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senior NFL national reporter- Dan Graziano is a senior NFL national reporter for ESPN, covering the entire league and breaking news. Dan also contributes to Get Up, NFL Live, SportsCenter, ESPN Radio, Sunday NFL Countdown and Fantasy Football Now. He is a New Jersey native who joined ESPN in 2011, and he is also the author of two published novels.
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senior NFL national reporter- Jeremy Fowler is a senior national NFL writer for ESPN, covering the entire league including breaking news. Jeremy also contributes to SportsCenter both as a studio analyst and a sideline reporter covering for NFL games. He is an Orlando, Florida native who joined ESPN in 2014 after covering college football for CBSSports.com.
Week 5 of the 2024 NFL season has arrived, and league insiders Jeremy Fowler and Dan Graziano are here to break down the biggest questions, latest news and notable buzz heading into the slate of games. Plus, they pick out which players should -- or shouldn't -- be in your fantasy football lineups.
Which teams need to start thinking about making trade deadline moves? What's going on with Davante Adams and his potential trade candidacy? Who have been the most -- and least -- impactful offseason additions so far? And which players could see their roles expand over the next month? It's all here, as Dan and Jeremy answer big questions and empty their reporting notebooks with everything they've heard heading into Week 5.
Jump to:
Teams seeking trades | Adams update
Best offseason adds | Worst offseason adds
Players with expanding roles
Fantasy tips | Latest buzz
Which team most needs to get active in the trade market, and who could fit well?
Graziano: It wouldn't fit with anything we know about them and the way they operate, but I think the Cowboys should be looking for running backs and defensive front-seven players. They should be in the Haason Reddick market, for example (though again, I would be shocked if they actually were). Playing without defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence for a month or two is going to hurt them, especially if edge rusher Micah Parsons' absence is also an extended one. Running back is an easy one, though the Cowboys seem to have spent this offseason making a point of not pursuing anyone at that position. They just can't afford to lose any more ground in the division race.
Given the Rashee Rice injury, it would've been easy to say Chiefs here, but Kansas City has shown it knows how to win with what it has. It seems the Cowboys need more.
Fowler: I'm with you on Dallas, Dan, though Reddick would be too costly for them. Perhaps the Cowboys comb the middle-tier pass rush market. The early plan is to see how much backups (such as Marshawn Kneeland) can handle, hope Parsons returns soon and go from there. It could be a week-to-week discussion as far as how much they'd add.
Kansas City is indeed the easy answer, and one that I'll take because of receiver need. But the next few weeks will be crucial. How do the Chiefs move the ball without Rice and Hollywood Brown? How fast can Xavier Worthy develop? The Chiefs are never keen on absorbing big contracts, so ideally they would look for a reasonably priced veteran. If Cleveland continues to slide, Amari Cooper could be an attractive option because his contract restructure has him playing on a minimum base salary. The Giants' Darius Slayton ($2.5 million base salary) also comes to mind.
Pittsburgh is in a similar group. The Steelers looked for a receiver this offseason, tried to acquire Brandon Aiyuk and still need help opposite George Pickens.
Graziano: Cooper would be one to watch for Pittsburgh, though it'd be an in-division trade, and those are tough to execute. I would expect the Steelers to be in on Davante Adams, along with DeAndre Hopkins if he becomes available, and I do wonder about Christian Kirk in Jacksonville.
Fowler: Another loss or two could leave the 0-4 Jaguars trading away players. This roster is not barren. I could see teams inquiring on rookie-scale talent, such as linebacker Devin Lloyd, safety Andre Cisco and running back Travis Etienne Jr. I'm not saying Jacksonville wants to move marquee players, but we've seen this script before when a team implodes. The Jaguars have three starting-caliber offensive tackles, with Walker Little as the odd man out. Teams always need offensive line help and will make calls accordingly.
What are you hearing on the Davante Adams situation?
Graziano: So the Adams trade talk kicked off Tuesday. There are a lot of different reports flying around about that situation, but what seems clear after Tuesday is that there is some sort of situation there that could lead to the Raiders trading Adams. If nothing else, it sounds like the two sides are open to the idea for the first time.
The trade deadline is Nov. 5, and if you're wondering what kind of cap space your team would need to acquire Adams, the answer right now is about $14 million. Adams' base salary for 2024 is $16.89 million. You divide that by 18 (17 game weeks plus the bye week) to get his weekly salary, which comes out to $938,333.33. There are 14 weeks left, so his weekly salary multiplied by 14 is $13.77 million. Adams also gets a $30,000 roster bonus for every game he's on the active roster, so there's $390,000 worth of those left.
