Lions vs. Browns Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 4

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 4 matchup between the Lions and Browns.

Find a breakdown of every Week 4 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Jared Goff: Goff played a better real-life game on Monday night, but his fantasy points were limited because of how effectively they ran the football.

Goff was 20 of 28 for 202 yards and a touchdown in Baltimore, but the Lions scored four times on the ground to limit any upside.

The past two weeks, this offense has looked like the unit we’ve grown accustomed to in recent seasons.

Goff has been under center 60.3% of the time the past two weeks (third), using motion on 62.1% of his dropbacks (11th) and play action on 35.7% (6th).

Although Goff has played well these past two weeks, this is a tricky spot.

Detroit still has a strong team total here, but this Cleveland defense has been a force to open the year.

They did allow 41 points to Baltimore in Week 2, but that game got weird late.

In the first half, Lamar Jackson only completed 58.8% of his passes for 4.5 yards per pass attempt.

Jackson then threw 3 touchdowns in the second half, but he also created a ton out of structure, avoiding the Cleveland pass rush.

That is not Goff’s game.

Perhaps this Cleveland offense is just not good enough, and the defense can only hold for so long here in Detroit.

We are still working with small samples, but the other front-end defense that Detroit faced this season has been playing at a similar level.

The difference is that the Browns play more aggressively than Green Bay.

The Packers took away Goff’s first read and forced him to hold the ball and check down over and over.

Goff’s time to throw in Week 1 was 2.95 seconds.

He only had two games with a longer time to throw since joining the Lions.

Per Fantasy Points Data, Goff threw to his first read 53.8% of the time in Week 1 compared to a 67.9% rate in Week 2 and a 75% rate in Week 3.

Cleveland is sixth in the league in terms of pressure rate (43.5%), but they also plan man coverage at the league’s highest rate (49.1%) and blitz 29.3% of the time (12th highest).

They force quick processing, which could be a trap here.

Goff has been good under pressure, an area in which he made strides a year ago.

So far this season, Goff has completed 63% of his passes under pressure (third) for 8.6 yards per pass attempt (fifth).

Against man coverage, Goff has a 141.3 rating, completing 20 of 24 passes for 202 yards (8.4 Y/A) and 3 touchdowns.

That said, it is hard to have watched this Cleveland defense and anticipate a ceiling performance.

Jordan Love had good man coverage splits entering last week and was unable to turn in anything productive.

Joe Burrow was in a blender in Week 1.

Lamar Jackson was unable to do anything for a half before he broke down the door.

I will surely make a Detroit tournament lineup this week, but for seasonal leagues, I would be more hesitant to use Goff as a QB1 option and would handle him more as a boom-or-bust QB2.

Joe Flacco: It was always wishful thinking in buying that Flacco would inherently roll back the magic he had with Cleveland two years ago, given the unique circumstances that occurred to close that year.

To open this season, Flacco has been QB20, QB28, and QB32 in weekly scoring.

Flacco is currently last among qualifying quarterbacks in yards per pass attempt (5.0 Y/A).

Flacco is last in the league in passing points per attempt (0.200), even worse than Cam Ward and Michael Penix.

This Detroit defense has been getting after the quarterback.

Detroit had a 10.8% sack rate in Week 2 and then came back with a 20% sack rate in Week 3.

When pressured, Flacco has completed 42.6% of his passes for 3.9 Y/A with 3 interceptions.

Flacco is a back-end QB2.

Running Back

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