Everything You Know About Fantasy Football Just Changed

Week four was the craziest week in fantasy football yet. And a lot just happened. In fact, a lot just changed due to injuries, players breaking out, and a whole lot more. We're going to get into it in this video because everything you know about fantasy football just changed.

And we have to start with by far the biggest injury of the week, potentially the biggest injury of the entire season, a first round fantasy pick, and first round pick, Malik Neighbors. It seems like he is suspected to have torn his ACL. This is going to be confirmed maybe by the time that you're watching this.

According to Sports MD analysis on Twitter, he watched the video. He said the foot is planted in the turf. The knee bends inward, internally rotates, and has a sudden jolt. If it is an ACL, yes, the artificial turf does contribute to the risk here, right? So, there's obviously the debate about the turf going on in MetLife. Odell Beckham Jr. called it Death Life Stadium. This is all very sad news, but here's what it means for you and your fantasy teams. It means that Malik Neighbors is likely done for the season. So, right now, you need some sort of contingency contingency production. And this is the rest of the wide receivers in the Giants receiving room.

Now, let's be very clear here. Nobody is going to replace in your lineup right now. Malik Neighbors, you spent a top 12, top, possibly even top 10 overall pick on him in your fantasy draft. So, your lineup at this point is pretty banged, but you have to do something. And the biggest possible players that can fill in here are these two guys right here, Wandell Robinson and Darius Slayton. The priority for me, if I'm trying to pick somebody up, whether you had Neighbors or not, who's going to see the biggest bulk in terms of production to me is Wandell Robinson. Partially because we already saw the upside that he can have a couple of weeks back. Eight catches, 142 yards, and a touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys. Though that was the Cowboys defense. That was Russell Wilson. Now a totally different quarterback is back there in Daniel Jones. And Daniel Jones, the rookie, if you watch this game in week four, it's not like a traditional NFL offense. It's kind of like a college offense. A lot of RPO, some quicker, shorter passes sprinkled in with deeper looks that fits better for Wandell Robinson. Robinson in a not the exact same, but somewhat similar offense a year ago where Daniel Jones was there for a while. Was top 10 in the NFL on targets with 140. Ideally, ideally, he sees this type of target volume, eight targets per game with Daniel Jones, except a little bit more downfield because last year Daniel Jones or last year Wandell Robinson was only seeing his average target 4.8 yards downfield. Barely better than a check down to a running back most of the time, right? So, here's the thing. Wandell Robinson should be the priority. Obviously, you're not replacing Malik Neighbors, and it was terrible that that happened. And if you took him in the first round of your draft, hopefully hopefully you hit on a Jonathan Taylor in the second round or a third round Jaxon Smith-Njigba, maybe both of them, so your team still has some firepower.

The other option here who's going to be cheaper and more widely available in your leagues is going to be Darius Slayton. Darius Slayton is somebody who has been an NFL pro now this past week for a while now. He's been successful at keeper resigning and because he's been so good. Three catches, 44 yards, led the team. Nothing to write home about, right? But again, this was a game where you end up losing your star wide receiver midway through. Darius Slayton in his career has always been pretty solid as like a number two or three on a team. Multiple 700-yard seasons, 70-plus targets in three straight years. Now he's going to have to step up in a big way. Do I think he's going to consistently go out there and earn seven to 10 targets and produce? No. Do I think he has the upside to have some of these hundred-yard games here and there? Yes. So, when it comes down to it, I would be ranking at it Wandell Robinson, then Darius Slayton. And honestly, nothing else really stands out here. Like, we did see Theo Johnson get involved. He had a 30% target share once once Malik Neighbors left this game from the rookie Daniel Jones. A lot of short quick passes. So, maybe that's something that you can hang your hat on. But again, are you going to be starting him in your tight end spot expecting elite production? No.