So for every week a suitor waits, it can drop the cap number by $968,333.33. If a team acquires Adams next week, it'd need about $13 million in cap space. The week after, a little more than $12 million. And so on. Wait until deadline day, and Adams will have $8.85 million left of his salary and $260,000 in per-game roster bonuses still to go.
Fowler: Yes sir, the Adams trade discourse did intensify! That's great stuff on the contractual implications. Here's what I know about Adams and the Raiders: this has escalated quickly. When I checked with several people with the team early Tuesday, they were not aware of a trade request or preference. Still, multiple teams had Adams on their trade radar over the past few days. Inside the building, I'm told that Adams has very recently been "on board" with trying to help the Raiders win games.
But that was before the Monday screenshots of coach Antonio Pierce liking an Instagram post insinuating Adams could be traded. (I'm told that the Instagram like might have been an accident, but either way, Adams probably didn't appreciate it.) Adams has a legitimate hamstring injury that flared up last week, but he is hoping to play Sunday vs. the Broncos (he loves a good matchup with Pat Surtain II). So I don't sense the injury has given the Raiders reason to shelve him for a trade. They are trying to be careful with injuries to key players to ensure they are available later in the season.
Before this, teams were a bit skeptical of Adams' desire to get out, because he's a West Coast guy who has made a home in Las Vegas. But it doesn't seem like much can redirect the momentum, and the Raiders are quite clearly listening to inquiries.
Graziano: The Jets, Cowboys, Commanders and Lions are among potentially interested teams with enough cap space to trade for Adams now. The Steelers, who currently have roughly $10.5 million in cap space, would probably need to wait until the deadline or find some other way of creating space. Adams also has two years left on his contract after this one, with scheduled salaries of $35.64 million in 2025 and 2026. But none of that money is guaranteed, so there'd be no cap hit for the acquiring team next year if it released him at the end of the season.
ESPN's Adam Schefter reported Tuesday afternoon that the Raiders were telling teams they wanted a second-round pick and additional compensation for Adams. Anything's possible, but it's tough to imagine many teams lining up to offer that much for a wide receiver who turns 32 in December and makes almost $1 million per week. My guess is that interested teams will want to wait until closer to the deadline if that's the price. It's also possible an acquiring team could rework Adams' contract as a condition of the deal, though that would likely require converting some of the money remaining in his contract into guarantees at least through the 2025 season (in which he turns 33).
Fowler: Buffalo got a second-rounder for Stefon Diggs and two late-round picks in the offseason, so perhaps Las Vegas is working off that market, then adding interest for Adams' long-standing place in the receiver pantheon. The Jets must look into this. Aaron Rodgers needs someone with whom he has instant chemistry. And if they aren't paying Reddick, they can allocate that money to Adams. That's not the cleanest way to do business, but this regime is all-in on this season with Rodgers. I also wouldn't count out the Steelers, because they were very willing to pay Aiyuk before the 49ers star ultimately stayed in San Francisco.
There's no way the new team pays that $35.6 million salary you mentioned, Dan, so Adams will need to negotiate with a new team, preferably before a trade commences. Adams can do one last megadeal, or he can follow Diggs' blueprint and ask the new team to take the final two years off his deal to make him a 2025 free agent.
The most impactful offseason addition so far is ______.
Fowler: Pick a running back, any running back. With passing numbers slightly down leaguewide, the onus is on the running game to dictate the pace. And three of the top six rushers through Week 4 are new additions: Baltimore's Derrick Henry is first (480 yards), followed by Philadelphia's Saquon Barkley at No. 3 (435) and the Chargers' J.K. Dobbins at No. 6 (342). Henry gets my vote here. He was the catalyst for the Ravens' offense over the past two weeks as Baltimore pivoted to a ground-heavy attack, long a staple in the Lamar Jackson era.
Henry is in phenomenal shape at age 30 and has surpassed all expectations in the building since signing in March, working diligently to learn a new offense. He's on pace for his third season of at least 15 rushing touchdowns, which would place him in elite company alongside Emmitt Smith (three), Shaun Alexander (three) and LaDainian Tomlinson (four). Henry has 49 carries over the past two games, and I don't see that pace slowing until someone stops him.
Graziano: Yeah, it feels like it was a long time ago when we were watching the Ravens lose their first two games and wondering whether they would figure out how to use Henry. Now he's running for 87-yard touchdowns on their first play from scrimmage. It's hard to overstate the impact he has had.
