Fantasy football: Matthew Berry's Love, Hate and going home again

The return. The game. Tom Brady vs. Bill Belichick. The most anticipated and searched-for regular-season game of the year, and possibly ever. Much has been written, said, debated, screamed and considered about this game all week, and it will only continue to ramp up until Sunday night.

As a result, my editor strongly suggested using Tom Brady's return to Gillette Stadium as the open to this week's column, and while that sounds good in theory, there's just one issue: what to say.

What do you say about it that hasn't already been said? What do you say about it that's appropriate for a fantasy football column? "Haha," said my editor, "you need me to type it for you too, writer boy? Figure it out." And then he hung up the phone and went back to the steak and lobster dinner the company was buying, with Field and Stephania, laughing at my ineptitude. (Note: This is all likely very true and not in any way an exaggeration of our conversation).

But it's all sort of snoozy, right? What am I gonna do? Talk about what Tom Brady means from a fantasy football point of view? He's good. He's been very, very good for a long time. There. Broke that down. Talk about this game from a fantasy point of view? I mean, some of the players involved are listed below in my loves and hates, but after you've made sure you've spelled "Agholor" correctly, how much is there, really?

I finally realized that the only way to truly write about this momentous game, this historic chess match between what many people consider to be the greatest quarterback of all time facing what many people consider to be the greatest coach of all time, his former mentor ... was to make it all about me.

The ability to turn any subject, no matter what, into an egocentric story about myself is my superpower, and I needed to tap into it this week more than ever, because I feel like I can kind of relate to what Tom Brady is going through this week.

It's how I felt the week of my high school reunion.

Now, let's be clear. I know very well that the stakes are nowhere near the same. I'm not saying anyone other than me cared about my reunion at all, or that I know what it's like to be Tom Brady. I mean, I'm not that into me, if that makes any sense. What I'm talking about here are the emotions involved in going back to where you came from.

I'm in a Facebook group for my high school class, and when I got a save-the-date about the most recent reunion, I felt a small knot in my stomach. One that tightened anytime I thought about it.

I mean, I'm on TV, I have a certain level of notoriety, I'm married to an amazing and beautiful woman. I make a nice living, the people I've met and the list of things I've gotten to do is truly ridiculous, so real talk, all things considered, life since high school has gone pretty OK for me, you know?

But it doesn't matter.

While that might be how the world sees me, or, more importantly, how my former classmates see me, it's not how I see myself. Not when I'm back in that world. Not when I'm back in College Station, surrounded by the people from my youth.

The minute I set foot back in that world, I'm a nerdy and nervous kid who always felt he was on the outside looking in. I most certainly wasn't a "popular" kid. I moved around a lot as a kid, five different times by the time my family landed in Texas when I was 13. I spent most of my time before Texas living in various cities in Virginia, which is where I became a fan of the Washington Football Team.

I was always the new kid. Socially awkward to begin with (still am!), and the constant moving didn't help develop those skills any. Add in big, frizzy hair and thick glasses, and it's no wonder I had trouble fitting in. Or why I tried so hard to fit in, which of course only made it worse. A sensitive, tennis-playing Jewish kid in a football-obsessed smallish Texas town didn't play well in the '80s, and my classmates let me know it. Constantly.

I've written about my experiences of being bullied in high school, and if I am being honest, that article just scratched the surface and really focused only on the most traumatic aspect of high school for me.

I had a small core of close friends, and I thank God for that group of kids, because I don't know what I would have done without them. Every other moment of high school was a struggle. I don't want to relive all the bullying -- you can read about that at the link above if you want -- but I will say, even if you take the bullying out of it (and it was A LOT), high school was still a daily struggle.

Whether it was hearing about parties you weren't invited to, walking by a group of kids and hearing laughter and wondering if it was about you, or even trying to find a place to eat lunch every day in peace where you wouldn't be stared at or, worse, told to leave (both of which happened multiple times), it was just a constant minefield of small rejections and an everyday existence of tiptoeing around, wondering when I would do the next stupid thing that would have people laughing at me and making me somehow feel worse about myself than I already did.

Among the things in which I found solace was playing this weird and super dorky game called Rotisserie league baseball.

"See, Rotisserie baseball is this game where you 'draft' real-life Major League Baseball players, and how well those players do statistically in their real-life MLB games is how well your Rotisserie (or "fantasy") baseball team does. See, USA Today prints all the statistics from all the games once a week, and so then you add up all the numbers in a bunch of statistical categories to see how your team is doing, and then you do it for the other nine teams ..."