Now, the next story that we have to talk about because this is definitely changing the fantasy football landscape is Jerome Ford. Jerome Ford, a lot of people a lot of you ended up getting him in I mean I don't even know maybe the waiver wire maybe he wasn't drafted because of people not thinking he was going to play this year due to the legal issues and those were some really serious concerns. Well, right now he is everything and really like the only thing about this Browns offense that is even fun watching and producing. You remember back in week two they said Ford was going to play but he was going to be on a 12 snap limit. He only played 25% of the snaps. But even in that week two we saw some nice glimpses. He saw 48% of the rush attempts. He was already operating in week two while playing just 25% of the snaps as their lead back. He had 10 carries for 61 yards, leading the backfield in carries, leading the backfield in yardage and efficiency. He had a 31-yard run late in that game against a Ravens defense that we now know is not that great of a defense. Overall, that's a Ravens Baltimore team that you saw in week four against the Chiefs that is very banged up right now. So, it left some people questioning after week two, well, like maybe it was just the matchup. He had a 30-yard run in garbage time. Let's see what he does in week three against the Packers. Well, he came out in week three against the Packers and he took full control of his backfield. He played 58% of the snaps, right? So, he loses some snaps for passing down work, but 95% of the backfield carries. Only Dylan, the only other running back to see a carry in week three against the Packers, he saw one. What did this amount to? 18 carries for 94 yards. He included a reception in this game for Jerome Ford. He ended up finding the end zone as well. So, now he's starting to look like a legit workhorse back, a running back that rest of season you can start to project out as easily a top 20 running back. And now the question is, how high is he going to get? And how close will he get to the top 10? Well, after week four, it's pretty hard not to think he's a top 12 running back the rest of the season because in week four, he plays 39 out of a possible 67 snaps. So, his snaps go up once again in this game. And once again, he commands the backfield touches. 21 carries for 82 yards in a game where they absolutely were trailing and getting blown out. They still had him fed him 20-plus carries. The only other running backs to touches, Jerome Ford with one carry, Dylan with one carry, Ford found the end zone in this game as well. And now this is two straight games of very strong workhorse production of 20-plus overall opportunities and touches and finding the end zone. And as you can see from Ryan Heath's tweet right here, the Browns trailed for almost the entire final three quarters of this game. Despite that, Ford 21 of 23 backfield carries and 11 12% target share was a season high. So thus a career-high for him and top five through the early games in week four. Uh 18.8 weighted opportunities. Now, this is a guy that I'm very, very terrified of because we have this small two-game sample now of him looking like a legit top 10 runner in the NFL, like the new age Browns Nick Chubb here. And it looks like he has absolutely no competition because the past two weeks he's seen 40 carries and the combination of Dylan and Jerome Ford has seen three total in the past two weeks. However, we still know what this team is. This team literally just got blown out this past week. They're very close, in my opinion, to pulling the plug on Joe Flacco at this point, right? He's not winning you games. He's not really doing much for you out there at this point. And that's where you're going to start to probably get in order. Dylan Gabriel, we saw him in week four in garbage time a little and Shedeur Sanders maybe at some point this season. And when those guys take over, like it's not a good offense right now and Ford is producing, but how much can you really produce if they put Dylan Gabriel behind center in who knows one, two, three weeks from now and then all the defenses have to do is load the box against Jerome Ford, who's also not a pass-catching running back? Like although he's been seeing these 20 carries per game the last two weeks, he's not seeing any of the passing down role for the most part. That's all going to Jerome Ford right now. So, I will definitely say that these past two weeks, especially this past week, Ford looks like a borderline top 10 running back in the NFL. He looks fantastic, but it is just a small two-game sample, and this overall offensive environment around him is very thin and very disgusting. It will be easy for defenses to take him away if they want to moving forward.

