Week 3 of the NFL season is in the books, and all of the estimating of roles, splits, and more can be set aside because we have multiple weeks of actual usage and numbers to break down. It’s important not to just look at the box score when evaluating players and stating whether their fantasy football stock is up or down. Many times, the numbers under the hood can paint a true picture of a player’s usage, value, or role. That’s the idea behind our Fantasy Football Risers and Fallers series. Throughout the season, we’ll monitor these underlying metrics and trends to identify fantasy football breakout candidates, waiver wire targets, trade targets, sleepers, and players who have seen their fantasy football stock go up or go down. Also, be sure to check out a few players I identified as possible fantasy football buy-low and sell-high candidates! If you want to stay ahead of your league, these are the fantasy football trends and fantasy football values you need to know as Week 3 is in the rearview mirror, and we head into Week 4 of the NFL season.

Biggest Fantasy Football Risers Before Week 4

Jeremiyah Love, Arizona Cardinals

Step to the side, Tyler Allgeier; it’s the Jeremiyah Love show in Arizona. It took all of a couple of weeks for Love to take over, and it’s here. Take a look at Love’s snap and workload by week, and you’ll see the dramatic jump in Week 3, per FantasyPoints Data:

 Snap Share% of Team’s total rushing attemptsRoute Participation Rate
Week 144.4%32.4%38.5%
Week 240.4%52.9%25.8%
Week 363.0%77.8%38.9%


We’ve yet to see consistent explosive runs from Love (2.6% explosive run rate), and his yards after contact per attempt (2.24) and missed tackles forced per attempt (0.17) are right around league average, per FantasyPoints Data. An average of four targets per game is excellent for his fantasy floor, and will help keep him from getting gamescripted out if Arizona were to fall behind. Allgeier won’t fully ever go away, but Love is the lead back in Arizona, and dare I say, the team’s bell cow.

Josh Downs, Indianapolis Colts

Josh Downs caught five of 11 targets for 77 yards against the Houston Texans in Week 3, posting 2.33 yards per route run and a 30.6% target share in that game, per FantasyPoints Data. Furthermore, Alec Pierce is out and set to miss the next few weeks, and with no Pierce in the mix, Downs ran 10% of his routes out wide, which is his highest mark in a game this year, per FantasyPoints Data. He’s still a slot-dominant guy, but get him out wide, and that will keep his snaps up; against Houston, he recorded 2.00 yards per route run and 0.44 targets per route run when lined up out wide, per FantasyPoints Data.

Downs and the Colts take on the Commanders, Steelers, and Titans over the next three weeks, so I’d expect good things to continue for Downs in the passing game. Overall through three weeks, Downs has a 24.5% target share, 2.07 yards per route run, and 31.5% first read rate, per FantasyPoints Data.

Biggest Fantasy Football Fallers Before Week 4

Omarion Hampton, Los Angeles Chargers

Upside RB1 Omarion Hampton has yet to show up in the 2026 season, and aside from just underwhelming production, usage in the backfield is not what Hampton managers desire. On the surface, you see that Hampton has at least 12 carries in all three games, and he’s averaging 14.5 rush attempts per game, and one may think the volume is there and, in time, the production will come. However, you have to dig a little deeper, and that’s where the ugly begins to rear its head. Despite a team-high 15 carries in Week 3, his 53.6% of the team’s carries was a season-low rate for Hampton, per FantasyPoints Data, and his lack of involvement in the passing game significantly reduces his fantasy upside.

If you go back to Week 1, Hampton’s route participation rate has dropped each week (28.6%, 25.8%, 15.8%), and in Week 3, both Keaton Mitchell AND Kimani Vidal had a higher route participation rate than Hampton. Also, can we ask the question whether Hampton isn’t the most suited for a zone run scheme? Through three weeks, Hampton’s YPC on zone runs sits at 2.61, whereas Mitchell and Vidal are at 5.15 and 6.00 (1 carry for Vidal), respectively, per FantasyPoints Data. Sure, 1.28 yards before contact per attempt for Hampton isn’t helping, but at the end of the day, Hampton can’t sniff a top-5 RB finish if he’s his own team’s RB3 in the passing game.

Jadarian Price, Seattle Seahawks

Jadarian Price has seen himself into his new residence for the foreseeable future, and that residence is the Mike Macdonald doghouse. He lost a fumble in Week 2, and then after losing another fumble early in Week 3, his role in the offense shrunk noticeably. After his fumble on Sunday, he saw just two carries and three targets over the next 3+ quarters. Take a look at the usage between Seattle’s three running backs from Quarters 2-4, per FantasyPoints Data:

 Snap ShareCarriesRoutes (Targets)
Holani42%311 (4)
Wilson32%68 (0)
Price24%29 (3)


 

Price’s explosive run rate, yards after contact per attempt, and missed tackles forced per attempt are excellent through three weeks, but the fumbles will quickly lose favor with a defensive-minded head coach, or any coach for that matter. Also, the return of Zach Charbonnet looms in the coming weeks, which just adds another back to the mix, and the fact that Price hasn’t separated early isn’t the most reassuring moving forward.