Yeah. It was about that moment when I knew I'd fully lost her, the girl who saw me crunching these numbers during lunch and wondered what I was doing. It sounded even nerdier as I was explaining it to her back then, and her look of "OK, freak, sorry I asked ..." was enough for me to know I had just made yet another horrible high school mistake.

At least at that time people had heard of "Dungeons & Dragons." This game was both nerdy and obscure. And as word quickly spread about whatever "chicken baseball" was, I didn't think it was possible, but somehow, I became even more ostracized.

It has taken a lot of therapy to unpack all that and get comfortable with owning where I come from, and there is still work to do. But the important part is that those scars last, man.

I had thought about blowing off the reunion, but my friend Andy Wichern -- my best friend in high school and to this day a very close friend -- said he'd go if I went. So, there I was, back in College Station, Texas, and no matter how much I feel like I've accomplished or succeeded in life, when I walked through the doors of the bar where everyone was meeting the Friday night before the official reunion, I was right back to being that nervous kid in high school.

It's why I feel, on some weird, small level, that I can appreciate what Tom Brady might be going through this week. Yes, he left the Patriots and Belichick, started over with a new team and won the Super Bowl at age 43, proving every critic who said he was too old or that he was just a byproduct of coaching very, very wrong. I won't get into all the speculation about what went wrong with Brady and New England, and who is responsible for what, but clearly something happened, and whatever feelings bothered Brady enough for him to leave, they are likely still there and will reappear when he walks back onto that field, this time as the opponent. The visitor.

It was under that umbrella of insecurity and nervousness that I walked in with my buddy Andy. I wondered if any of my high school tormentors would be there. And what would I say or do if they were? Andy and I agreed we would do one lap, stay for a drink, two at the most, see the few people we wanted to catch up with and call it an early evening.

You know what? It was actually great. People I hadn't thought about in years were there, and it was genuinely good to see them. I had spent so much time focusing on the negative of high school that I had pushed the good stuff way in the back of my mind, and as I visited with a lot of folks whom I played tennis with, or shared classes with, or went to dances or games with, we would reminisce. I would be reminded about "Oh yeah, that was actually a really fun ..." whatever it was. There was some talk about career and kids and what people were up to now, but it was mostly about the old days. There were lots of laughs, and over the course of the night, a lot of negative memories about high school had been replaced with the good ones that I had buried.

As it turns out, none of my tormentors showed up. One apparently couldn't make it because he was in jail. It's incredibly petty of me, but yeah, that made me smile. I got asked to take some pictures -- "My son is a big fan" -- including by the husband of one of my big high school crushes, who had no interest back in the day. I enjoyed that more than I should have.

Lots of drinks, smiles and group selfies, and then, toward the end of the night, class president Ben Mathis announced it was time for the awards. To be honest, I wasn't aware there were any awards and I hadn't voted, so I listened as they read off the kinds of reunion awards you'd expect.

Who traveled the farthest to be there (we have a few living overseas), who was the first of our class to be a grandparent, an award for the couple who had stayed together the longest (shout-out to David and Staci Groff, high school sweethearts still together more than three decades later), etc., etc.

And then the last award of the night. "Coolest job: Matthew Berry." I was genuinely shocked as I heard the legit applause. And as I walked up to the stage to accept a small piece of paper, I thought back to how ostracized and nerdy I felt playing fantasy sports. And now my classmates had all just voted that it was the coolest job of our graduating class. You have no idea how much winning that silly award meant. Full circle, indeed.

I stayed to the end of the event and reconnected with a group of friends I really missed, a small group of people I have seen multiple times since the reunion and with whom I have been on a very funny text chain for over three years now. But most importantly, I learned a few meaningful lessons. How you see yourself is often not how others see you, and if you focus on the negative, the positive has no chance to creep in there. And yeah, sometimes you can go back again.

Thanks as always to The Fantasy Show producer Damian Dabrowski for his help at various points in this column. Let's get to it.

Quarterbacks I love in Week 4

Tom Brady, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (at Patriots)
You can't escape it. Everyone is talking about the star QB finally facing his former team in a game dripping with revenge. But while the media keeps talking up Jacoby Brissett facing the Colts on Sunday, I'm more focused on Tom Brady and the Bucs. You may not believe this -- I didn't either at first -- but look it up: Brady actually played for New England back in the day. Yes! It's wild, right? There are TWO revenge games this week.

