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Which quarterbacks will shine in Week 4 for your fantasy football teams? We’ll take a look at all of them in our rankings.
Welcome to Week 4 of the NFL season. As usual, this has been a weird start to the season, with passing numbers down and rushing numbers up. Week 3 did give us some strong quarterback fantasy games though, more than we have been seeing this year. Josh Allen and Sam Darnold both threw for four touchdowns each, while Brock Purdy and Joe Burrow threw for three each. In the first two weeks there were only three games where a quarterback threw for three or more touchdowns.
It’s good to see the passing numbers start rising for some of these quarterbacks we expected to put up strong fantasy seasons. But, not everyone has hit expectations yet, as Patrick Mahomes, Anthony Richardson, C.J. Stroud, Trevor Lawrence, Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff and Caleb Williams are all outside the Top 12 in fantasy scoring so far this season.
It’s still early, but these QBs need to get to scoring some fantasy points sooner than later. But, if I’m betting on fantasy turnaround, I’m leaning Stroud, Richardson and Goff from that group. Mahomes will likely stay consistent enough to finish in the Top 10, but he’s lost most of his upside over the last couple seasons, as teams have severely slowed down Kansas City’s deep passing game.
Week 4 quarterback injuries
Skylar Thompson, Dolphins
With Too Tagovailoa on I.R. with a brain injury, Thompson started in Week 3, but was forced from the game in the third quarter with a chest injury. Thompson was not good and even if he was healthy, there would be questions as to whether he would start. But the injury does appear serious enough to take that question off the table. It looks like Tim Boyle and Tyler Huntley will compete to start this week.
Jordan Love, Packers
Love got in limited practices last week despite his knee injury, but wasn’t able to play. Week 4 seems more likely, but the Packers are notoriously cautious with injuries, and will usually sit a player if they have any question about his ability to protect himself from aggravating the injury or suffering a new one. The good news is that Malik Willis has been playing well in his stead if they want to hold Love out one more week.
Justin Herbert, Chargers
Herbert tweaked his ankle injury in Week 3 against the Steelers and didn’t finish the game as Taylor Heinicke took over late. Early reports seem to favor Herbert starting again in Week 4 in a big game against the division rival Chiefs, but nothing is set in stone yet.
Week 4 quarterback sleepers
C.J. Stroud, Texans vs. Jaguars
Will Jacksonville turn things around after a humiliating loss on Monday night to the Bills? Maybe, but they looked pretty awful giving up four touchdown passes to Josh Allen. Stroud and the Texans will look to get right after Brian Flores’ defense put them in a blender last week. A game at home against the floundering Jaguars looks like a great spot to get back on track.
Daniel Jones, Giants vs. Cowboys
After his atrocious Week 1, it looked like Jones had regressed back into the cave, but his star rookie receiver Malik Nabers has been a savior for Jones and this offense since then. Over the last two games Jones has thrown four touchdown passes, with three of those going to Nabers. This week he gets a Cowboys defense that has been suspect this season, giving up the fifth-most fantasy points to quarterback so far.
Justin Fields, Steelers at Colts
Fields has played extremely well this season, but the Steelers strong defense and the offense’s conservative play calling has made it tough for Fields to put up big fantasy games. We did see the offense have a mini-breakout last week as Fields rushed for a touchdown and connected on a long touchdown to Calvin Austin. The team also was at the Chargers goal line when they got into victory formation and kneeled out the rest of the game. The good news is that Fields continues to get rushing opportunities around the goal line and the emergence of Austin could really help the offense as a whole.
The Colts defense has not been good this season, as they let a bad Bears offense almost come from behind to beat them. Caleb Williams ended up throwing for 363 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. It was a crazy game, but the Colts defense isn’t shutting down anyone very soon.
