Every week we’ll bring you The Primer, a deep dive into every fantasy-relevant player from every NFL game of the week. You can find the Thursday Night Football Primer here. Below we dive into a few notable players ahead of Thursday’s game between the Lions and Packers.
- Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
- Waiver Wire Picks
- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Fantasy Football Outlook
Jordan Love: Love hasn’t been impressive outside of running hot with touchdowns in the first two games. Among 34 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranks 22nd in passing grade, dead last in adjusted completion rate, and has the 13th-highest turnover-worthy play rate. Detroit has been a much-improved defense this season. They have held quarterbacks to the 12th-lowest yards per attempt and seventh-lowest adjusted completion rate. Detroit has permitted the 17th-lowest fantasy points per game to quarterbacks. Love will have to turn it up to another level that we have yet to see to walk away with a standout day in Week 4. Detroit has utilized zone coverage on 62-66% of their corners snaps. Against zone, Love is 19th in passer rating with the highest turnover-worthy throw rate. Week 4 Positional Value: QB2
David Montgomery: It looks like Montgomery will be back this week. He practiced in a limited fashion on Monday and Tuesday. In the first two games of the season, Montgomery averaged 62% of the snaps played with 19 touches and 74 total yards. Montgomery ranks 12th in missed tackles forced per attempt and 26th in yards after contact per attempt (among 59 qualifying running backs). With only one target this season, his value is almost exclusively tied to early down production. The Packers’ run defense has been up and down. While they have held opposing teams to the sixth-lowest explosive run rate, they also have the fourth-lowest stuff rate and have allowed the tenth-highest yards per carry (4.67) to gap runs (Montgomery 56.8% gap). Week 4 Positional Value: low-end RB2/high-end RB3
Amon-Ra St. Brown: St. Brown looked healthy in Week 3 as he ran a route on 100% of Goff’s dropbacks with a 36.4% target share. St. Brown remains a locked-in must-play weekly. Among 124 qualifying wide receivers, he is 13th in target share and eighth in yards per route run (YPRR) as the WR13 in fantasy. St. Brown is seventh in first-read share, immediately behind Tyreek Hill. He should run circles around Keisean Nixon (90.9% catch rate and 130.7 passer rating) on 51% of his routes from the slot. The Packers have struggled to defend the deep ball again this season with the sixth-worst passer rating and adjusted completion rate allowed to passes of 20 yards or more. St. Brown leads the team with five deep targets. Week 4 Positional Value: WR1
Sam LaPorta: LaPorta is body-bagging every rookie tight end narrative. Among 47 qualifying tight ends, he ranks third in target share (21.4%), second in TPRR (tied), and first in YPRR. Yes, I said first in YPRR. LaPorta has been carving out a larger role weekly. His target shares weekly have been 14.3%>17.1%>33.3%. His first read share has followed suit as well, going from 12.0%>5.6%>33.3%. LaPorta is second on the team behind only St. Brown in target share against zone coverage. Green Bay is 15th and 18th in fantasy points per game and receiving yards allowed to tight ends. LaPorta has reached must-start status. Week 4 Positional Value: Top-six TE
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