Look, here's the deal. You want me to talk stats? I could talk stats. Brady leads the NFL in pass attempts this season (and completions and touchdowns, and the Bucs lead the NFL in passing rate). But this game is an emotion game, man. You buy that Bill Belichick knows Brady so well that he can essentially take Brady out of the game? Fine, I get it. But I said this past preseason in my Love/Hate when people thought I was ridiculous for having a 43-year-old pocket passer on a new team as a top-eight fantasy QB: People who bet against Brady usually lose. I'm betting on Tom wanting to light up his old team, and in a big way. You either believe or you do not. I do. He's a top-four play for me this week.

Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams (vs. Cardinals)
Think of Stafford's Week 3. His new team stayed undefeated as he outdueled Tom Brady while beating the defending Super Bowl champions, and then he represented the Rams as a guest with Peyton and Eli on Monday Night Football. Meanwhile, his former team remained winless when an NFL-record-long field goal bounced on and then over the crossbar as time expired. The Lions were then represented on TV by Daniel Dopp on The Fantasy Show on ESPN+ as a puppet and I made fun of him. Yes, it's good to be Matthew Stafford right now. It's also good to have Stafford as your fantasy quarterback right now. He leads all quarterbacks in fantasy points per pass attempt and is QB6 for the season. Stafford has put up at least 275 passing yards and multiple touchdowns in every game, and he'll do it again in a high-scoring game that is tied for the highest over/under on the Week 4 slate.

Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers (vs. Raiders)
RIP Justin Herbert's sophomore slump (Weeks 1-2, 2021). Herbert put up 30.8 fantasy points in the Chargers' Week 3 win over the Chiefs and outplayed Patrick Mahomes in the process. As he faces the Raiders at home this week, expect a similar performance from Herbert in what should be a shootout. The volume has been fantastic (he's top-five in pass attempts and passing yards this season, while the Chargers are top-10 in red zone pass rate) and that'll continue on Monday night. So far this season, Raiders games have featured the second-most combined pass attempts. The current over/under is north of 50 and is one of the highest on the Week 4 slate. With that in mind, it's worth noting that, going back to last season, 15 of the past 19 Raiders games have hit the over.

Others receiving votes: Laugh at the NFC East all you want. (No, seriously. All you want. It's fairly brutal.) But with Jalen Hurts, Daniel Jones and Taylor Heinicke, the division leads the entire NFL in quarterbacks who might not be great at real football but are more than sufficient at fake football. Believe it or not, Heinicke now has 20-plus fantasy points in both of his starts this season. With a brutal WFT defense that can't get off the field on third down, Heinicke has to keep throwing, and throw on Sunday he will. I say he goes over 20 for a third straight week against a Falcons team that allows the third-most fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks. ... Jacksonville's pass defense is bottom-five in the NFL this season in yards per pass attempt, completion rate and passing yards allowed per game. And that's without having to face an offense that boasts Ja'Marr Chase and Tyler Boyd yet. It's always dangerous for a young fantasy analyst to recommend a Thursday night player when his column will be read by some on Friday, but that ain't me. My middle name is Danger. I'm sorry, what? Ah, OK, thanks. I am being told that's not actually my middle name and the flaw is that I am actually not a young fantasy analyst. Fair point. Anyway, start Joe Burrow as a top-12 play this week. ... Stafford might be the favorite for the NFL's Most Grateful Player of the Year Award, but Sam Darnold getting away from the Jets is a close second. Darnold has more than 18 fantasy points in each game this season, while Dallas has allowed seven touchdown passes through three weeks, tied for the fifth most. Darnold is a very viable deep-league QB, this week and in the future, as the Panthers will lean on him even more with Christian McCaffrey out.

