasy relevant wide receiver. This has held true through the first three weeks of the season: Isaiah Hodgins has the highest weekly fantasy finish as the WR32 in week 2. That’s where Darren Waller comes in. I’ve seen a lot of people panicking on Waller and people asking the “hard questions” about whether or not it was a mistake to draft him as high as he was going in drafts, but we’re three weeks into the season guys. Two of his matchups were against 49ers and Cowboys, and one of them was in the pouring rain. In the one fair weather game he’s played in this year, he finished as the TE4 on the week. He’s also got a hold of a 20% target share and a 28% air yards share, which will both get it done at tight end in today’s fantasy football landscape. The schedule from here for the Giants is also a lot better with Seattle and Miami on tap in their next two games.

• SELL WR Adam Thielen

  • This is the second week in a row I’ve had Adam Thielen on my sell list. But Zach, he was a sell last week and he just put up 30 points with Andy Dalton at QB. And that’s exactly the problem right there. Bryce Young has started two games, and Thielen is averaging ten points a game with him under center. He’s also got just an 18% target share in those two games. If Andy Dalton were starting the rest of the way, I’d be tempted to take him off the sell list - but the Panthers aren’t turning their backs on the first overall pick in the draft in two games because of an ankle injury. There’s no scenario where Bryce Young is benched this season because Carolina went into this season with the understanding that he’s going to be the guy long term. Andy Dalton might finish a game here or there, but Young is going to be the quarterback the majority of the time, and that means the Panthers offense is going to be pretty ugly until they can get it figured out. Thielen’s at peak value right now and you can flip him for a much more reliable WR2 like Michael Pittman Jr. or even a running back if you need one.

Don’t be discouraged by Rams RB Kyren Williams’ first sub-par performance of 2023 on Monday night. Despite the modest scoring output (8.5 PPR points), Williams continued to check some very important boxes when it comes to utilization in the Rams offense that should have fantasy managers excited.

Williams logged a 100% snap share in Week 3 - meaning he didn’t come off the field once against the Bengals. Not only that, but Williams earned 17 total opportunities on the night, seven of which were targets through the air. He now has 17 targets over the past two weeks since Cam Akers has been out of the lineup, and he’s looking every bit like the workhorse back we all dreamed Akers would be.

The quiet day in the box score isn’t exclusively the fault of Williams, but his 28% catch rate (2/7 catches on targets) prevented him from capitalizing on a negative game script towards the end of the game. Matthew Stafford also threw two interceptions on a night where the Rams mustered just one late touchdown, so it follows that Williams wouldn’t be lighting up his game log with another high point total this week. The moral of the story here is that Williams has worked his way up to a 100% snap share in just three weeks, and that will allow him to be a valuable contributor to all fantasy rosters, whether he’s started in the RB1, RB2, or FLEX spot.