Atlanta Falcons fantasy stud and dud from Week 4

Another gut-punch loss suffered, after the offense once again did more than enough to win a football game. Since 1940, there have been only four instances of an NFL team scoring 36+ points at home without committing a turnover and still losing — half of those losses belong to the Atlanta Falcons, last week and this week.

We have a lot of great content analyzing the game here at The Falcoholic, but in this article, we’ll look at things strictly from a fantasy football perspective. Let’s look at Atlanta’s top fantasy performer and biggest fantasy disappointment from Week 4’s defeat against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2018 History:

Past Studs: Julio Jones (1), Matt Ryan (1), Calvin Ridley (1)

Past Duds: Devonta Freeman (1), Mohamed Sanu (1), Atlanta D/ST (1)

Stud - Matt Ryan

Stat Line: 419 passing yards, 3 passing touchdowns, 0 interceptions, 2 carries, 5 rushing yards: 29.26 standard league/PPR points

Matt Ryan looks reborn in year two under Steve Sarkisian, in comparison to last season and minus that first effort. He’s been an absolute general, leading a well-oiled offensive machine up and down the field nearly every time he’s touched the ball the past three weeks.

Ryan was once again brilliant on Sunday, throwing for 419 yards (a season high) and three touchdown passes — two of which were to rookie sensation Calvin Ridley, who deserves an honorable mention shoutout in the column this week. Ryan did everything necessary to win this game, but was yet again betrayed by his defense.

The Boston College product has entered must-start territory in season-long fantasy football leagues. This is beginning to look like a reincarnation of the 2016 Falcons offense, and even if that doesn’t lead to real life wins due to the defense, it’ll lead to plenty of fantasy football wins for people who have Matt Ryan in their lineup.

Dud

Austin Hooper: 1 catch, 17 receiving yards: 1.7 standard league points, 2.7 PPR points

While it was very tempting to hand this (dis)honor to the defense once again, the defense shouldn’t have cost anybody their fantasy matchup because nobody should even have the Atlanta Falcons’ D/ST rostered at this point.

Austin Hooper was a clear miss in this week’s start/sit advice column. I thought that, with how much the Bengals have struggled in covering TEs, Hooper would be a good start, but he wasn’t. The Stanford product only had one catch, and while it did go for a crucial first down conversion on third and long, fantasy owners who started him were burned.

Ryan didn’t look Hooper’s way very much at all in this one. The one catch also meant disappointment in PPR leagues, where light yardage can sometimes be overcome. Unfortunately for Hooper, backup TE Logan Paulsen scavenged an early touchdown with his only catch of the game.

Austin Hooper is a sporadic fantasy option, who will have his moments at times this season; those moments will have some poor outings mixed in, however. It’ll be difficult to predict how well Hooper will do in any given week, making him more and more of a blindfolded dart throw.