Fantasy football can be unpredictable. Players you don’t expect to perform outperform your first-round picks, then your top draft picks put up single-digit points. After Week 4, we can see that players on the Chicago Bears are still producing productive fantasy numbers, showing the Ben Johnson-led offense is still rolling. Bryce Young has emerged as a top QB in the league, which will lead more fantasy managers to add him to their rosters.
Week 4 of the NFL season had a lot of boom-and-bust contenders. Let’s take a look at the players those players.
Ceedee Lamb, WR, Dallas Cowboys: Boom
The Texas Showdown was an intense, down-to-the-wire matchup, and many players faced off against the Houston Texans, who are now 0-4 to start the season. Playing in the city that he considers a second home, CeeDee Lamb had the best game of his career. CeeDee Lamb is always projected to put up great fantasy performances, but against the Texans, he had a monster game: 17 receptions on 21 targets for 189 yards, plus the game-winning 12-yard TD catch with 40 seconds left, resulting in 41.3 PPR points
The Texans didn’t stand a chance against Lamb, who ran rampant through their defense. According to Garrett Podell of CBS Sports, per the NFL’s Next Gen Stats via SB Nation, Lamb caught the ball from six different Texans defenders on Sunday. According to Matt Bowen and Tirstan H. Cockcroft of ESPN, the Texans defense relied heavily on zone coverage more than any team in the league. With no answer for Lamb, the Texans defense allowed him 14 catches for 161 yards in zone coverage.
His 17 catches are the most by a WR in a single game in Cowboys history. Only Jason Witten has ever caught more passes in a Cowboys game, dating back to 2012. Lamb week in and week out keeps on proving why he is a fantasy first-round pick and a WR1 in most fantasy football leagues.
Kyren Williams, RB, Los Angeles Rams: Boom
Even with Blake Corum in their RB room, Kyren Williams has still put up a great performance against a struggling Philadelphia Eagles team. On Sunday, the former Notre Dame stud RB rushed 16 times for 80 yards and 2 rushing TDs, and caught 10 Passes for 67 yards on 13 targets. This performance showcased his bell-cow capabilities, as he posted 36.7 PPR points against the Eagles.
FantasyPros projected him for 11.7 points, but Williams proved he was not just a bell cow for the Rams; he was a clutch performer, scoring 2 rushing TDs in the last 5 minutes of the game. According to Yahoo Sports, Williams is the 10th player in NFL history with at least 10 catches, 65 receiving yards, 80 rushing yards, and 2 rushing TD’s in a game.
After balling out in the first half, the Eagles’ offense was non-existent. What is scary is that they went 0-for-12 on third-down conversions all game. With the offense struggling to stay on the field, it was only a matter of time before the Rams’ offense wore down the Eagles’ defense, which ran 77 plays. Quinyon Mitchell left the game with a knee injury, and Cooper Dejean also left with a knee injury, though he later returned. But with a banged-up secondary, Williams still had an outstanding game.
Kyle Monangai, RB, Chicago Bears: Boom
Even without Caleb Williams, the Chicago Bears have produced a strong offense. They have a great RB duo in D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai, but Monangai took over as the lead back and operated as the main bell cow. On Sunday, Monangai rushed 30 times for 146 yards and added 2 rushing TDs. Resulting in 28.0 PPR points.
After Swift fumbled in the 3rd quarter, he helped the Bears control the clock. In the 4th quarter, on the Bears’ final offensive drive, they drained the clock down to the final whistle with a heavy ground assault. The Bears controlled the clock for nearly 43 minutes and held the Jets to only 7 first downs. This changed the Bears’ game script against the Jets, allowing Monangai to run all over a fatigued Jets defense. The 2025 7th-round pick has worked his way up to a big role in Ben Johnson’s offense and has looked like a true bell-cow if he were to take over as the starter.
Monangai left the game late in the 4th quarter with a thumb injury, and the team is monitoring it.
Garrett Wilson, WR, New York Jets: Bust
The New York Jets’ offense stalled in their 23-12 loss to the Chicago Bears, and Garrett Wilson was no exception, catching only 3 of his 4 targets for 27 yards and earning 5.7 PPR points.
The Bears dominated time of possession, holding the ball for only 18 minutes, while Geno Smith managed just 15 passing attempts. The Jets went 0-for-7 on third down, so they couldn’t sustain drives long enough to give Wilson downfield targets or red-zone opportunities. Wilson has put up double-digit performances all season, except Sunday. If anything, this fantasy performance is more on the Jets than Wilson, but they’ve been offensively decent so far. Next week at home, the Jets should be able to rebound against the Browns, though it won’t be easy, as they’ve been red-hot as a team.
Dalton Kincad, TE, Buffalo Bills: Bust
After a strong start to Dalton Kincaid’s season, his last two performances have been relatively quiet. In the Buffalo Bills’ divisional loss to the New England Patriots, Kincaid caught only 1 of his 2 targets for 7 receiving yards.
According to USA Today, this comes as a shocker, given Kincaid’s monster start to the season. Kincaid had 225 receiving yards on 12 catches in the first two weeks, but has barely been targeted over the past two weeks, only being targeted 5 times with 3 catches in the last two games. He was playing like the TE1 of fantasy football, but that luck has run out. Kincaid didn’t have an easy matchup to begin with. According to Shane Hallam of Draftsharks.com, Kincaid earned a target on 30% or more of his routes in each of the first two weeks, but that fell to 10% on Sunday (2 of 20). New England entered the game allowing only the 2nd-fewest schedule-adjusted TE points (5.95 per game).
David Montgomery, RB, Houston Texans: Bust
David Montgomery had a great start to the season with 28.9 PPR points against the Bills, but has since struggled to generate the same magic. On Sunday, his struggles showed as he got 10 carries for 24 yards, adding 19 yards on a late-game trick play for 4.3 PPR points.
Montgomery relies heavily on finding the end zone to anchor his fantasy floor. With the Texans scoring 30 points against the Dallas Cowboys and Montgomery not getting involved, his fantasy floor completely collapsed. Woody Marks saw the opportunity for the late-game TD when he scored on a 6-yard run set up by Montgomery’s trick-play catch. It’s been a weird 3-game decline, with his total scrimmage yards at 24 (Week 2), 48 (Week 3), and 43 (Week 4). According to Shane Hallam of Draftsharks.com, the combination of the Texans’ poor OL, Montgomery’s lack of explosiveness, and ability to break tackles leads to these types of poor performances.
