The first week of October brings us revenge games, important divisional battles, unproven injury replacements, and drama aplenty. Here are the 10 most intriguing fantasy football players of Week 4.
The 10 Most Intriguing Fantasy Football Players of Week 4
Michael Wilson‘s stats through the first three weeks of the season paint an interesting picture.
Wilson is averaging 1.38 yards per target and 5.43 yards per route run. He ranks 83rd in the former category and 112th in the latter, according to Fantasy Points Data.
While Wilson’s efficiency has left something to be desired, his usage has been spectacular.
Wilson has run routes on 95.2% of Arizona’s passes. That’s the second-highest route participation rate in the league behind only Ja’Marr Chase. Wilson also has a 25.6% target share, which ranks 11th among wide receivers, and a 42.6% air yards share, which also ranks 11th.
Last year, Wilson had similarly ample target volume when Marvin Harrison Jr. missed time with injuries last season. Harrison sat out five games in 2025. In those five games, Wilson averaged 13.6 targets, 9.2 catches and 119.6 receiving yards, and he scored four touchdowns.
Against the 49ers last week, Wilson had 11 catches for 89 yards and a touchdown on 17 targets. But Harrison wasn’t injured.
The No. 4 overall pick of the 2024 draft, Harrison has yet to show the same sort of ability he flashed during his college career at Ohio State. But in 2024 and 2025, Harrison was merely disappointing. In 2026, he is little more than a route-running zombie.
Harrison has four catches for 77 yards. He has a 6.8% target share and is averaging 0.70 yards per route run.
With Harrison a nonfactor, Wilson figures to be showered with targets all season.
My takeaway from Wilson’s high-volume, low-efficiency statistical profile is that he’s a buy in redraft but a sell in dynasty.
Wilson hasn’t been chronically inefficient throughout his career. Over 32 NFL games, he’s averaged a respectable 7.9 yards per target. If he keeps running this many routes and drawing this many targets and can just ratchet up his efficiency numbers to his career norms, Wilson is going to put up dazzling numbers.
But Wilson probably isn’t good enough to warrant this sort of usage. Wilson can’t match the talents of Jaxson Smith-Njigba or Ja’Marr Chase. The Cardinals will inevitably add WR help through free agency and/or the draft, and Wilson will go back to being the high-quality complementary piece that he was meant to be.
For now, Wilson’s investors should enjoy the ride.
Wilson could smash this week against a Giants pass defense that was flambeed for 195 yards and two touchdowns by the Rams’ Davante Adams in Week 2.
With De’Von Achane out for the year with a torn ACL, the struggling Dolphins will turn to backup running backs.
First man up: Ollie Gordon II.
A sixth-round draft pick in 2025, Gordon ran for 1,732 yards and 21 touchdowns as a sophomore at Oklahoma State in 2023 and won the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s top RB. Gordon was arrested for DUI in June 2024, then had a disappointing final college season, running for less than 900 yards.
Gordon is a 6-2, 225-pound thumper who can be a problem for defenders when he gets a head of steam. But steam might be in short supply when the Vikings visit Minnesota on Sunday.
The Vikings have allowed the sixth-fewest rushing yards to RBs and haven’t given up a touchdown to a running back in their first three games.
Then there’s the revenge angle. Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores was head coach of the Dolphins from 2019 to 2021. He was fired after a three-year record of 24-25. The Dolphins were fined and forfeited draft picks after they were found to have pursued Sean Payton as head coach before firing Flores. The Dolphins were also part of a class-action lawsuit for racial discrimination that Flores filed against the NFL and three teams. That case is still working its way through federal court.
Gordon might not have the backfield to himself this week. Dolphins RB Jaylen Wright missed Week 3 with a stinger and foot injury but could be back Sunday. There have been times when it’s been difficult to discern whether Gordon or Wright was the top backup to Achane.
It’s not the most promising setup for Gordon, but a strong performance against a tough defense would certainly raise eyebrows in the fantasy community.
The NFL is more interesting when the Raiders are respectable.
