Rest-of-Season Risers and Fallers After Week 4

Who climbed and who slid in our rest-of-season rankings after Week 4. Kyle Monangai, Tee Higgins and Tetairoa McMillan lead the risers; Josh Downs and DJ Moore lead the fallers.

Every day the model plays out the rest of the NFL season 10,000 times, and our rest-of-season rankings come from those simulations. This is who moved the most since last week. Rankings are half PPR for a 12-team league.

How We Handle Injuries

When one of your players misses a game, you don't take a zero. You start someone off waivers. So our rankings give a player credit for what a waiver pickup would score in the games we expect him to miss.

That keeps a star's upside where it belongs. Ja'Marr Chase is in the concussion protocol and might miss this week, but per game he's still a top-6 receiver in our numbers, so he only slips from WR5 to WR6. Missed games still cost something: a player loses the gap between himself and the fill-in for every game he sits, which is why Saquon Barkley drops seven spots with a hamstring injury that could keep him out a few weeks.

We left quarterbacks off the lists below. A quarterback's ranking mostly moves with who's starting, so the list would just be a depth chart.

The Risers

Kyle Monangai, Bears. 30 carries for 146 yards and two touchdowns after D'Andre Swift didn't return from a lost fumble. His coach says Swift wasn't benched, so we still rank Swift ahead (RB17), but the gap is a lot smaller than it was a week ago.

Tee Higgins, Bengals. 16 targets for 157 yards in Week 4. He's averaging almost 10 targets a game this season, up from about 7 last year, and with Chase in the concussion protocol more of the ball goes his way. We're higher on him than most rankings. Part of that big game came after Chase left, and the model only takes a small piece of it away, so treat WR7 as our boldest call on this list.

Tetairoa McMillan, Panthers. 14 catches for 192 yards. Two other Panthers receivers sat out, and some of his extra work came from that. The model sets that part aside and only adds it back when those teammates miss again.

Isaiah Likely, Giants. 12 targets in Week 4, his most this season. Tight ends are bunched close together in the middle of the rankings, so one good week moves a tight end a long way.

Matthew Golden, Packers. Jayden Reed will have neck surgery and miss the rest of the season, and his targets have to go somewhere.

Kyren Williams, Rams. 13 targets, 10 catches and two touchdowns. RJ Harvey had a similar week in Denver: 10 catches on 10 targets.

Two younger players keep growing into bigger roles. Colston Loveland's targets have gone 2, 3, 4 and 9, and Carnell Tate's have gone 6, 5, 9 and 12.

At the top, Puka Nacua moved up to WR2 and CeeDee Lamb to WR4 after big Week 4 games.

The Fallers

Most of this list is quiet weeks, not injuries.

Josh Downs, Colts. 4 targets and 16 yards. Some of his earlier work came while Keenan Allen and Alec Pierce were out, and the model doesn't count that as his normal role.

DJ Moore, Bills. 2 targets, and he left the game early. He also had 0 targets in Week 2.

George Pickens, Cowboys. 3 targets while CeeDee Lamb saw 21. It's hard to be a big part of the offense when Lamb is getting the ball like that.

Kenyon Sadiq, Jets. 4 targets and no catches. His teammate Garrett Wilson also slid after 4 targets, down from 13 the week before.

Parker Washington (1 catch for 7 yards) and Emeka Egbuka (2 catches for 13 yards) had similar weeks.

Saquon Barkley, Eagles. His hamstring is week to week and he's unlikely to play in London. We expect him back between Week 6 and Week 8.

Travis Etienne, Saints. On injured reserve with a hamstring injury, so he's out at least four games.

Before You Trade

These rankings are from Tuesday morning. Injury news changes fast, and the projections page updates every day. We'll grade our Week 5 projections in next week's report card.