Quarterbacks I hate in Week 4

Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens (at Broncos)

I have Jackson at QB11, OK? You're likely still starting him. But this is the first time this season (and likely the only time) that I have him outside my top 10, so here he is. The truth is, a lot of great QBs have good matchups this week, and I'm worried about Baltimore's. On the season, Denver's pass defense is allowing just a 52% completion rate, 5.2 yards per pass attempt (both best in the NFL) and 162 passing yards per game (third best). Has that been inflated by some easy matchups for the Broncos? Of course. They've played the Giants, Jags and Jets. But still. This is a well-coached defense with really talented players and a very good secondary. Jackson has yet to have a game with multiple touchdown passes this season. So what, you say, obviously Jackson's fantasy production will have to come primarily from his legs in this one. Sure ... IF he runs. Last week, against Detroit -- I repeat, Detroit, a defense much worse than Denver's -- he had a season-low seven rushes. Among over/unders, this is one of the lowest on the Week 4 slate (south of 45 total points), so this should be a slow-paced, low-scoring slugfest, which lowers expectations for Jackson. It feels like this will be a much better game for Brandon McManus and Justin Tucker, kicking multiple field goals in that thin, mile-high air. Neither McManus nor Tucker is on the Week 4 "hate" list. Hey, I'm not an idiot! (Which is also why I don't do a kicker Love/Hate list.) Anyway, lower expectations for Jackson here.

Daniel Jones, New York Giants (at Saints)
In Weeks 1 and 2, the Giants lost, but Jones had nice fantasy performances. In Week 3, the Giants lost (to the Falcons!) and Jones had a poor fantasy performance. I mean, yeesh! It's fine to go 0-17, but at least give us some consistent fantasy production. A popular streamer last week, Jones should be a popular bench player this week. New Orleans has allowed the second-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks this season and is tied for the most interceptions, and because Jones is potentially playing without a few of his best wide receivers (Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton both left last week early and missed Wednesday practice, when this was written), this looks like a bad game for Giants fans and Jones managers.

Running backs I love in Week 4

Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts (at Dolphins)
Peyton Barber. There -- that's the analysis. As in, Peyton Barber just ran for 111 yards and a touchdown against these guys. I get the concerns about the Nyheim Hines usage, about the injury to Quenton Nelson and the fact that he now has back-to-back single-digit fantasy performances. I'm here to tell you that in the real revenge game of Week 4, there's no way the Colts will let Jacoby Brissett beat them. Oh no, they know the best way to beat Brissett is keeping him on the sideline. Or, really, just letting him play. Not sure it matters. Jokes aside, this game has the second-lowest over/under of the week and will be a low-scoring, grind-it-out affair, which means it's unlikely Indy falls behind and has to use Hines. Teams facing Miami this season average 28.0 RB carries a game (third most), and I say many of those will go to Taylor in this one. The Colts will be in the lead or competitive here and facing a Dolphins defense that has allowed the third-most yards to running backs this season and the second-most rushing touchdowns. This is a get-right game for Taylor, whom I have as a top-10 play this week. Even better than Peyton Barber.

D'Andre Swift, Detroit Lions (at Bears)
Find someone who looks at you the way Jared Goff looks at D'Andre Swift. Actually find you someone who looks at you the way fantasy managers look at D'Andre Swift. Honestly, you're likely better off just finding D'Andre Swift, and you won't need love, because your heart will be full for D'Andre Swift. A 19.2% target share (third highest among RBs) means that not only does Goff look for him often, but whatever happens in this game (and if the Lions taught us anything last week, it's that anything can happen), Swift will be on the field for it. Winning or trailing, Swift is a big part of the offense, including averaging 13.9 PPG from his receiving alone. Meanwhile, the Bears are allowing the second-highest yards per reception to opposing running backs this season. It's weird to say this, but after last week I have a lot more confidence in the Lions than in the Bears, and that includes Swift, who is locked in as a top-seven play for me this week, even on the road in a divisional game as part of a winless team.

Chuba Hubbard, Carolina Panthers (at Cowboys)
Hubbard saw 13 of 19 running back touches after Christian McCaffrey's injury last week and a 15% target share for the game, second highest on the team. I expect him to be the lead back in Carolina while McCaffrey is out. While he's not CMC, and Royce Freeman will be involved, Hubbard will get a good amount of work in the "CMC role" in this offense. And that means something. In the games McCaffrey missed last season, Mike Davis averaged 15.2 PPG. Think of Hubbard as 2021's Mike Davis, just with a much cooler name. (No offense to all the Mikes out there. Except you, Mike Clay. I specifically meant to offend you here.) I have Hubbard as a top-15 play in a game that Vegas has with an over/under north of 50.