Now, the next situation takes us to another rookie running back, and that's going to be a trend in this video because a lot of the rookies are starting to break out. Everybody was panicked after two weeks, but now we're good to go. And Amariyon Hampton is another one of those rookies because he has officially arrived. Now remember the first two games of the year, 78% of the snaps, 66% of the snaps, but absolutely no production for Amariyon Hampton, the RB32, the RB53, and everybody was scared, everybody was worried, and for good reason. You spent an early second or or late second or early third round pick on this guy, and he wasn't producing for you right away. But he also had some difficult matchups, right? He had the Chiefs on opening night in his first ever game in overseas, right? It's just a weird situation. Now, you get here in week three, Naji Harris goes down with a torn Achilles, 19 carries for Amariyon Hampton. He has 70 yards in this game. He finds the end zone, but more importantly gets activated as a receiver. Six catches, 59 yards in this game as well. Has an absolute blow-up fantasy performance where he's a top 10 running back, top five running back on the entire week. And now heading into week four, there's no Naji Harris. There's really no backfield competition. They don't sign anybody. It's all going to be the Amariyon Hampton show in theory. He goes from playing 79% of the snaps in week three when Naji Harris left with that torn Achilles. He then comes out here in week four and what happens immediately? He loses Joe Alt. He loses an offensive lineman who is believed to have suffered a high ankle sprain, average three-week recovery according to Sports MD analysis. This is pretty terrible. You lose your Rashawn Slater to start the season. Now you're losing Joe Alt. Two best pieces on this offensive line are now not out there in week four. So what the heck are we going to do if you're the Chargers? Well, the Chargers just said screw it and they continue to lean in a very good matchup against the Giants on the run. And what happens in this game? Amariyon Hampton explodes. He has this massive gain right here. And many times in this game, he shows off his speed, which was kind of an underrated part of his game as you can see right there. Shows off his speed for a 60-yard touchdown. He also showed off his hands in this game. He was breaking tackles left and right. He looked like vintage UNCC mega producer Amariyon Hampton. Now, he only had 12 carries. He made the most of them. Average over 10 yards per carry, 128 yards. A lot of that came on that 60-yard touchdown run. But once again, he gets activated as a receiver. Five catches, 37 yards in this game. He now has 11 receptions in back-to-back games. And if Joe Alt is not going to be out there for the next two to three to four weeks, you don't have Rashawn Slater this year, your offensive line is not going to be as efficient running the ball, you might get these checkdown performances of five catches for 37 yards more often. And in your PPR formats, if your running back is getting you anywhere near four to five receptions for positive yardage, that is an absolute bonus code, right? Or cheat code. He's basically getting you an extra one and a half rushing touchdowns if your name is like Derrick Henry that you just don't get activated as a receiver. Amariyon Hampton is. In week four, he totaled 56 snaps. The next closest running backs were Hassan Haskins with five, Kamani Vidal with three. So obviously he's the workhorse running back here. And when you look forward at the schedule coming up right now for Hampton, it's going to start to clear up. He gets a matchup against the Commanders at home, that's a solid matchup. A matchup on the road against the Dolphins is solid. A matchup at home against the Colts. Solid matchup. Vikings defense that just gave up a career-high game of over 100 total yards to Kenneth Gainwell. Titans defense and then a Steelers defense that looks very thin right now. Moving forward, Amariyon Hampton has one of the best schedules the next month and a half of the season and he's already being unlocked for these 20-plus point fantasy days. He is a massive winner right now. If you have him on your team and you survive the first two weeks, uh uh good for you because things are only looking up. If you want to see where I have Amariyon Hampton ranked this week in my top 50 overall rankings completely free, you can check it out with the link in the description below or you can head to fantasyrankingsfree.com. You enter your email and I send you the top 50 overall rankings. This is the page that you'll be sent to to enter your email. Just be sure to check your spam and promotional folders as well. Now, if you did want my top 150 overall rankings, especially right now for this type of a video early in the week, if you wanted my waiver wire tiers, top 40 waiver wire tiers, fab budget requirements and recommendations, and a whole lot more. All of those tools and access to me to ask me questions one-on-one are in the fantasy blueprint. You can check it out with the link in the description below to learn more, or just type in jointheblueprint.com to join 10,000 other people currently using the fantasy blueprint to win their leagues.