Raiders fans, in their silver-and-black face paint and spiked shoulder pads, would prefer their team to be regarded as fearsome and menacing. But after the carnival of errors that Raiders fans endured during Pete Carroll’s lone season as the Las Vegas head coach in 2025, respectability is a fine starting point.
The Raiders host the Chiefs on Sunday in a matchup of 3-0 teams, and how much would the Raiders love to bloody the noses of their hated divisional rivals? To do so, they would probably need an epic contribution from their exceptional tight end, Brock Bowers.
In his return from meniscus surgery last week, Bowers had 10 catches for 116 yards and a touchdown in a 35-27 road win over the Saints.
Bowers seems to be at his best in returns from knee injuries. In his return from a PCL injury last season, Bowers had 12 catches for 127 yards and three touchdowns against the Jaguars.
The TE matchup is fascinating. The Chiefs’ Travis Kelce is enjoying a fine twilight season with 14 catches for 231 yards and two touchdowns. Kelce turns 37 next week.
Kelce has long been the king of the TE position. The 23-year-old Bowers is coming for Kelce’s crown.
Derrick Henry is the first player to make a second appearance in the 10 Most Intriguing article. How could we omit King Henry in a week when he faces his former team, the Tennessee Titans, for the first time ever?
Henry played for the Titans from 2016 to 2023. He had 9,502 rushing yards and scored 93 touchdowns over those eight years.
In his first two seasons in the league, Henry started only four games behind starter DeMarco Murray. Over the next six seasons, Henry topped 1,000 rushing yards five times, including a 2,027-yard rushing season in 2020. The one miss was in 2021, when a broken foot ended Henry’s season after only eight games. He had 937 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns at the time.
Henry’s move to Baltimore has been fruitful, with a 1,921-yard rushing season in 2024, a 1,595-yard season in 2025, and a fast start in 2026. (Henry has 301 rushing yards and six touchdowns.)
Sunday should be a special day for King Henry. Expect a regal performance.
We’re only three weeks into the season, but Brock Purdy is looking like an MVP candidate. The 49ers are 3-0, and Purdy leads the league with a passer rating of 133.1
Purdy has been a fantasy powerhouse, too. He’s thrown for 789 yards and nine touchdowns. Purdy has also run for 93 yards and a touchdown. He’s averaging 27.3 fantasy points per game, which leaves him QB2 in fantasy scoring behind only perennial fantasy monster Josh Allen.
How cool a story would it be if the former Mr. Irrelevant, selected with the final pick of the 2022 NFL Draft, won the MVP Award?
But Josh Allen might not be the biggest obstacle blocking Purdy’s path to MVP honors. Purdy must contend with whatever supernatural curse is plaguing San Francisco’s wide receivers.
Conspiracy theories have posited that the electrical substation next to the 49ers’ practice facility is compromising player health. The 49ers’ receivers, in particular, seem as if they’re destined to meet cruel fates. It’s the football version of “Final Destination.”
Promising rookie De’Zhaun Stribling is on injured reserve with an ankle injury, as is useful veteran Demarcus Robinson. Venerable star Mike Evans is questionable for Week 4 with a rib injury sustained last week. KhaDarel Hodge is questionable with a knee injury.
Purdy has a daunting matchup against the Broncos, whose pass defense has been among the league’s best in recent years. He might have to take on Denver with a patchwork collection of receivers.
With Cooper Rush starting at quarterback for the Falcons in their first two games of the season, Drake London had six catches for 80 yards and no touchdowns. With Michael Penix Jr. taking over at quarterback in Week 3, London tore the Green Bay Packers to ribbons, with nine catches for 194 yards on 10 targets.
In the 13 games he’s played with Penix, London has 91 catches and 1,356 yards.
The Falcons visit New Orleans on Monday night for an NFC South showdown with the Saints. Both teams are 1-2, but it might only take eight or nine wins to take the division.
London is still looking for his first touchdown of the season, and he’s scored only one touchdown in seven career games against New Orleans.
