Tue Oct 13th 2026

Week Five Review

• Montgomery is day-to-day with a groin strain, so this is Woody Marks’s chance to steal the leading job, something I advocated for last week.  Marks and Montgomery compare well statistically this season, but Marks looks way better on his touches. I’m eager to see what he can do with a heavier workload, though he produced little this week after Montgomery left the game.

• Wilson injured his finger early in the game and is now predicted to miss several weeks. He was beginning to break out this season, too, after scoring touchdowns in back-to-back weeks.  He also had six targets in each of the first four games. His absence gave way to rookie Germie Bernard, who made the most of it, catching six passes on nine targets for 80 yards. Aaron Rodgers, likes Bernard, can help him break out in this short window of time without Wilson. He could become Rodgers’s top target as he was this week.

• It’s not exactly fair to take a victory lap on a player who was the consensus #2 pick in dynasty rookie drafts three years ago, but I am sure glad that I had the second pick in two of those drafts. He contributed to a championship in one of those leagues and a top-three finish in the other. He and Bijan Robinson have fully lived up to their dynasty draft capital and are the NFL's two best running backs. Gibbs seems set on breaking records this season, and coach Campbell will let him go for it. He’s averaging 26.4 touches per game this season, including more than five catches per game. He has 4.8 yards per carry and has scored nine touchdowns. He’s an amazingly elusive, quick runner who constantly makes defenders miss. He’s a blast to watch and will carry dynasty teams like mine deep into the playoffs this season.  

• While I can’t take credit for Gibbs, I can for Washington, whom I claimed off waivers last year in two leagues. I can’t boast too much, though, because on one of my league platforms you can look at a player's history, and when I checked Washington’s, I found I claimed him three times and cut him twice over the last two years! Since October 22^nd of last season, he’s been on my roster, and his late-season run last year contributed to a Super Bowl win and a Super Bowl loss in my two leagues with Washington on my roster. He’s the clear WR-1 on an explosive offense with an excellent offensive mind at head coach. He’s gone from a cuttable player to an every-week starter on dynasty rosters over the last twelve months.  Sadly, I made the mistake of looking back at his history in three other leagues, and I had Washington in those leagues, too. So I’ll take a victory lap for believing in him early and a walk of shame for dropping him.

• I drafted Nix in several leagues and traded Caleb Williams for him early last season in another league. I regret all of it. I never thought Nix was the best passer, but I thought he was an excellent fantasy quarterback because he ran the ball so well and extended so many plays into big plays.  For whatever reason, he’s not doing it this season, and he’s played terribly. He’s only run for 35 yards in five games, and he’s completing under 60% of his passes. If Sean Peyton giving up play-calling duties were the issue, you would not have known it this week after he resumed play-calling and Nix had his least productive game of the season against the 0-5 Chargers. I’m not counting Nix out forever, but something is severely broken in his mind, arm, and legs this season. I still start him every week in two of my superflex leagues, but I now have to consider benching him for guys like Geno Smith and Jalon Daniels.

• Skattebo started his career on fire before his season-ending injury, and he looked to do the same this season after a very productive game one. Since then, however, things have gone downhill. Since week one, he hasn't had more than 60 rushing yards, averaging just 3.38 yards per carry, and he hasn't scored a touchdown. Plus, he has fumbled in every game this season except one, and this Sunday, the first fumble of the season that he lost cost the Giants the game. I had Skattebo ranked much higher than other dynasty managers, so I drafted him a lot. I have him in four of my eleven leagues, and now he’s just a depth piece on each of them. I’m not writing him off completely yet, but he’s been a huge disappointment this season.

• LaPorta is having an excellent season and is scaling back up my dynasty rankings as a result. He’s my third-ranked dynasty tight end, behind only Brock Bowers and Trey McBride. The talk of the offseason was that the Lions’ new offensive coordinator, Drew Petzing, who came from Arizona, would make LaPorta his Trey McBride. Well, it’s looking that way. LaPorta is getting more than seven targets per game and averaging more than five catches per game.  He’s making big plays downfield, too, averaging 11.7 yards per catch. Sunday’s 38-yard touchdown was a beauty. I drafted LaPorta in the Scott Fish Bowl to stack with Jared Goff, and it’s paying off big for me. LaPorta is back in the top tier of dynasty tight ends.

• Aaron Rodgers loves Freiermuth! He’s thrown him four touchdown passes, including two this Sunday. Freiermuth’s dynasty stock is on the rise again after it crashed last year. To be fair, almost all of his fantasy points this season (24 of 50) have come from touchdowns. Still, dynasty managers can do worse than start a tight end who scores a touchdown almost every week. With Roman Wilson out with an injury, Freiermuth could be more involved in the offense. He hit a season-high in targets this week after Wilson left the game. In the two leagues where I have Freiermuth, I plan to shop him in trades this week since I have more highly targeted tight ends on my roster.  It will be interesting to see if anyone is interested in him again, since he was a player worth cutting last year.