All right, the next story that we have to talk about because things are changing in fantasy is Xavier Worthy. Xavier Worthy was a hyped-up player because Rashee Rice's suspension heading into the season, but in week one after playing just three snaps, he ended up injuring his shoulder. There were concerns that he would miss the entire season. But that was not the case. He came back just a couple weeks later and returned in week four against the Ravens. Now, the reports claimed that Xavier Worthy before the game told Kadarius Toney like, "No, I'm not going to be limited. If I'm out there, I'm doing every single thing." And he literally did every single thing for this team. Not only did Worthy come right back and lead the team in targets and receiving with five catches for 83 yards and make uh contested catches and take hits with that shoulder and he ended up being fine it seems right now, he also led the team in in rushing. Two carries, 38 yards, right? He had the big rush in this game. So, he goes for over a hundred total yards, 120 or so yards total in his return in a matchup that it looks like the Ravens are not a great defense this year, but it was good to see that Xavier Worthy held up and more importantly, all they needed was this guy back. They get Worthy back and the Chiefs offense goes out there and they absolutely produce. They score 37 points and basically this game was over by like the third quarter when Lamar Jackson gets hurt. 30 points through three quarters in this game for the Chiefs offense. They're going to get Rashee Rice back in now three weeks. He could only help to move the chains and sustain offense which is going to help everybody on this team including Xavier Worthy. And he looked like the Xavier Worthy of old. He played all the snaps in this game. Worthy last year to end the season was a top 10 wide receiver down the stretch. If you look at Ryan Heath's tweet right here over his last seven full games including the playoffs, look at the target shares for Xavier Worthy. These are all without Rashee Rice. 27 and a half, 27, 24, 27, 25 and then today was 22%. So all he's doing right now is earning targets in games that are probably even closer and that the Chiefs and Mahomes have to throw into the fourth quarter. You're probably going to see even bigger games for Worthy who wasn't as involved in that fourth quarter for obvious reasons coming back from a shoulder injury with a high re-injury rate. Why have him out there when you're up by 20 points? The rest of season, Worthy looks really good. I do think if you're in like a very serious league and you have the ability to maybe make some moves, Xavier Worthy could be a sell high right now. Like don't get me wrong, I know you've been waiting all year to have him back in your lineups, but Rashee Rice is coming back in 3 weeks. Xavier Worthy does have a high re-injury risk the rest of the season for his shoulder that it is very easy for it to dislocate it again. And if it does, he's probably going to require season-ending surgery. So, I'm not trying to sell low on it. Xavier Worthy here, but I do think it's like the perfect scenario off of a 100-yard game, the best the Chiefs have looked all year, and Rashee Rice is lurking in the background 3 weeks away to maybe just test the market on what people think of Worthy, especially maybe they're the team right now in your league that's like one and three or god forbid 0 and 4.

I mentioned that rookie running backs are going to be a trend in this video. We got another one here because finally Ashton Dulin breaks out. I can't tell you how many people in the fantasy blueprint on social media over on Patreon are have been saying like, "What do I do with Dulin? Do I sell him?" And every single trade offer they're getting is like selling Ashton Dulin for a bag of potato chips. No, wait for Ashton Dulin to have a breakout game. It's been just three games. And finally, in week four, we got the breakout game. 100 21 carries for 138 yards. Oh, but he did not stop there. Two catches, 17 yards, and two touchdowns in this game. He also had a season-high in terms of target share as well with about a 10% target share. Ashton Dulin, everybody's judging him off his first three games where the Raiders offensive line looks terrible. They finally hold up a decent amount in this game and he goes for 150 total yards and three touchdowns. Like remember how everybody was panicking? Ashton Dulin 144 rushing yards this year entering week four before the week four game 145 after contact so 101% of his yards have come after contact this year right he was getting no blocking at all what does he get in this game he gets some blocking he gets some blocking right here as what does he do he usually breaks tackles picks up all his yards technically after contact here looks like one of the better running backs looks like college running back Ashton Dulin but I will say I will say this is definitely the sell moment if you were somebody messaging me the past two weeks especially this past week and you were concerned about Ashton Dulin being on your team trying to sell him. You don't sell somebody when they have no production. You sell them off of a high game like this one. 150 yards and three touchdowns because he was facing the Bears, arguably the worst defense in the NFL. Now, the good news here is that Ashton Dulin, as you can see from Ryan Heath, his backfield carry share did increase. He was having elite usage, 90%, 85% the first two weeks. Last week, he saw significant touches taken away from him in key moments. 68% of the backfield carries back up to 84% this week. He's still losing snaps. Like last week, he was losing snaps for most part in passing down situations. So, that's a concern. But if you want to trade Ashton Dulin, and if after this performance, you're probably like, "Oh, my first round pick actually looks good. Maybe I don't want to." But if you want to, now is literally the time. He's coming off of what will probably be at the end of the season and at the end of his career, one of the best games of his career, 150 yards and three touchdowns against the worst defense or bottom three defense in the league in the Chicago Bears. So, if there was ever a time to trade him, the offensive line is still an issue for him, right? He's still not going to have to or he's still not going to get a lot of block yards for him. He's going to have to break tackles just like he did on that 60-yard touchdown in week four. So, if you want to trade the guy, now's the time to do so. In my leagues, I'd probably be shopping for some offers.