Others receiving votes: Kareem Hunt has seen his touches increase every week this season, while Minnesota is allowing 4.8 yards per carry to backs this season. He's a legit top-20 play this week and I prefer him to many of the lower-tier "starting running back" types out there. ... As the famous fantasy saying goes: "A rolling Zack Moss gathers fantasy points." Moss is now averaging 13.0 touches and 16.8 fantasy points in the two games he's been active this season. He also has a team-high eight red zone carries and five goal-to-go carries in that stretch, as well as more receptions and receiving yards than Devin Singletary. Moss is the Buffalo back you want, especially in a matchup against a Texans defense allowing the fourth-highest yards per carry to running backs this season. ... Chase Edmonds has 17 targets this season, just one fewer than DeAndre Hopkins. Edmonds also has three more receptions than Hopkins. You'll win some bar bets with that one. And hear the cries of pain from whoever within earshot had Hopkins on their fantasy team last week. Edmonds is likely to get vultured by James Conner if the Cardinals get in close, but I like Edmonds as a high-end PPR flex this week against a Rams defense that will be hard to run up the middle on, but who let Tampa backs catch 12 of 13 targets last Sunday. ... Cordarrelle Patterson is RB6 over the past two weeks. He also holds a 6-2 touch edge on third down so far this season over Mike Davis. Did you know that opponents convert on third down against the WFT at a 58.7% clip? The league average is 41%. Sigh. Anyway, what that means is my WFT can't get off the field on third down this season, which means extended drives, which means Patterson should get plenty of touches and is a very viable flex in Week 4.

Running backs I hate in Week 4

Saquon Barkley, New York Giants (at Saints)

Hello, Saquon Barkley, Fantasy Superstar ... goodbye, Saquon Barkley, Fantasy Superstar. It was great to see Barkley put up 21.4 fantasy points last week, his first double-digit performance since Week 17 of the 2019 season, but don't expect an encore performance. I mean, he'll likely hit double digits, but it's hard to see a big day against a Saints defense that is allowing just 2.5 YPC to running backs. And this is not a fluke. Since Week 12 of 2017 (!), only one RB has run for at least 100 yards against the Saints. Barkley is likely to be involved in the passing game, especially if Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton miss this game, so that'll keep his floor decent. But it's hard to see him having a monster game behind a struggling offensive line against a very good defense in what is projected by Vegas to be the second-lowest-scoring game of the week.

Mike Davis, Atlanta Falcons (vs. Washington)
Davis has seen just 55% of the Atlanta running back touches so far, his routes dropped again last week, and he has the same number of goal-to-go carries as Cordarrelle Patterson. Davis is obviously not the clear RB1 in Atlanta that many who drafted him hoped he'd be. I hear you -- yes, I have Davis ranked higher than Patterson even though Patterson is on the "Love" list and here's Davis on "Hate." Again, it's all about expectations and Davis was drafted top 20, while Patterson is still on waiver wires in about 30% of ESPN leagues. So while I think Patterson has flexible upside this week (see above), I don't love Davis as a top-20 starter against a WFT defense allowing just 3.8 YPC and that has given up just one rushing touchdown to RBs this season. Hey, finally a silver lining for my WFT!

Damien Harris, New England Patriots (vs. Buccaneers)
Harris played one season in New England with Tom Brady in 2019 and put up four carries for 12 yards. Four carries for 12 yards almost feels optimistic for Harris in this matchup with Brady's Bucs. Tampa's run defense has allowed just 56.3 rushing yards per game to running backs this season and, since the beginning of last season, only three players have rushed for even 60 yards against the Bucs. It would be better if Harris were involved as a receiver in a game in which the Patriots are expected to trail, but in 15 career games, Harris has just 10 catches. Yeah, this is not going to be a good Damien Harris week. But at least he'll always have the amazing memories of taking a handoff from Tom Brady four times. I look forward to the magazine feature and extended interview about it later this week.

Pass-catchers I love in Week 4

Stefon Diggs, Buffalo Bills (vs. Texans)
Josh Allen started slow the first two weeks of the season, I told you all not to panic, I put him on my Week 3 "Love" list -- and you all saw how that turned out, right? He tore apart my Washington Football Team. Thanks for making me relive it, jerks. But I think Diggs' underwhelming season takes a similar turn this week against the Texans. Diggs is WR24 on the season. That is by no means bad. It's just nowhere close to what you drafted him to be. Better days are coming, and by that, I mean this Sunday. The volume is there: he has 32 targets through three games, including at least one end zone target in every game, and they've just missed on some big plays. I like Diggs' chances at a big get-right game this week against the same Houston secondary that was torched by DJ Moore for 126 yards on eight catches a week ago.