 

 

 

Fantasy Football Buy-Low Candidates

Drake Maye, New England Patriots

Are we seriously considering trading for a guy with a 63.7% completion rate, 1:6 TD/INT ratio, and fewer fantasy points through three weeks than Case Keenum? I think the opportunity is there. You can speculate just how much last year’s schedule played up Maye and the Patriots, and what he has shown thus far is not the real Maye. He won’t have A.J. Brown for another month plus, but the schedule does open up a bit for Maye in the coming weeks, with the Bills, Raiders, Jets, and Bears on tap for the next four weeks.

Maye is still getting it done with his legs, and his expected fantasy points per game of 15.56 is serviceable, despite topping 200 passing yards just once through the first three weeks. Ultimately, this isn’t a deal that you make for your weekly starter, but this is an opportunity to upgrade your backup to a high-upside player who can literally only go up from here. If Maye can get the turnovers in check and take care of the football, things will turn around.

Tucker Kraft, Green Bay Packers

Despite failing to reach double-digit fantasy points in any game this season, the arrow is trending up for Kraft, and he should only continue to get better the further removed he is from the knee injury that cut his 2025 season short. Through three weeks, he has a 79.4% snap share, 13.7% target share, and nearly 12 yards per reception, per FantasyPoints Data. He’s averaging nearly six targets per game, and a lack of a ground game has pushed Green Bay to the third-highest pass rate over expectation in the league, per FantasyPoints Data.

After a 47.8% route participation rate in Week 1, Kraft has been north of 68 percent in each of the last two games, and that type of presence on a pass-happy team will eventually turn into fantasy production for the star tight end. Get in while the price is still low, because once he has that game that reminds people of the ‘25 version of himself, he’s going to become far more difficult to acquire.

Fantasy Football Sell-High Candidates

Deebo Samuel, San Francisco 49ers

Mike Evans is day-to-day, but if someone believes that Samuel can still be the focal point of an NFL offense, I would sell high on Samuel, especially after he went for 15+ fantasy points without a single target. Yes, you read that right. He had zero targets in Week 3, a game in which San Francisco put up 36 points, but through Weeks 1-2, he was averaging 5.5 targets and one rushing attempt per game. The 49ers clearly value what he can do with the football in his hands, and he has a knack for finding the end zone, but there are a lot of things under the hood that give me some pause about sustained production.

Fantasy baseball managers know all about expected statistics, and Samuel’s 13.3 fantasy points per game is far outpacing his 9.5 expected fantasy points per game mark, per FantasyPoints Data. Furthermore, he has a 3.36 average depth of target (aDOT) and just 6.3% of the team’s air yards, per FantasyPoints Data. At some point, Samuel will need to earn more downfield work, because if we look back to 2025, these kinds of numbers over a full season aren’t exactly the most lucrative.

Per FantasyPoints Data, in 2025, Demario Douglas was the highest-scoring WR in PPR formats with less than 10% of the team’s air yards, coming in at WR65. Khalil Shakir was the WR36 at 10.8% air yards share, and Luther Burden’s 11.4% air yards share clocked in at WR48. For what it’s worth, Deebo Samuel had 15.2% of Washington’s air yards in 2025, and finished as WR25.

He’s currently WR21 on the year (PPR), so the time feels right to make a move.

Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns

Believe it or not, Watson is a QB1 in fantasy right now, and has more fantasy points than Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow. He’s thrown multiple touchdown passes in back-to-back games, and despite averaging only 195.7 passing yards per game, his work on the ground has really helped him from a fantasy perspective. He’s averaging eight rushing attempts per game, and his 35 yards per game on the ground would be the highest in his career since his rookie season (38.4). His 15% designed carry share is elite, per FantasyPoints Data, and he has the same number of carries inside the 5-yard line as running back Quinshon Judkins!

The work on the ground elevates his fantasy floor, and continued development from the likes of rookies KC Conception and Denzel Boston will only help Watson in the passing game. If Watson were to struggle, I could see Cleveland making the switch to Shedeur Sanders, but Watson’s start to the season has likely bought him a little bit of time. After nearly a half-decade of pretty bad football from Watson, can we truly be confident this holds up? That question has me considering selling high on Watson, should the opportunity present itself.