Fantasy Football Stock Report: Malik Nabers shows up for managers while Josh Downs disappears in Week 4

As I write this on Sunday night, 15 of 16 Week 4 games are in the books (with Monday night remaining) and the season is continuing to round into shape. Sort of. There were promising improvements. Concerning trends. Performances that changed our early outlook on players and teams. As always, some of these shifting perspectives will have permanent ramifications in fantasy.

With that in mind, I've compiled another full fantasy stock report. These are the most notable risers and fallers heading into Week 5.

After a decent Week 1 with Jaxson Dart at quarterback, Malik Nabers disappeared the next two weeks with (mostly) Jameis Winston. Nabers was banged up throughout and totaled six catches for 27 yards in Weeks 2 and 3 ... before exploding back into relevance this Sunday.

Nabers caught six of his seven targets against the Cardinals and took them for 112 yards, including a 39-yarder on the Giants' first drive and a 25-yard touchdown before halftime. And while Isaiah Likely did see a monstrous 12 targets, no other wide receiver in New York had more than three . It was a good first step to reestablishing Nabers where he belongs: comfortably atop the New York passing game pecking order.

The hope, moving forward, is that Winston and Nabers have finally established some chemistry after the former was forced into action in Week 2. If true, Winston has always been a fantasy-friendly quarterback and Nabers could find his way back into WR1 territory the rest of the way. Oh, and next week brings a matchup with the Washington Commanders — you might want to trade for Nabers just to play him in that game.

Speaking of highly-touted receivers struggling through bad QB play before breaking out in Week 4 ... how about fourth overall pick Carnell Tate?! The Titans rookie was quiet through his first three games, logging single-digit fantasy points in each outing, but did catch six of nine targets in a rainy Week 3 against the Giants. Then, on Sunday, Tate snagged nine of a whopping 12 targets and racked up 145 receiving yards in a close loss to the Ravens.

While QB Cam Ward still didn't look exceptional — and frankly might be one of the least effective starters in the league — it appears he and Tate are getting on the same page. If we exclude Travis Hunter — who was only partially a wideout and missed half his rookie season — the last four rookie wide receivers drafted top-four overall all scored between 165 and 185 half-PPR fantasy points. That's comfortable WR2 range ... and it looks like Tate might now be on his way to joining the list.

Even with his Week 3 receiving touchdown, DK Metcalf had been incredibly disappointing as the "WR1" in Pittsburgh through three weeks, falling short of five catches and 50 receiving yards in all three outings. He was beginning to look like a completely untrustworthy FLEX-play-at-best ... before smoking the Browns for 115 yards on five catches on Thursday Night Football. And while I'm not ready to crown Metcalf as a rest-of-season fantasy WR2 just yet, there are underlying reasons for optimism.

Metcalf and Aaron Rodgers had been mismatched and inefficient for most of the season, but the wideout has now seen 9+ targets in three of four games. Additionally, the entire offense has been adjusting to Mike McCarthy as play-caller and Brian Angelichio as OC after years of Arthur Smith, so it's entirely possible it continues to gel as the season progresses. Metcalf still needs to show some consistency — and ideally get his catch rate over 50% — before we can start him reliably, but TNF was a big step in the right direction.

Wow. After the entirety of the NFL media-sphere spent the week trying to solve the mystery of "What's wrong with Drake Maye?" ... Maye answered himself, with 269 passing yards, 54 rushing yards, three touchdown passes and a 29-26 win over the Bills. He scored 27.16 fantasy points on Sunday, more than he'd scored in the three prior weeks combined (21.6). And he did it in a game Mack Hollins exited early, thanks to a breakout fantasy day from Romeo Doubs.

The former Packers wide receiver finally did what he used to do best in Green Bay and caught two of Maye's three TD tosses (with the third going to Efton Chism III on an absurd one-handed snag). Doubs is averaging 12.8 points per game over the past three weeks, and if Maye and the offense are fixed, Doubs could be a valuable top-30 WR moving forward.

Additionally, A.J. Brown should be back shortly, which would theoretically provide a massive boost for Maye and the offense as a whole, arguably forming a "rising tide lifts all ships" phenomenon in New England. Hopefully you didn't drop Maye, and hopefully the improvement continues deeper into October. Both these players should be rostered with hope on the horizon.

In what might have been one of the more baffling performances of the week, Kyle Monangai handled 30 of the 49 running back carries for Chicago in Sunday's win over the Jets. Not only that, but he racked up 146 rushing yards and two touchdowns on those carries, vastly outproducing D'Andre Swift on the ground and finishing with 27.5 fantasy points. Notably, Monangai did come away from the game with a thumb injury, so that will need to be monitored, but you don't typically see performances like this fade into obscurity.