Can we count rookies here? Because Jayden Daniels seems like a great answer to me. Not only is Washington 3-1, but it's doing it by counting on its new QB and his vast array of talents -- not coddling him or bringing him along slowly, the way many teams do with rookie signal-callers.
The Commanders are a legitimate surprise playoff contender. And when we talk about impact, we must include the way Daniels has impacted how the team and fan base feel about things overall. That's as intensely passionate a fan base as any in sports. It has been beaten down by years of failure and disappointment, but it's ready to roar back to life at a moment's notice. And so far, Daniels has looked like the type of player who can make that happen.
Fowler: Let's not forget about the Vikings' reconfigured pass rush with free agent additions Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel, who have combined for seven sacks. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah deserves credit here. While Danielle Hunter left Minnesota for a free agent deal with the Texans that pays nearly $25 million per year, Minnesota reallocated that money for two impact players at nearly the same price -- the Greenard and Van Ginkel deals average out to $29 million per year. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores is making a compelling case for another head-coaching job with his work this season, and he's using Greenard/Van Ginkel as rocket fuel to pester quarterbacks.
Graziano: Flores identified a couple of targets for the Vikings this offseason, which included those guys and linebacker Blake Cashman. They've been great fits and helped augment a defense whose holdovers are playing much faster and more confidently in their second season in Flores' system. I also think it's worth pointing out that the Lions' defense had been pretty awesome against the run prior to Monday night and that new defensive tackle DJ Reader has been a primary reason. It looks like the Bengals miss him, and Reader appears to be what the Lions needed up front.
The most disappointing offseason addition so far is ______.
Graziano: It has to be Russell Wilson, right? He hasn't even played for the Steelers, and the way Justin Fields is coming along, he might not! Pittsburgh was hailed as shrewd for signing Wilson on a minimum contract, and sure, it was low risk. But it has also yielded no reward so far. I guess maybe Reddick with the Jets might be more disappointing, because he hasn't played for them either and cost more. But Wilson seemed to be the one who carried higher expectations. Now we must wonder whether his career is over.
Fowler: It feels like the Wilson era in Pittsburgh never got off the ground, and it's uncertain whether it ever will. The stakes always felt pretty low here, though, because the Steelers didn't trade for him and are paying him the league minimum. But he has had minimal time on task since training camp, and the deeper this thing goes, the more the job feels like Fields' -- unless he gives it away.
Bryce Huff has also been a disappointment in Philadelphia, there's no way around it. The edge rusher is on a $51 million contract and has one solo tackle and no quarterback pressures at the quarter mark of the season. Adjustments to a new system and the way the Eagles are using him seem to be factors, but the return on investment is less than ideal, especially against the backdrop of the Reddick trade.
Name a player who could see his role expand over the next few weeks.
Fowler: Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving. Tampa Bay is running an equal-share backfield with Irving and Rachaad White, who remains the starter and played well Sunday against Philadelphia with 49 yards on 10 carries. But Irving's skill set is hard to ignore, and opposing coaches are game planning for him as if he's a focal point of the offense. There's a lot of buzz about Irving in those circles. That usually says something. Irving's shifty running style and big-play potential will keep him in the lineup, and when Tampa Bay needs to grind out wins with the run, there will be plenty of carries to go around.
Graziano: Packers WR Dontayvion Wicks is the one-for-one replacement for the injured Christian Watson for as long as Watson is out. The roles for Romeo Doubs and Jayden Reed aren't likely to change, but Wicks is a big-play guy whom the Packers think is dangerous with the ball in his hands. Jordan Love also likes throwing to him. I could see Wicks being a big part of the Packers' offense in the short term, and maybe even playing well enough to see his role expand at Watson's expense once the latter is healthy.
Fowler: I also think Panthers rookie receiver Xavier Legette will continue to see targets with Andy Dalton at quarterback. He acquitted himself well in his first NFL start Sunday, registering six catches for 66 yards and a touchdown on 10 targets. Carolina's offense is not featuring its tight ends heavily in the passing game, so Diontae Johnson and Legette should continue to see the lion's share of targets.
Graziano: My sense is that JuJu Smith-Schuster is the Chiefs receiver most likely to see a usage boost in Rice's absence. He's not as explosive as Rice at this point in his career, but the Chiefs like to use Smith-Schuster in the short and midrange areas of the field, where Rice was doing his damage. Smith-Schuster knows the offense from having played in it two seasons ago, and Patrick Mahomes looked to him in key spots during that Super Bowl run. Smith-Schuster and tight end Travis Kelce will likely be focal points as the Chiefs retool to replace Rice's production. Rookie receiver Xavier Worthy is exciting and certainly a big-play threat, but the Chiefs don't view him as a high-volume option just yet.
