Larry Donnell's Instant Fantasy Reaction After Week 4

Before Thursday, it'd been nearly five calendar years since a New York Giants tight end scored two touchdowns in the same game. Larry Donnell got the job done barely over a quarter into Thursday night's a game against Washington.

And then he added another for good measure.

Donnell brought in a five-yard pass in the first quarter and a pair of six-yarders in the second from Eli Manning as the Giants scored a 45-14 obliteration of Washington. The former undrafted free agent is the first Giants tight end to find the painted area multiple times in the same contest since Kevin Boss on Nov. 22, 2009. 

Targets	Receptions	Yards	Touchdowns
8	7	54	3

A practice squad member for most of 2013, Donnell has quickly become a revelation in 2014. He has brought in at least five receptions in each of the season's first four games, his totals adding to 25 receptions for 236 yards and four touchdowns. Facing a depleted Washington secondary Donnell caught seven of his eight targets for 54 yards. 

His ascent has provided a key safety valve to Manning, something he's lacked in recent seasons.

"It's a confidence builder, giving faith to Eli knowing that if he throws it, he doesn't have to worry about anything," Donnell recently told Tom Rock of Newsday. "He has a reliable target to go to underneath if he has to get the ball out.''

The one area Donnell's consistency is yet to catch on is with fantasy owners. He was owned in barely over a quarter of ESPN.com leagues coming into this week, though that was a massive leap from his 3.1 percent ownership before the waiver period.

Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

I had taken a middle-ground approach, ranking him eighth among tight ends for Week 4—right along the line of bye-week replacement. While it's easy to overreact to big weeks, it's clear Donnell will wind up near the top of the scoring leaders sheet and should be owned in every format.

Manning's history of targeting tight ends has been hit or miss, and I suspect this is much more of an outlier performance than the upcoming norm. That said, there aren't too many tight ends available in most leagues who are getting Donnell's number of targets and doing something with them on a weekly basis.

He's well below the top tier of Jimmy Graham, Julius Thomas, Vernon Davis and Rob Gronkowski; it'd even be a stretch to put Donnell in the Greg Olsen, Martellus Bennett and Delanie Walker class. After that? You're pretty much in a crapshoot on a week-to-week basis. With his three scores Thursday, Donnell put himself in as good a place as anyone in that conversation.

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