The next story that's going to change fantasy football is Chris Godwin finally returns after being a top two wide receiver in fantasy the first seven weeks of last year before dislocating and having a plenty of other injuries that went along with that. He returns finally in week four. And honestly, it was good to see Chris Godwin out there. And it was good to see Chris Godwin going out there. And immediately, he only has three catches for 26 yards. That doesn't look great. But he ended up having a team-high tied with A.J. Brown 10 targets for in this game. Now again just 26 yards and four fantasy points. He didn't look as crisp out there. He missed like a toe tap on the sideline. He was off on a couple of plays with Baker Mayfield, but this is to be expected. The guy has literally not played professional football in 11 months and he's coming off of a very serious injury. Sure, there's going to be some rust. I mean, people didn't think he was going to play until maybe week seven or week eight. He's coming back before that timeline. Give the guy a break. But it is good to see that he had that volume out there with Mike Evans still probably going to miss I would say at least another two to three weeks and not even be 100% once he returns. Godwin should still see this volume moving forward. Hopefully get ramped up more. Now Godwin in this game did play on the outside a lot which is a concern. Like I don't want to see Chris Godwin on the outside in three wide receiver sets with Sterling Shepard in the slot and A.J. Brown on the outside. Godwin had all of his success last year out of the slot mostly for Liam Coen. So hopefully that changes some moving forward. But honestly, at the end of the day, Godwin's not going to be the Godwin of last year because of this injury, his age, and also because of A.J. Brown is emerging pretty easily now through four weeks of the season as the healthiest wide receiver and the youngest on this team as a first-round pick. And he's just producing four catches, 101 yards, and a touchdown in this game. Now, I will say when you watch his touchdown, and let's bring it up right here, like these are some fluky type plays. Like this should have been an interception. It's just a bad play by the quarterback. Baker should not be throwing this ball. This should be a pick right there. But Baker throws it. He gets a little bit lucky, right? and it ends up going for a 77-yard touchdown to A.J. Brown. Just so happens to be Brown on the receiving end of that one. But if you're out there, you're getting open downfield enough and your quarterback trusts you, he's going to throw some balls that a quarterback overshoots just barely and jumps a little bit too early and misses the interception on and then you get a touchdown. And this is an offense that's going to pass the ball. Entering week four, Baker was averaging the 11th most pass attempts per game, the second most deep attempts that only went up, as you could just see based on that last catch in that game. We'll also show one later on about Bucky Irving having another deep catch down the sideline for a long touchdown. So moving forward, it looks like we're a quarter of the way through the season. Even without Godwin being healthy and Mike Evans for the whole season, this Bucs offense looks completely fine, similar to how it did last year. And a big reason why A.J. Brown, who just continues to be a player that you want to hold on to if you get the right offer, right? If you get some sort of package deal for Cooper Kupp or Amon-Ra St. Brown, sure, send him away. But as of right now, if you have him, the story here for the Bucs is that he just continues to be their first-round wide receiver, one of the best wide receivers in football right now. We can't say that about Laquan Treadwell who the thought was entering the year he would be one of the best wide receivers. But that connection with Justin Herbert that ended in 2024 is not the case right now. Right. This is a guy who to start this season. Okay. In the first game on Friday night in Brazil, it was nice. Six catches, 74 yards. That's nice against the Chiefs. Top 24 performance. If he scores a touchdown in that game, you're looking at one of the best performances on the week. But then the following two weeks, wide receiver 47 on five targets. Wide receiver 46 