• Brown is one of the most disappointing players this season. I almost included him in the stock-down portion of the article last week, but I thought it would be unfair since he caught 11 passes, even though he looked terrible on the ground. Last week he averaged 1.1 yards per carry, and this week he averaged 3, but Samaje Perine outplayed and outproduced him. The lead back in a high-powered offense should score a ton of fantasy points and get plenty of red-zone carries, but Brown has done neither. He scored only one touchdown in week one, and he averages 10 fantasy points per game, and almost all of his fantasy points have come through the passing game. 30% of his total yards are receiving yards. He was an excellent runner last year, with more than 1,000 rushing yards and 4.4 yards per carry, but this season he’s on pace for just 836 yards and is averaging 3.5 yards per carry. Cincinnati has a bye week this week, and I hope they figure out their run game so that Brown can play better.

• Luther Burden, Rome Odunze, and Colston Loveland have been some of the year's biggest busts. I am sure that Caleb Williams would have made them more productive than the backups who have played the last few weeks, but their lack of production is astonishing to me. Every week, I keep giving them a pass, but after five straight weeks, it’s time to move each of them down my dynasty rankings.  I keep waiting for Burden or Odunze to stand out as the WR1, and for Loveland to become the most-targeted pass-catcher like he was at the end of last season, but none of it is happening. I’m sure other dynasty managers have not been able to do so. Still, I’ve had to sit Loveland on my bench for the last few weeks in each of the three leagues I have him in, except for a rebuilding team where I am forced to start Loveland and Burden, who were supposed to be two key pieces in my rebuilding efforts. At least they’re helping me lose games in that league as I await the 2027 draft class!

• Daniels and Maye both looked like their first-round selves again this week, scoring 34 and 43 points, respectively. It was great to see Daniels healthy and running again for two long scores of 38 and 26 yards, while Maye dropped bombs for 34 and 35-yard touchdowns, plus two short touchdown passes and a touchdown run.  Ever since Maye appeared in my stock-down column, he’s gone ballistic, putting together back-to-back hyper-productive games. Daniels lacks weapons in the passing game, but he can rebuild his rapport with the healthy guys and build on this first game back. Both are back in the circle of trust.

• Warren had his best game of the season and Kraft his most productive. Both stud tight ends have not been targeted downfield enough this season, which is frustrating because it’s one of their strengths. This week, Warren had a season-high in yards per catch with 11.9, and Kraft had his second-best of the season with 12.8. They both do their best work downfield in space and are excellent runners after the catch. I hope their coaching staff recognize how well they played this week and adjust their game plans to use them this way every week. The tight end position has been a mess this season, and bonafide studs like Kraft and Warren have just been average thus far. This week they were far better, especially Warren.

• Jones was listed as questionable all week, and all he did on Sunday was carry the ball a season-high 25 times for a season-high 113 yards and a punishing touchdown run right up the middle of the defense. He even left the game with an injury for a few minutes. What an amazing 31-year-old season he’s having. Ever since Jordan Mason was placed on IR, Jones has been a starter in my lineups, and he’s been exactly what dynasty managers need at RB-2. He’s scored over 10 half-PPR points each week and had more than 100 yards from scrimmage in three of the four games.  The Vikings have a bye week this week, and Mason is eligible to come off of IR, so his productivity may be short-lived, but it’s been fun while it lasted and could keep going if Mason’s injury lingers.

• Evans is unbelievable. He’s one of the best red-zone weapons ever. His crafty fade-to-slant was a thing of beauty. It’s impossible to cover him when he can either box you out or jump over your head. Every time the 49ers needed a key conversation, Evans seemed to be their man. In an important divisional game when they needed Evans most, he played the most snaps of the season since game one, when he was injured, and had his most productive game with 113 receiving yards and another red-zone touchdown. There are two things you can count on with Evans: he will battle injuries, and he will score red-zone touchdowns. He did both on Sunday and will throughout the season.

• I know Perine is available in several of my leagues because I have picked him up off waivers a few times already. I picked him up as a viable backup if Chase Brown got injured, but now he could become the Bengals' starter. He’s looked better than Brown last week, at least.

• As the 49ers’ receivers keep dropping like flies, Cooks came to the rescue and even scored a touchdown on Sunday. I picked him up in several deep leagues a few weeks ago after he signed with the 49ers practice squad. Now it’s time to add him in almost every league this week since he could be their starting receiver next week.

• Bond dropped two passes on Sunday, which made him look terrible, but he was a big part of the game plan after KC Concepcion was concussed. He has seven targets and caught three passes for 74 yards. His starting window in Cleveland depends on Concepcion’s recovery, but he’s still a player worth considering adding this week.

• That was quick! One manager took what he could get from the stock bump for Harrison after the trade ot the Texans. I am sure more MHJ trades will take place in the weeks ahead. A second-round pick feels about right for Harrison. He’d never go for a first, and a third is too little.  The team that traded for Harrison is in the bottom half of the league, so the pick could be an early second-rounder. Will see if Harrison can help improve his status above that.

• The team that acquired Stroud is in first place in this one-quarterback league, but their best starting quarterback is Kyler Murray after Jaxson Dart was placed on IR. I guess he tried to get another middle-tier quarterback instead of paying up for a top-tier one. A third-round pick is a good deal for Stroud in a one-quarterback league. I would have liked to see the other manager hold out for a little more, especially since he knew the first-place team was desperate.

• A rebuilding team gave away the Miami backfield for some very mediocre players. If he were set on trading away the backs, I'd rather he trade players or picks, because Rodriguez and Gadsden will not help his team rebuild. This was a very curious trade.  While Gordon and Wright may only help the other team for a year, I’d still rather have them than the two players he gave away.

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