What's your top fantasy football tip of the week?
Fowler: Give Kareem Hunt consideration at RB2 or flex. Hunt's legs looked fresh Sunday with 69 yards on 14 rushes, and he is prideful about his second chance with the Chiefs, which is showing in how he's running. Hunt is also efficient in the red zone. All of his nine touchdown runs with Cleveland last season came from inside the 16-yard line. With Kansas City's offense decimated by injury, Hunt now steps to the forefront. The eventual return of Clyde Edwards-Helaire could impact Hunt's usage slightly, but Edwards-Helaire has averaged 347 yards over the past three seasons.
Graziano: If you're in a bind and Joe Mixon is out again this week, I'd fire up Houston RB Cam Akers one more time. The Bills have allowed the most fantasy points to running backs, and even if you take out the destruction visited upon them by Derrick Henry and Justice Hill this past Sunday night, they'd still rank in the top eight of fantasy points allowed to running backs.
I'd also expect Stefon Diggs to be the receiver to have in Houston this week, because he works the middle part of the field, where Buffalo is more vulnerable. Obviously, you can't bench Nico Collins; just don't be shocked if Diggs has the better week.
What else are you hearing this week?
Fowler:
Expect Gardner Minshew to remain the Raiders' starting quarterback, but Las Vegas also will be nimble there. The Raiders are taking the season by quarters, and they knew Minshew would be better for the first quarter because of the elite pass rushes they faced. He's more mobile than Aidan O'Connell. Who's better for the second and third quarters? Minshew's play could determine that, given he will probably remain the starter after Sunday's win over Cleveland. But this situation seems very fluid.
Monday night was not ideal for Titans quarterback Will Levis, who threw a bad interception, hurt his shoulder and watched backup Mason Rudolph operate the offense cleanly. But Brian Callahan's declaration that Levis will "100%" be the quarterback if healthy is not lip service, to my understanding. Levis, as of now, is not in a quick-hook situation, as the Titans seem intent on seeing the Levis experience through. Levis has struggled with mistakes early in the season, but the upside is high. Tennessee needs to see what it has before it pivots. So I don't get the sense that this is a Bryce Young situation. And the bye week gives Levis' shoulder injury time to heal.
In other quarterback news, Anthony Richardson hopes to play for the Colts this week, depending how his recovery goes. He's day-to-day with an injury to his right hip, which was considered a hip pointer/contusion coming out of the game Sunday. Availability in early practice sessions will be a guide, and Joe Flacco is available. But Flacco, who played well in relief last week, is under no illusions here; if Richardson is healthy, he will play.
Injury updates: Patriots safety Kyle Dugger is gathering information on his injured ankle, but the initial belief is the injury is not a major concern. It's looking more like a bad low-ankle sprain, barring new information on second opinions, which many players seek nowadays. ... Texans running back Joe Mixon (ankle) could work his way back this week. Mixon, who has missed two games, moved well in Friday's practice and hopes to continue to trend positively before this week's game against the Bills. ... Bucs DL Calijah Kancey hasn't made his Year 2 debut yet, and I'm told he's a long shot to play Thursday night vs. Atlanta. After that, he should be close. The Bucs' defensive front is already getting after quarterbacks and will only get better when Kancey returns. Fellow second-year pass rusher Yaya Diaby ranks third in fastest time to pressure a quarterback (2.51 seconds), according to NFL Next Gen Stats, trailing only Myles Garrett and Trey Hendrickson. The Bucs' front will try to rattle Falcons QB Kirk Cousins with constant pressure Thursday night.
Jayden Daniels' impressive start is hardly a surprise to people inside the Commanders' building. As one person with the team pointed out about his accuracy: "The ball barely touched the grass all spring. It's not just that he's special, but he's constantly working to get better." A separate team source said: "He's in the building early and he's a tone-setter that way." Daniels ranks fourth in QBR (73.3). The offense has punted once in the team's past three games, and Daniels is doing this without a proverbial No. 2 receiver opposite Terry McLaurin. But so far the Commanders -- who didn't make a splashy move for Aiyuk or other available receivers in part to build for the future and preserve draft capital -- have been very pleased with the supporting cast of Noah Brown, Luke McCaffrey, Zach Ertz and Olamide Zaccheaus. Daniels' maturity on and off the field is why the team isn't worried about difficulties with handling success.