We’ll get to watch the two best receivers in the NFC South on Monday, with London on one side and the Saints’ Chris Olave on the other. It should be a spicy night in the Big Easy.
Jalon Daniels, an undrafted rookie free agent from the University of Kansas, will be the first quarterback from the Class of 2026 to make an NFL start when he faces the Packers this Sunday in Tampa. Daniels will make an NFL start before No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza.
Daniels won a training-camp battle with former Bengal Jake Browning to be the backup to Baker Mayfield. A thumb injury will sideline Mayfield for at least a week, thrusting Daniels into the spotlight.
From a fantasy perspective, the question is whether Daniels is good enough to float the value of RB Bucky Irving and WRs Emeka Egbuka and Chris Godwin. But Egbuka and Godwin haven’t been particularly valuable with Mayfield at QB for the first three games.
Daniels is considered a dangerous runner, but his track record as a passer is a mixed bag. Over 49 games across a six-year college career, he threw 67 TD passes and 31 interceptions. Dane Brugler, the NFL Draft analyst for The Athletic, ranked Daniels as the 18th-best quarterback in the class.
Will Daniels’ first NFL start be a disaster, or will he surprise us with a fine debut and perhaps make Buccaneers fans wonder if it was a good idea for the team to recently give Mayfield a three-year, $165 million contract extension?
With his early fifth-round ADP, Bhayshul Tuten dwelled in the dreaded “RB Dead Zone” of 2026 fantasy drafts. Running backs from the dead zone — fantasy football’s Bermuda Triangle — often fail to provide an adequate return on investment.
But Tuten has looked lively. He’s scored a touchdown in each of the last two weeks, and he’s had at least 65 rushing yards in all three of the Jaguars’ games this season. Tuten ranks RB13 in half-point PPR fantasy scoring.
There was some offseason debate about whether Tuten or Chris Rodriguez Jr. would be the more valuable Jacksonville RB. Rodriguez can’t match Tuten’s sub-4.4 speed, but Rodriguez is a rugged inside runner who had a 1,379-yard rushing season at the University of Kentucky in 2021, when Jaguars head coach Liam Coen was serving as Kentucky’s offensive coordinator. So far this season, Tuten has 48 touches, Rodriguez has 20.
The Jaguars visit the Bengals on Sunday in a matchup with shootout potential. Tuten will be tested by an improved Bengals defense bolstered by the arrival of star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence.
With Alec Pierce out with a heel injury, Josh Downs has been playing an enlarged role in the Colts’ offense.
Over the last two weeks, Downs has drawn 20 targets. He had seven catches for 72 yards against the Chiefs in Week 2, then had five catches for 77 yards vs. the Texans in Week 3.
Downs’ role seems to be changing in Pierce’s absence. Downs had an average depth of target of 7.2 yards or lower in each of his first three seasons. His average depth of target so far this year is 11.5 yards. In 2025, Downs averaged 9.8 yards per catch. This year, he’s averaging 13.3 yards per catch.
The Colts play the Commanders in North London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That venue hasn’t seen much scoring lately, as Tottenham Hotspur has scored two goals in its first five matches of the Premier League season. But we could see some offense Sunday.
Downs will face a Washington defense that has given up the most fantasy points to wide receivers this season. Opposing WRs have racked up 573 yards and six touchdowns against the Commanders.
It’s hard to tell whether Kalif Raymond will have staying power this season, or if he’s merely a nuisance to investors in TE Colston Loveland and WRs Luther Burden III and Rome Odunze.
Currently rostered in only 33% of Yahoo leagues, Raymond has more receptions (19) and receiving yards (214) than Loveland, Burden and Odunze. With QB Caleb Williams out in Week 3, Raymond caught six catches for 90 yards and a touchdown from third-string QB Case Keenum, helping the Bears topple the Eagles.
Raymond and the Bears host the Jets this weekend, and if Raymond has another strong showing, he’ll be a popular waiver addition next week — and he’ll continue to leave Loveland, Burden and Odunze stakeholders muttering under their breath.
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