on just four targets. And this is where the panic started. I've been getting a lot of questions. Laquan Treadwell was my second-round pick or my early third-round pick. What do I do with Laquan Treadwell? And as I've been saying, just like with Ashton Dulin, you hold on to them and some unless somebody overpays, which is unlikely until they have a breakout performance. But unlike Ashton Dulin, Laquan Treadwell did not have a breakout performance. He had just one catch for 11 yards. And this is starting to become a big issue because look at this man right here. Quentin Johnston again comes out here for the fourth straight game and shows that he is the wide receiver one on the Chargers. Eight catches, 98 yards, a touchdown, making legit big boy catches downfield, being trusted by Justin Herbert downfield, and running those important intermediate to deep routes that lead to a lot of fantasy production. It might sound crazy for me to come on these airways and say for the second straight week now, we declared this last week that Quentin Johnson is the wide receiver one of the Chargers, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. But that's just the facts right now. And it's not just based off of one or two games. It's now based off of four games where he looks like the wide receiver one. He's running those routes. He's the first read the majority of the time. And right now just the connection between Laquan Treadwell and Keenan Allen and Justin Herbert isn't there. You're getting Quentin Johnson coming out here so far leading the team by over 120 yards in receiving. Leading the team in targets. He has two less receptions than Keenan Allen, but those receptions on average are way further down the field. 15.3 yards per catch compared to just 10. I'd rather have two less receptions, right, and have that type of production. So again, we're a quarter of the way through the season. I know how good Laquan Treadwell was last year and how bad Quentin Johnston was the past one and a half to two years in terms of his hands, but that's just not the same offense that we're looking at right now. It's Quentin Johnson being the one. If we redrafted today, Laquan Treadwell would not be a second-round pick. He would not be a third-round pick. Laquan Treadwell, if we redrafted today, would probably be like a sixth or seventh-round pick and Quentin Johnson would be a fifth or a sixth-round pick. If we look at the target share right now, third on the team is Laquan Treadwell. Significantly behind Keenan Allen, Quentin Johnston. I mean, if you even look at the tight ends at this point, like 10 targets for Gerald Everett and and that's factoring in that Everett hasn't really taken advantage until the last couple of weeks. Like over these last two weeks, Gerald Everett Jr. or Everett the second has more targets than Laquan Treadwell. Like that's a small sample that's going to change the rest of the season, but there's some serious concerns with Laquan Treadwell right now. This is not the guy we saw the final 10 games of last year where according to the RotoViz game splits tool, he was averaging 17.8 fantasy points per game on seven targets per game. 88 receiving yards per game the final 10 games of last year. We're talking about a guy in the playoffs who had 190 receiving yards or something like that in a touchdown. The most ever for a rookie wide receiver in their playoff debut and he was like getting 15 targets when everybody else on the team was getting two targets, right? Sadly, it's just not the case this year. Moving forward, you have to hold Laquan Treadwell. No one's going to give you proper value for him. Now, if you are 0 and 4 in a league or one and three, and a big reason for that is because you had Laquan Treadwell and hopefully you didn't take like Malik Neighbors in the first round. But if that's the case, well, try and get some sort of package deal to move Laquan Treadwell. You're not selling him for peanuts. You could look at the rest of season rankings in my fantasy blueprint, the top 150 rest of season rankings to get proper value for him. But see if you can make a move because I don't think this is changing. He might have a blowup game next week for six catches, 80 yards, and a touchdown. But for the rest of the season, Quentin Johnson is a big piece of this offense.

