By The Commish (Cole Hoopingarner)
Week 4 is underway and last night’s game between the Bengals and Dolphins featured A.J. Green’s return to the spotlight.
After two uncharacteristically average performances in weeks 2 and 3,
last night Green caught 10 balls for 173 yards and a touchdown to the delight of fantasy owners everywhere – well, everywhere except on the wrong side of matchups Green’s involved in. The Bengals would be wise to continue what they did in their first drive last night: get the ball to other players on offense so defenses have to respect them and then feed it to Green when he’s got one-on-one coverage. To be sure, Dalton is not afraid to pepper the ball around to many of his weapons (Brandon LaFell failed to stay in bounds on Dalton’s first throw into the end zone last night) but Green exists on another level.
It looks like Cincinnati is committed to giving Jeremy Hill a chance at redemption. He carried the ball 21 times for 71 yards while Giovani Bernard toted the rock 10 times for 18 yards. But Bernard caught the ball 3 times for 24 yards – in PPR formats, he scored 0.1 points more than Hill. Personally, if I had to own one Bengals back, it would be Hill because the volume will likely translate into touchdowns. But Bernard’s ability out of the backfield is hard to ignore and he represents decent Flex value going forward.
On the other side, the Dolphins used the NFL’s color rush uniforms last night, which blended the orange tints of Donald Trump and the Oompa Loompas perfectly.
The most important lesson I’ve learned this season, reinforced last night, is that Jarvis Landry is the most dependable PPR fantasy wide receiver besides Antonio Brown and Julian Edelman (with Brady as his QB). Through four games, he’s got 31 catches on 44 targets for 375 yards and a touchdown. That’s a pace of 124 catches on 176 targets for 1500 yards and four touchdowns. In non-bonus PPR leagues, that equates to 298 points, which means Landry’s a sure-fire, matchup-proof number 1 wide receiver.
As far as the other Dolphins go, well…Landry may not be the only Dolphin worth owning, but he’s certainly the only one worth starting. Raise your hand if you’re still waiting for Ryan Tannehill to ascend to top 5 status, or if you thought this was the year Arian Foster finally stayed healthy, or if you just *knew* that DeVante Parker would break out this year. If you raised your hand, I hope you’re a drunk Dolphin fan or a first-time fantasy football player, because right now those are the only excuses that can justify those sentiments.
Aside from Juice, there’s nothing of fantasy value on Miami’s abhorrent offense. They tried running the ball last night but didn’t commit to one running back as Ajayi, Kenyan Drake, Williams and Pead had 6, 2, 2, and 3 carries, respectively. How can you determine who will be Foster’s permanent backup when you split carries like that? As far as receiving goes, Parker and Ajayi were the only Dolphins besides Landry to record more than one pass and they only caught two each.
Scoring Leaders
WR A.J. Green – 33.3
K Mike Nugent – 19
D/ST Bengals – 19
QB Andy Dalton – 16.6
WR Kenny Stills – 16.4
QB Ryan Tannehill – 11.6
TE C.J. Uzomah – 8.5
RB Jay Ajayi – 6.6
WR DeVante Parker – 4