Fantasy football: Start-em, sit-em players for Week 4
By Jay Marsdale
Believe it or not, most fantasy football leagues are a quarter of the way done with their regular-season schedules. If you need a win in Week 4 to stay competitive in your league, here are a few suggestions to help set your lineups this weekend.
Everything we thought we knew to start the season was a lie.
The Los Angeles Rams offense is good. The best team in New York is the Jets. The Baltimore Ravens went to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ second home in London last week, only to got blown out by over 30 points.
This season is unpredictable and crazy. Fantasy football is going to be interesting this year.
San Francisco 49ers
For fantasy football players, the unpredictability of the 2017 season could be either a gift or a curse. It makes for a difficult time setting your lineups, but if you are right, then you are set up nicely for a win on any given week. There are no more sure things in fantasy football. Well, except for the Patriots winning a lot.
Let’s take a look back at last week’s list of start-em, sit-em picks and see how we did:
Week 3 Hits: Matt Ryan (ATL) start-em, Ty Montgomery (GB) start-em, Lamar Miller (HOU) sit-em, Antonio Brown (PIT) start-em, Kyle Rudolph (MIN) sit-em.
Week 3 Misses: Carson Wentz (PHI) sit-em, Brandin Cooks (NE) sit-em, Travis Kelce (KC) start-em.
Antonio Brown was a big performer on the list for Week 3, but no other standout hits last week. Travis Kelce threw up a dud in Week 3 and Brandin Cooks was back to his New Orleans form. More big misses than hits last week. Let’s try again for better results in Week 4.
Start-em: Jared Goff (LAR) @ Dallas
Like I said in the opening, the Rams offense is good and it doesn’t look like a fluke. Running back Todd Gurley is back to his rookie-season form. Meanwhile quarterback Jared Goff looks like a completely new player in his second season.
Goff and the Rams have scored the most points in the NFL through three weeks. Anyone who said that before the start of the season would’ve been deemed insane by everyone including myself. Goff and head coach Sean McVay have something special going to start the season, and it looks to continue into Week 4.
Goff takes on Dallas this week and looks to add to an already impressive fantasy football season with another big game. The Dallas defense is one of the best he will have seen so far this season, but he looks unstoppable right now. The Rams defense and running game is there to protect Goff, and it has worked in 2017.
Goff is ranked as the 11th best fantasy football quarterback on ESPN. That is ahead of Eli Mannning, Philip Rivers and Cam Newton — all of whom I’d sit to start Goff in Week 4. He is averaging 17 fantasy points a game, and that is a reasonable amount to expect this weekend in Dallas as well.
Don’t wait for that bigger-name quarterback to hopefully turn it around. Goff and other young quarterbacks are playing better right now than ever before, and fantasy football players are being stubborn if they don’t take notice.
Other options: Andy Dalton (CIN) @ Cleveland and Ben Roethlisberger (PIT) @ Baltimore