Fabiano’s Fantasy Focus: Week Four, Volume I

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Every week during the season NFL Network and NFL.com Senior Fantasy Analyst Michael Fabiano joins Sports360AZ.com’s Brad Cesmat to share his insight on building and developing your fantasy team for success.

Here are some hi-lights from our most recent conversation (September 23rd) with the Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association Hall of Famer.

What is Kyle Allen’s fantasy value after what he did Sunday against the Cardinals? “He is going to be one of the big waiver wire adds this week. Actually, last week I said on “NFL Fantasy Live” that he is a really good two-QB, super flex option. I didn’t expect for him to throw for four touchdowns but I did know that the Cardinals’ pass defense is terrible and, I’ll tell ya’ something right now, the Panthers have already ruled out Cam Newton for Week Four after that performance that Allen had. They really liked what they saw from Kyle Allen.”

Is it too early to call Baker Mayfield a fantasy dud? “I mean, listen, everybody in the fantasy industry thought he was the breakout quarterback for 2019 and so far, he’s been broken. That’s partially because that offensive line is bad. His offensive line is an issue and Baker is turning the ball over too much. He’s got five interceptions already. So, I’m not saying that you drop him but I will tell you this: he’s not a must-start. I told you in the pre-season there’s no must-start quarterback in the National Football League unless it’s Patrick Mahomes. Everybody else is based on the matchups, I don’t care who it is. Aaron Rodgers isn’t a must-start quarterback, anymore.”

Same question for Adam Thielen? “It’s not what we had hoped he would be but he hasn’t been awful. He’s 24th in fantasy points right now. Unfortunately, his teammate Stephon Diggs has been awful. He’s averaging four targets a game and the problem is when Kevin Stefanski took over last year for a couple of games, we saw him start to utilize Dalvin Cook in the running game. We didn’t know it was going to be this extreme, though. I mean, Dalvin Cook is just unbelievable right now. They’re running the ball a ton and that’s hurting the value of Kirk Cousins who’s droppable now and that’s hurting the value of Thielen. When you’re seeing situations like that, it’s an offensive philosophy change.”

Would you consider Will Fuller a disappointment through the first three weeks? “I mean, Fuller is what he is. Fuller is a guy who’s better in terms of real football than he is in fantasy because he’s not getting into the end zone. He’s a field-stretcher on a team that now has Nuke [Hopkins], Kenny Stills who’s eating into targets and you’ve got Keke Coutee, as well. Fuller was never going to be more than a wide receiver three and at this point he’s a matchup-based starter at best. He may be useful during the bye weeks.”

Any news for owners of Melvin Gordon? “You’re basically sitting back and waiting like everybody else to see what happens. He’s got to come back because it defeats the whole purpose of him holding out and not playing this season because it hurts his free agency. So, Austin Ekeler’s been awesome…so does Gordon come right back and play the same role he did last season? Ekeler is third in fantasy points among running backs right now. He’s been tremendous. 19 catches out of the backfield. So maybe that is going to be more of a timeshare than we’ve seen in the past. We’re all waiting to see but Melvin Gordon is a hold right now. There’s no question about it.”

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