Mike Williams, Los Angeles Chargers (vs. Raiders)
Believe. Believe in Mike Williams. The long-awaited Williams breakout season is finally here. Really. You can believe. Picture yourself as Ted Lasso, (fantasy) football manager, tapping the BELIEVE sign and starting Williams this week, despite the expected shadow coverage from former Chargers teammate Casey Hayward. Williams has at least nine targets, seven receptions and a touchdown in every game this season, and the Chargers move Big Mike around enough that I don't expect Hayward to be on him every snap. With at least 22 fantasy points in every game, Williams is real and spectacular. It's worth noting the Raiders' defense has allowed 48 receptions to receivers through three games, tied for fifth most in the league, and if you read the QB "Love" section of this column, you know I am high on Herbert this week as well.

Ja'Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals (vs. Jaguars)
OK, so maybe the Bengals shouldn't have used their first pick on an offensive lineman after all. Because Ja'Marr Chase is special. I mean, would an offensive lineman have a touchdown in every game so far? Probably not! #analysis. And would an offensive lineman be able to torch the Jaguars' defense like Chase will on Thursday night? OK, possibly. Jacksonville's D is pretty bad. Want a stat? Fine, I've got a stat. The Jags allow 14.9 yards per reception this season, fourth highest in the NFL. They can be beaten deep, and with Tee Higgins already ruled out once again, there should be nice volume and at least a couple of deep shots to Ja'Marr "not an offensive lineman" Chase.

Logan Thomas, Washington Football Team (at Falcons)
We're not even four weeks into the season and already my WFT hopes and dreams are reduced to finding fantasy silver linings in each week's dismal performance. So far Thomas has been one of the few bright spots, as he has a score in two of three games and is actually TE7 on the season. Most importantly for our purposes here, he leads the Football Team in red zone targets, notable since the Falcons have allowed a league-high three touchdowns to tight ends, tied for most in the NFL. I like both Thomas' odds of scoring again this week and of me banging my head against the wall when the WFT does something dumb in this game.

Others receiving votes: Tom Brady is going to find a way to throw a touchdown to Rob Gronkowski on Sunday in New England. You know it, I know it, the Patriots know it -- and they won't be able to stop it. I usually make my calls on stats, research, sources and film study and not gut feelings, but this one has a 100% HUNCH rating. ... It's still hard to trust Odell Beckham Jr., Cleveland Brown, but he had a 31% target share in his first game back last week and his Week 4 opponent, the Vikings, have allowed both the sixth-most yards to wide receivers and the fourth-most touchdowns. ... Jakobi Meyers leads the Patriots in target share (25.6%), and New England likely will need to throw a lot on Sunday to try to keep up with Brady and the Bucs. I prefer Meyers to Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne in the New England passing game. ... Hunter Renfrow may look like your accountant, and your accountant would also be sure to share some of these impressive Renfrow numbers. Like the fact that Renfrow's 17.8% target share trails only Darren Waller's on the Raiders. Or that Renfrow has 10-plus fantasy points in each game this season. Or that he has at least five receptions and 55 yards in each game. Or that he has to stop sharing these Renfrow stats now and go play in the Raiders game, because he is actually Hunter Renfrow. ... The rumors of Brandon Aiyuk's fantasy death were greatly exaggerated. Aiyuk played 85% of San Francisco's Week 3 snaps after getting just 51% in the first two games. He also had a season-high six targets last week, with three of them coming in the end zone. I get it if you're not comfortable starting Aiyuk yet, but he's on his way back soon, and I feel like this Sunday is when it starts. ... Kyle Pitts hasn't been the world-beater out of the gate that some expected, but he is still third among tight ends in routes run. Atlanta ranks fifth in red zone pass rate so far this season, while Washington has yielded the most goal-to-go drives. Odds are Pitts reels in a TD against the WFT. ... Buffalo's Dawson Knox has at least four targets in every game so far, a touchdown in each of his past two games and has run a route on more than 70% of dropbacks for two weeks in a row. Just 23 years old, I like Knox as a sleeper the rest of the season, and he certainly has nice upside this week against a Texans defense that has allowed the fifth-most yards to tight ends this season.

Pass-catchers I hate in Week 4

Marquise Brown, Baltimore Ravens (at Broncos)