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Okay, the next story we have to talk about is that Travis Etienne, it's just not a fluke at this point, right? Like it's not a fluke just like it's not a fluke for Quentin Johnson through four weeks like what we talked about with Laquan Treadwell. It's not a fluke when Travis Etienne is the clear number one running back on his team. when he goes for another 120-plus yards when he once again has a massive nearly 50-yard touchdown in a game and a nice 50-yard touchdown at that against a good a good I know they didn't have Bosa in this game he got hurt Nick Bosa a good San Francisco 49ers run defense so far to this season at least in defensive line Travis Etienne once again goes out there looks like the clear RB1 19 carries just four for Tank Bigsby no other running back sees a touch Etienne would go on to add a reception in this game as well so I know Tank Bigsby was traded like entering week two uh Tank's getting all the hype in the world. Everybody loves Tank Bigsby. This is Travis Etienne's backfield and he's literally not looking back anytime soon. Like he's not giving up this backfield. He looks legit damn good on film right now. In this game, Travis Etienne goes out there. If we scroll down, 41 snaps out of a possible 68. So, we seeing commanding 60% of the snaps, just 16 for Tank Bigsby and just 12 for Laquan Allen in this game. If you want to look at it at this point, it reminds me a lot of 2023 Travis Etienne when he was a top 10 fantasy running back. He had a thousand rushing yards that year. He had nearly 500 receiving yards. He was easily top 10 in total yardage, 1,500 total yards. He had 58 receptions. Like everything looks like that right now. This entire passing attack is disgusting, right? Trevor Lawrence finally has a big play, but that was basically all he did. Brian Thomas Jr. doesn't look like he's connecting at all with Trevor Lawrence in this offense. Parker Washington looked okay on like a kickoff return. Diami Brown is injured. Your most consistent receiver right now is your tight end Brenton Strange. They are leaning on Travis Etienne. And we know Liam Coen like he did in Tampa last year, can scheme up a good rushing offense. And speaking of Liam Coen, another story is that his former running back, Bucky Irving, finally broke out in week number four. Now, we came on here last week and we said that Bucky Irving, if you could potentially buy low on him, is a buy low right now because his usage is elite. He's playing unbelievable amount of snaps compared to last year. We just haven't gotten that big blow-up game yet, but we just got it in week four and the buy low window has officially closed because in week four, Bucky Irving, look, he's not overly efficient, 4.2 yards per carry, but yet again, 15 carries compared to just six for Rachaad White in this game. But then you scroll down, the big one, leads the team in receiving. Leads the team in rushing and receiving in week four. Five catches, 102 yards, touchdown. So he totals in this game like 150 total yards. He comes out here, he has this massive scramble drill touchdown. That was probably my favorite play on the entire week uh in week four. If you look at this one right here, catch and run. Bucky Irving kind of breaks a tackle, goes to the end zone for the rest of it on a scramble drill. Part of this why it was a fun play, at least I would say, is because it was right around that time around the four o'clock window starting and a lot of the games started to get crazy. And just watching Baker Mayfield do crazy things is is a lot of fun to me. Entering this game, Bucky Irving was unreal usage. This is why we said he was a buy low, top 10 in the in opportunity share, 76% of his team's backfield opportunities. 73% of the snaps. Last year, this number was 45%. Right? So, he's seeing 30% more of the snaps this year. He's going from being like a part-time running back last year to now being the full-on workhorse running back. We're no longer concerned or hoping that he sees 12 to 14 touches in a game. He's literally seeing that weekly now. 15 carries, five receptions. Coming off of a week last year where he saw 20-plus opportunities as well, right? Bucky Irving is the guy like in this game. His receiving yards total was 22 and a half. We took that obviously cleared on that big reception, 100-plus total yards receiving. But Bucky moving forward, here's the way you have to think of him. Heading into week four, my rest of season top 150 rankings. You can check it out in the fantasy blueprint at joinblueprint.com. He was my number 12 overall player. number 12, not RB12, number 12. If we redrafted today, Bucky would have been in the first round for me. Now, obviously, after he goes out and scores nearly 30 fantasy points, that's only going to continue or even move up. Bucky Irving is the same tier player right now to me in my opinion as Christian McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor, Bijan Robinson. Then it's Bucky Irving before Saquon Barkley at this point. For me, that might sound crazy, but that's the production we're getting in the role that we're getting right now. And he's actually catching passes while Saquon isn't as much.

