Immediate fantasy football takeaways from NFL Week 4 Monday Night Football

The Los Angeles Chargers defeated the Las Vegas Raiders 28-14 on Monday Night Football to close out Week 4. The Chargers dominated the first half with their strong defense while Justin Herbert threw three touchdown passes. Austin Ekeler also had a career-best performance. The Raiders started to show life in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to give Las Vegas the win.

PFF's fantasy football recap focuses on player usage and stats, breaking down all the vital information you need to achieve fantasy success in 2021.

Table Notes

• Snaps include plays called back due to penalties like offensive holding or defensive pass interference. The other three stats have these plays removed.
• Targets may differ from official NFL sources. The most likely discrepancy would be from a clear thrown away pass, where the NFL may give the target to the nearest receiver, while this data will not.
• Carries are only on designed plays. Quarterback scrambles won’t count for the total number of carries in the game.

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Las Vegas Raiders at Los Angeles Chargers

• Austin Ekeler: 15 carries, 117 yards, 1 TD (46.7% first down/touchdown rate), 3 receptions, 28 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD
• Darren Waller: 4 receptions, 50 yards, 1 TD (11.0 aDOT)

Cut Kenyan Drake: Drake failed to be a top-24 running back in any of the first three weeks. That was an especially tough hit for fantasy managers considering Josh Jacobs missed two of those three games. Jacobs was back tonight, and it greatly reduced Drake’s playing time. He had one carry for 2 yards and no targets.

The expectation coming into the season was that Jacobs would be the early-down back while Drake was the third-down back. Instead, Jacobs has seen more third-and-long snaps than ever before. He played 14 snaps on third-and-long over his first two seasons, but he’s had four or more in each of his two games this season. 

If Drake isn’t going to have standalone value without Jacobs and barely be involved in the offense with him, he doesn’t need to be on fantasy rosters. Jacobs is also a buy-low candidate.

Add Jared Cook: The former Saint has been the clear receiving tight end for the Chargers through four games, as he's consistently getting playing time and targets. He had the seventh-most routes run for a tight end coming into the week, which led to the seventh-most targets. That hadn’t translated over to fantasy success due to two dropped passes in addition to his only end zone target was uncatchable.

His play helped the fantasy managers who believed in him tonight, as he didn’t drop a pass and caught a touchdown. He led Los Angeles with 70 receiving yards on six catches. He can be a borderline starting tight end for fantasy teams the rest of the season. He has a high floor.

Buy low on Mike Williams: He had his first bad game of the night, catching just one pass on four targets for 11 yards. Williams' playing time remained the same, as other players saw a higher target share. All receivers have a bad game, and this is simply a case of trying to trade for a good player after a bad game.

Continue to wait and see on Josh Palmer: Many hoped the Chargers' third-round pick would win the third receiver role for Los Angeles. Instead, he sits fourth on the depth chart. His role was reduced this week, and he was held without a target for the second straight week. He still has dynasty value if the Chargers can’t reach a deal with Williams after the season, but it doesn’t look like he will be fantasy-relevant at any point this season.