Fantasy Football Week 4: Risers, Fallers and Top Trade Candidates

It may just be me, but doesn't it feel like there's just a ton of players going off for ridiculous point totals every week this fantasy football season? One guy in particular is Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones. According to Pro Football Focus, Jones has totaled 102 points-per-reception format points through the first three games.

Digest that for a moment—one hundred and two points. That's 11 more points than Randy Moss in 2007 when he was a member of the New England Patriots (and we all know the kind of season he had).

This column will feature some players who had high point totals this week. Should you keep them? Is this a perfect opportunity to sell high on some of these players?

Monday Night Football was an insane game to watch, as Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers shredded the Kansas City Chiefs en route to a five-passing-touchdown performance.

Rodgers, we are all witnesses.

Three risers, three fallers and three trade candidates. It's time to prepare for Week 4—let's go!

Riser: Ty Montgomery, WR, Green Bay Packers

Matt Ludtke/Associated Press

Speaking of Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, wide receiver Ty Montgomery caught a touchdown from him in Monday night's Week 3 matchup.

Coming into the season with a wide receiver depth chart that featured Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, Davante Adams, Jeff Janis and Montgomery himself, redraft fantasy players didn't expect Montgomery to be relevant whatsoever.

However, an injury to Nelson put him back in the picture. Then the Packers signed wide receiver James Jones, who's been nothing but a touchdown machine for the Packers. So Montgomery seemed to be an afterthought again. Although no one hopes for anyone to get injured, Adams re-aggravated his ankle injury on Monday Night Football and is expected to miss some time, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport.

As noted above, Montgomery caught a touchdown pass Monday night. When did that happen? After Adams left the game. In Week 3, Montgomery played 66 out of the teams 77 snaps. Despite the Janis truthers, he played just over 20 percent of the team's snaps.

Despite being behind Cobb and Jones, Montgomery is a must-add in all formats.

The guy has Rodgers throwing him the ball, guys.

Faller: Roddy White, WR, Atlanta Falcons

John Bazemore/Associated Press

A missing person's report has been filed for Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Roddy White following his second game in a row where he hasn't caught a single pass.

One could argue that fellow wide receiver Leonard Hankerson could be taking away snaps and looks, but White led Falcons wide receivers in snaps Week 3. In addition, it's not as though the Falcons got up huge on the Brandon Weeden led Cowboys—they were losing most of the game.

You could argue that the zero catches in two straight games is a fluke—and maybe it is—but there's a cause for concern, as there is really no reason for these results. The snaps are there, and the team has had to make comebacks in all three of their games.

Take a wait-and-see approach with White for now.

Riser: Karlos Williams

Bill Wippert/Associated Press

Somewhere out there, a certain Buffalo Bills running back hater is smiling from ear-to-ear.

According to NFL Network's Rand Getlin, Bills running back LeSean McCoy is unlikely to play in Week 4 against the New York Giants. On top of that, there's speculation that the Bills could rest Shady McCoy until his hamstring is healthy.

If McCoy were to miss an extended period of time, Williams should maintain his pace of a top-20 running back.

Like Ty Montgomery, Williams is a must-add in all formats. 

Faller: Jeremy Hill, RB, Cincinnati Bengals

Gail Burton/Associated Press

My index finger is resting on the hypothetical panic button on Cincinnati Bengals running back Jeremy Hill.

It's been well documented that Hill had two fumbles in Week 2 and missed a large portion of the second half of that game. However, going into Week 3 we all thought, "Oh don't worry, it happens! It's Jeremy Hill! They have to give him the ball."

Then the Bengals had Hill on the field for approximately 34 percent of the team's snaps while fellow running back Gio Bernard played in 66 percent of the snaps. Not only did Bernard play more snaps, he even had one more carry than Hill.

The other thing that needs to be accounted for is Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton—he is playing out of his mind through the first three weeks of the season. Through the first three weeks, Dalton is sixth in passing yards and tied for fourth in passing touchdowns while throwing just one interception.

