Week 4 saw a number of undefeated teams fall and didn’t give us much to work with in terms of waiver wire fodder. That means you’ll have some tough decisions to make in terms of who you start and who you send to the pines. Let’s get to it.

Start

Austin Ekeler, Running Back, Los Angeles Chargers

The return of Melvin Gordon may have some fantasy players questioning whether they should be playing Ekeler or not. Those people are what us industry folk call “Feeble-Minded”. Ekeler has been a volume king through four weeks:

• 80 touches - 9th in the NFL
• 56 carries  - 16th
• 25 targets - 4th

The Chargers will scale back his work but the clearly view him as a three-down back and will still be getting him touches in all phases of the game. They’re also likely to ease Melvin Gordon back into the role they have planned for him, which is likely to be less than his role in previous years. Ekeler will always have a receiving floor but he still has 15+ touch upside for the next week or two.

Austin Hooper, Tight End, Atlanta Falcons

Austin Hooper is clearly good but few fantasy players realize just how good he’s been. Hooper is top-five in targets and air yards among tight ends and has scored more fantasy points (PPR) than every tight end but Evan Engram. This week he plays Houston in a game with a 48-point total. That increases his odds of scoring one or more touchdowns on top of his locked-in volume. Austin Hooper is a top-five tight end that can reasonably be started over anyone not named Travis Kelce, Zach Ertz, and Evan Engram.

Cole Beasley, Wide Receiver, Buffalo Bills

Steve the Pirate has been targeted nine or more times in three games this week and has had a floor of 40 yards. In PPR leagues, he’s yet to dip under nine points. With Matt Barkley coming in for an injured Josh Allen Beasley got even more volume. He was targeted 13 times in Week 4. 

Beasley has easily beaten out Zay Jones as the slot receiver in Buffalo. Jones has seven catches on the season while Beasley has caught that many balls in each of the past two weeks.

There no evidence to suggest that Beasley won’t continue to dominate the receiving work in Buffalo. He’s the highest-floor player sitting on the end of fantasy roster right now.

Jacoby Brissett, Quarterback, Indianapolis Colts

Brissett has done an admirable job taking over for Andrew Luck with just a few weeks of preparation knowing he’d be the team’s starter. In the past two weeks, the Colts have shown more faith in Brissett. They’ve thrown the ball 83 times over that span after letting him take to the air 55 times through the first two weeks.

This week he gets to play the Kansas City Chiefs who have allowed their opponents to throw for more than 250 yards in every game but one. Continue to plug in their opposing passers per usual with Brissett. 

Sit

Duke Johnson, Running Back, Houston Texans

Houston was supposed to unlock Duke Johnson but they've only bottled him up in the same manner that the Browns did. After Week 1, Johnson has averaged six touches per game and peaked at eight. He hasn’t hit double-digit fantasy point since his Week 1 outing with New Orleans either.

Deshaun Watson looks downfield when he scrambles—which he tends to do a lot—so Duke is eliminated on those plays. The Texans have been using Carlos Hyde as their primary rusher nullifying Duke on obvious rushing downs. The only time Duke is involved is on his limited set of manufactured touches. That hasn’t been enough to make him worth a start in fantasy this week.

Corey Davis, Wide Receiver, Tennesee Titans

Davis finally put together a good week on Sunday but don’t go chasing those points. He has a 15% target market share and a 22% market share of the Titan’s air yards. Because he had the privilege of facing a depleted Falcons defense, Davis was able to make the most of his volume. However, he is still being out-produced by rookie A.J. Brown and Delaine Walker. 

On a team that has passed the ball at the 6th-lowest rate in the league (55.8%), there’s no reason to be playing Davis.

O.J. Howard, Tight End, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Bucs passed the ball 41 times and Jameis Winston went for over 385 yards plus four scores. Still, O.J. Howard was a no-show. Cameron Brate has one less reception than Howard and one more touchdown. Howard is fourth on the Bucs in targets and air yards. 

The only thing keeping Howard in fantasy lineups at this point is the cache his name carries and owners clinging on to the draft capital they spent on him. 

It’s time to cut those ties and start playing the volume game. That means benching Howard.

Kirk Cousins, Quarterback, Minnesota Vikings

Cousins is in a sneaky bounce-back spot against the New York Giants, who have been shredded by opposing passers. However, for Cousins to actually bounce back, he’ll have to throw the football. Minnesota’s coaching staff is determined to not let him do that.

The Vikings have passed on 47.4% of their plays, a mark that would have been league-bottom last year. Their ground game has worked too. Dalvin Cook is second in the league with 410 rushing yards and has gotten there on the back of an impressive 5.8 yards per carry. 

Cousins has to score multiple times in the first half to be worth starting because the Vikings are 5.5-point favorites. They don’t project to be passing much in the second half.

That’s a leap of faith too far for any fantasy roster that can only start one quarterback.