Moreover, this is already Monangai's second game with at least 124 scrimmage yards and a touchdown through four games (also Week 1), and he's somehow the RB12 overall on the season. It's going to be very hard to write this off as a fluke, and might put Monangai in the FLEX consideration on a weekly basis ... at least. In a great matchup with the Packers next Sunday, he'll very nearly be a must-start at the position (if active).

Josh Downs had a near-ideal situation in the London game against Washington. Alec Pierce and Keenan Allen sidelined, leaving Laquon Treadwell and Ashton Dulin as his only competition. He was facing an absurdly soft Commanders defense that had been shredded by wide receivers. Annnnd ... he responded with three catches for 16 yards on just four targets (all fewer than either of the two names mentioned above, as well as tight end Tyler Warren). It was frankly demoralizing after he appeared to be one of the best "Starts" of the week, and it raises serious questions about his upside moving forward.

What's problematic is a good portion of the blame can be placed on quarterback Daniel Jones, who continued to look absolutely awful (55.9% completion rate, 4.2 yards per attempt, no TD, one INT) on Sunday. Jones has averaged just 188.5 passing yards per game and has three touchdown passes in four games, and that kind of quarterback production makes it hard to support one viable pass-catcher, let alone a top tight end and eventually three wide receivers (plus one of the most persistent and voluminous run games in the league). Park Downs back on the bench until he shows us something meaningful and consistent.

Through four weeks, Jalen Hurts has scored progressively fewer fantasy points each and every game. He scorched the Commanders in Week 1, but that has proven to be a somewhat empty scorching given how Washington's defense has played. After that, he threw two picks and had 18.16 fantasy points against Tennessee, then scored fewer than 14 points in back-to-back outings against the Bears and Rams.

The departure of A.J. Brown (and also DeVonta Smith being out this past Sunday) likely isn't helping, but there's a far more concerning trend with Hurts. He has just one rushing touchdown all season and is averaging just 26.3 rushing yards per game. The YPG matches the decline we saw last year, and the one TD suggests his mark of eight in 2025 might now be an optimistic ceiling. After years in which Hurts averaged 40-50 rushing yards per game and rushed for double-digit scores with ease, this is massively affecting both his floor and his ceiling.

For context, he's averaging the fourth-fewest passing yards per game among all qualified quarterbacks (behind Cam Ward and Daniel Jones, among others) and his seven touchdown passes are only enough to get him to QB12 on the season. Barring a major revitalization for Hurts and Philly's offense, it's going to be very tough for him to finish anywhere near the top five or six at the position, where he has typically lived in recent years.

While you can't drop David Montgomery in any reasonably sized league, you simply cannot start him anymore either. After his monster 27.4-point outing in Week 1 against the Bills, Montgomery has scored 3.5, 5.8 and 4.3 fantasy points in the three games since. He has not topped 11 carries or 35 rushing yards in any of those games, has not found the end zone once since scoring thrice in the opener and is consistently losing drives, snaps and touches to Woody Marks (who hasn't been much better, by the way).

Monty's 2.7 yards per carry are second-worst among qualified RBs (ahead of only MarShawn Lloyd) and his 23.4% success rate is dead last . Even with Week 1 boosting his numbers, Montgomery is winning a "race" for least efficient back in the NFL, and thanks to that Week 1 performance, he has now killed fantasy managers three weeks in a row. This past Sunday, the dud came in a game Houston scored 30 points against an extremely soft Cowboys defense. Whatever it was that we saw in Week 1, it currently appears to be a mirage, and Montgomery should not be started until we see some form of tangible improvement.

Fantasy managers who rejoiced after Henderson's 16 carries for 76 yards and a touchdown in his 2026 debut two weeks ago are wringing their hands and losing hair after Sunday. Henderson scored fewer than five fantasy points for the second straight week, this time despite seeing 16 opportunities. He turned those opportunities into just 42 total yards, was outproduced by Rhamondre Stevenson as a receiver (again) and even lost a goal-line touchdown to Stevenson as well.

Simply put, this backfield cannot be trusted. Even with the New England offense finding its spark ( see Drake Maye and Romeo Doubs above ), it's clear they want to use Stevenson and Henderson in an unpredictable, heavily mixed-and-matched manner — one which will typically favor Stevenson where it matters most for fantasy (in the passing game and the red zone).

Will Henderson have another huge touchdown run (or two or three) this season? Almost certainly. Will we be able to predict when it's coming? Almost certainly not. You might be able to play him in games the Patriots are heavily favored to win, against very soft run defenses, but even that will be dicey. Ultimately, you're probably best served keeping him on your bench and hoping something shifts in the pecking order.