Okay. Okay, now the next opportunity we have to talk about or the next storyline is that Jaylen Warren was a surprising factor for a lot of people and we had our first overseas game over in Ireland. Uh so this was a problem for a lot of people trying to wake up especially if you were like on the west coast and you just kind of missed that Jaylen Warren was out of lineups and in this game Kenneth Gainwell was going to be playing and if Kenneth Gainwell was on your bench this week and you had any hope or any thoughts of even playing him if you were awake this one was a dagger because he goes out there and just happens to have a career game. 99 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Sees 19 carries compared to just six for the rookie Caleb Johnson. They do not trust Caleb Johnson at all right now. Then he catches six passes, 35 yards as well. So in this game, you're getting 130 total yards. You're getting 25 touches, uh, six receptions, multiple touchdowns, a career game for over 30 fantasy points. He was a top five scorer on the week. Now, I will say moving forward, I'm not too sure that that's going to be the usage that we always get. Though the fact that you just saw that he has the capability of doing that maybe leads to a little bit more usage for Kenneth Gainwell once Jaylen Warren returns. And now there's a pretty good chance Jaylen Warren returns soon. The Steelers go on bye in week five. So in week six, I assume he'll be back in time for a pretty tough matchup against the Browns. Pretty tough matchup against Although now the Packers matchup doesn't look all that tough. J.K. Dobbins had a nice game. 40 points given up on Sunday Night Football. But moving forward, they have some nice matchups, multiple matchups against the division rival, the Bengals, which will be nice. So at the end of the day, Kenneth Gainwell after this performance shouldn't be on many 12-team format waiver wires. It just he shouldn't be at this point until we get more news on Jaylen Warren. And the fact that he's working well ahead of Caleb Johnson who had just six carries for 22 yards in a game where the starting running back wasn't active. You're still not seeing them trust him to give him more usage. Well, I mean, I guess he had zero carries last week, so I guess six carries is way more usage, right? But needless to say, don't be blowing your waiver wire budget on Kenneth Gainwell, but in 12-team formats, he needs to be on your bench because of this type of performance. Ryan Heath sums it up pretty nicely here. As a whole, the Steelers backfield is absurdly valuable. He basically would go on to say they're getting 26.8 weighted opportunities per game. that would have ranked second in the NFL last year only behind the 49ers. So Arthur Smith is loving to run the ball right now. The Aaron Rodgers play action game to DK Metcalf and Calvin Austin has been working and the run has been setting it up nicely.

Now the next story we have to talk about is what will George Pickens look like now that CeeDee Lamb is not there? Will all the defensive attention go his way? Will he only be used as an outside boundary receiver and not be used in the slot or anything? Well, we got our answer in an overtime thriller against a Texans that ended in a tie, unfortunately. I mean, I hate that those games end in ties. I want to see a winner for that much production, right? Eight catches, 134 yards, two touchdowns, and you got the entire George Pickens experience in this game. You got George Pickens making an insane contested catch. They then even moved him right before the half into the slot where he had a touchdown right before halftime. You had him making clear drops. You had him getting frustrated and looking like he was going to erupt at any second. And then you had him going at the end and getting a go-ahead touchdown, breaking tackles, scoring a touchdown, showboating, all these things. It was the full George Pickens experience. And as somebody who stayed up until midnight to watch the end of this game and then had to get up at 4:00 a.m. to film this video right here, um, it gave me energy. It gave me energy that somehow I got a full night's sleep on just four hours of sleep because of that game and the things George Pickens was doing in this game. He led the team as you would expect, playing 62 snaps, led the team in routes run, had twice as many targets as any other wide receiver here. Like Jaylen Tolbert comes through with a huge catch in the fourth quarter or in overtime of that game. Should have ended up leading to a win, but they had to settle for a field goal. Six targets. So that's what we talked about last week in terms of Jaylen Tolbert. If you lost CeeDee Lamb and you needed a replacement for a month, I guess pick up Jaylen Tolbert. This team's going to throw 35-plus times per game and maybe he'll make a big play like he did in week four. But now moving forward, I mean, until CeeDee Lamb returns, and even once he returns, like George Pickens is is a borderline top 12 wide receiver in fantasy football. I mean, he has three straight weeks of at least 17 fantasy points and a touchdown in all three. He has four touchdowns in his last three games. He's coming off of a game where he just showed he could be an alpha number one receiver against a defense that was supposedly supposed to be good. So moving forward, while CeeDee Lamb is out, Pickens is easily a top 15 fantasy receiver and probably the rest of the season he is as well.

So these are the biggest storylines coming out of week four of fantasy football. In my opinion, the craziest week in the NFL season so far and it led to a lot of things changing and because a lot of things changed like some of the stuff in this video. The waiver wire is going to be better than it usually has so far heading into week five. And you can check out once it's up on Tuesday the waiver wire video here. These are going to be the 10 players that you can add off your waiver wire to improve your team before your friends do entering week five.