Fantasy Football: Top 5 players to avoid for Week 5

There’s a fantasy football nightmare wondering who to start and who to sit. That player, more often than not, has already emerged by the time we’re transitioning to Week 5 from Week 4.

Hyde hasn’t done much since that monstrous Week 1 game vs. the Vikings.

A full week of rest should help him get back on the field, but it comes against an imposing Bengals run defense. He played on 54 snaps, that’s 96 percent of the offensive plays. In another way, it was disappointing.

Royal caught seven passes on 10 targets for 54 yards and a touchdown. There haven’t been any big aerial shows yet, but he’s had more than 200 passing yards and at least one touchdown pass in all four starts. Hill is splitting time with Bernard in the backfield, but both RBs are worth playing every week.

Charles Clay, TE, Buffalo – As Tyrod Taylor continues to prove to be a solid quarterback for the Bills, his tight end, Charles Clay, is receiving more and more targets. Do you know that the Giants have been nearly as bad? He is a hot commodity in fantasy circles as the Falcons offense is averaging 289.8 YPG (5th highest in NFL) and Hankerson himself is averaging a nice 15 yards per catch over the last three weeks. On the following slides, you’ll find my top 10 options to target heading into week 5.

Eli Manning has had a strong start to the season and he is a worthy fantasy replacement option for the bye week. Just keep an eye on it. TE Martellus Bennett is basically a must-start guy if you own him and although Kansas City has been decent against TEs, you’re not worry about Cutler avoiding him. Davis can be a cheap one-week spot starter who turns in a strong performance.

While Johnson’s rushing stats over the past four weeks are nothing to write home about, his receiving abilities separate him from fellow halfback Isaiah Crowell. Does Chip Kelly remember how to run the ball? Andre Johnson lit up his former team, despite not showing much life through the previous four games. For fantasy purposes, that means neither of them is a starter.

Austin is owned in just a fraction of the fantasy leagues out there because his lack of production in the boxscore this season. The only way you survive that is by having enough depth, and the easiest way to add depth is to make the right moves on the waiver wire. While there is plenty of blame to go around, Flacco has to be in the front of the line with his performance this week after throwing for just 189 yards with 1 TD, and 1 INT. To make his fantasy stats worse, he also lost a fumble.

In the Bucs first three contests of 2015, V-Jax had just nine receptions and 145 yards combined. Keep reading for more information. Now is a great time to buy low on a player who is available for free in more than 50% of leagues. A typical 13-game regular season fantasy league meanwhile is approximately a third of the way complete. Last Sunday, he was four yards away from his second career 100-yard game.

If Ted Ginn Jr. could come out the woodwork and score two touchdowns against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers…oh yeah, better believe the Bucs’ secondary is in trouble.

You may need a backup for receiver Rishard Matthews, who has hauled in 278 receiving yards and three touchdowns.

It’s hard not to be impressed with Barnridge, who has racked up 180 yards and two touchdowns over the last two weeks.

He didn’t take advantage of the good matchup as well as I thought he would, and was held to under 200 yards passing.

Alshon Jeffery, WR, Bears: After practicing on a limited basis Wednesday and Thursday, Jeffery did not practice on Friday, raising a red flag as to his status this weekend. We have him at No. 21 based purely on upside, but he has a reasonably tough matchup on paper against Tennessee, so you don’t necessarily need to start him if he’s active.