Couple the fact that Bernard is now out-snapping Hill with Dalton playing like a top-three fantasy quarterback, and Hill appears to be heading toward the odd man out.

Riser: Eric Ebron, TE, Detroit Lions

Rick Osentoski/Associated Press

I know, I know—you came to this slide, saw the name of the player and his team and immediately thought to yourself, "The Detroit Lions are so (insert expletive) bad."

You're not necessarily wrong.

Fortunately for fantasy football (unless you're a Lions fan), we only care about specific players. One player in particular we can no longer ignore and need to care about is tight end Eric Ebron.

So far this season, Ebron has finished in the top 12 in terms of fantasy points among all tight ends in points-per-reception formats all three weeks this season. Ebron is joined by three other tight ends to accomplish that feat—New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten and Washington Redskins tight end Jordan Reed.

Coming into the season, we expected Gronk to be Gronk and Witten to be Mr. Reliable, and Reed had upside. However, we didn't necessarily forecast the same success for Ebron.

He's owned in just over 50 percent of ESPN leagues. Go get him.

Now.

Faller: Jonathan Stewart, RB, Carolina Panthers

Bob Leverone/Associated Press

"He's got DeAngelo Williams stealing carries from him."

"He's always hurt."

Those are just a couple of the excuses we've given Carolina Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart for being a relatively average starting running back in the National Football League.

However, 2015 presented a new, golden, shining opportunity for JStew—Williams was no longer on the team and he's been healthy. This was Stewart's year to finally give fantasy owners solid production as an RB2 and maybe, just maybe, a low-end RB1. Then the news about Panthers wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin going down with an ACL injury came out and the Stewart love was like no other. He was a surefire top-20 running back in 2015.

Yeah, nope.

No matter how much research and stat analyzing you'll do, you will find absolutely zero clarity as to why Stewart has been so mediocre this season.

Does he play enough snaps? Yes.

Does he get enough carries? He's averaging over 16 per game.

Stewart might be the only starting running back in the NFL that belongs on the waiver wire.

Trade Candidates

Brandon Wade/Associated Press

Joseph Randle, RB, Dallas Cowboys

Like most players, it's probably a good time to sell high on a player who has had a career day.

We can all agree that Randle's three-touchdown day against the Atlanta Falcons is considered a career day. However, his stat line may be a bit deceiving. As NFL.com's Matt Harmon points out, Randle's 14 carries went as follows, in terms of rushing yards gained/lost: 28, 37, 20, 1, -1, 1, 4, 1, 0, 1, -1, -4, 2, -2.

The first three numbers are good, but the rest aren't so great.

We can't argue that Randle had a great day, but he's also a player you can sell high on.

Jeremy Maclin, WR, Kansas City Chiefs

Talk about the most garbage-time-filled stat sheet ever.

After not recording a single catch in the first half of his Week 3 matchup on Monday Night Football, Maclin went on to catch eight passes for 141 yards and a touchdown—the first touchdown by a Chiefs receiver since what seems like 50 years ago.

We've barely seen Maclin used up to this point. One could easily hypothesize it was for one reason—the Chiefs were getting smoked, and they had to pass to play catch-up.

The Chiefs defense is good enough to keep the team in games (unless they face Aaron Rodgers), so it's hard to forecast when an occurrence like this will happen again.

If you own Maclin, you're in for one inconsistent fantasy season. Trade him now while his value is probably at it's highest and acquire a more consistent receiving option.

T.J. Yeldon, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars

It's not too often a running back comes along that touches the ball no matter how game-flow is going. Whether the Jaguars are up or down, Yeldon will get the ball.

In Week 2, we saw just how much the Jaguars trusted Yeldon, as he carried the ball 25 times. In Week 3, the Jaguars got absolutely demolished by the New England Patriots, so that's a tough game to base Yeldon off of.

Yeldon has yet to really have a breakout game this season, and he has yet to put up huge fantasy totals. Get him while he's on the cheap. He's one of the few running backs in the league that really isn't in a timeshare.

ll advanced statistics courtesy Pro Football Focus and Pro-Football-Reference.