Giants vs. Cowboys 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 Cowboys and Giants on Thursday Night Football.

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

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Dak Prescott: Prescott was QB2 in scoring in Week 3 (29.9 points) after weeks as QB17 and QB20 to open the year.

Things were not exactly clean, however, as Prescott used a jailbreak game script and an extra possession via a successful onside kick to elevate his counting stats.

Down 28-6 in the 4th quarter, Prescott was 13-of-25 for 187 yards and two touchdowns in the final quarter on Sunday.

Before that point, Prescott was 15-of-26 for 192 yards without a touchdown.

The fantasy points count the same, but this offense has not played clean football to open the season.

Prescott currently ranks 20th in yards per pass attempt (7.0) and 25th in completion rate (60.7%).

He does catch another favorable matchup to keep him in play as a starting option in 1QB formats.

The Giants are 24th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.458) with a 4.4% touchdown rate (21st) allowed.

New York has had success getting to the quarterback to open the year.

They are seventh in the league, pressuring the quarterback at a 40.2% rate.

But when Dak has been pressured this season, he leads the NFL with a 64.0% completion rate with 8.4 yards per pass attempt (third).

When the Giants have not pressured the opposing passer, those quarterbacks have completed 81.5% of their passes (30th) for 8.2 Y/A (23rd).

Daniel Jones: Jones has closed the past two weeks as a QB1 scorer.

Getting there against the Commanders is one thing, but Jones was QB11 (19.4 points) on the road in Cleveland last weekend.

Adding Malik Nabers gives Jones an extra lift he has not had to this point in his career.

He already has 4 touchdown passes on 104 attempts (3 to Nabers) after throwing 2 touchdowns on 160 passes a year ago.

Jones has only completed 59.6% of his passes (26th) for 5.8 yards per attempt (26th).

He is averaging 5.4 Y/A throwing to anyone other than Nabers.

While this season’s opening was a pleasant surprise to gamers who grabbed Jones in 2QB formats, he will continue to live there for now.

However, if he delivers again this week, he can make a solid case to rise.

Jones has never closed a week against Dallas higher than QB19, with 4 passing touchdowns in those 8 games.

He did not have Nabers in those contests, and this is a new Dallas defense to provide a spark of optimism that things can be better on Thursday.

Dallas has opened the season 22nd in passing points allowed per attempt (0.444).

Running Back

Devin Singletary: Singletary had early season highs with 20 touches for 108 yards against Cleveland.

He found the end zone for the second straight game and could have added another touchdown if he had not given himself up at the one-yard line to run the clock out.

Singletary has 77.3% of the backfield touches through three weeks, ranking fifth among running backs.

He has an explosive run on 14.3% of his attempts to open the year.

The only running backs with a higher rate with as many attempts as Singletary are J.K. Dobbins (19.0%), Jonathan Taylor (15.7%), and Jahmyr Gibbs (15.0%).

Singeltary is a volume-based RB2 in a matchup where the Giants can successfully run the ball if they keep the game script tight.

Dallas allows 5.4 yards per carry to running backs (31st) with only a 51.4% success rate against those runs (31st).

Running backs have scored 52.8% of the fantasy points allowed by Dallas, which is the highest rate in the league.

They have faced Alvin Kamara and Derrick Henry the past two weeks as the majority of their sample, so this game will provide some added truth to the start of both the Dallas run defense and Singeltary’s season.

Cowboys RBs: This was still a muddy (and unsuccessful) backfield in Week 3, but Rico Dowdle started to distance himself from Ezekiel Elliott and Deuce Vaughn a bit.

Dowdle played a season-high 46.2% of the snaps compared to an 18.8% rate for Elliott and a 6.2% rate for Vaughn.

Dowdle handled 55% of the backfield touches, the highest rate for a Dallas running back through three games.

That still only resulted in 11 touches for 56 yards, so we will not rush to use Dowdle as more than a FLEX option, but he is the back worth monitoring here in extending his role.

Elliott still has the only goal-line rush for this trio, a hurdle we need Dowdle to clear.

The Giants have been run on.

They have allowed 5.3 yards per carry to running backs (30th) with a 60% success rate (24th) against those runs.

Wide Receiver

CeeDee Lamb (TRUST): Lamb pulled in 4-of-7 targets for 67 yards against Baltimore on Sunday, his lowest-scoring game through three weeks.

After seeing 32.3% of the team targets come his way in Week 1, Lamb has 17.1% and 14.0% target shares in the past two weeks.

This past week was his lowest target share in a game since a playoff game in 2021.

That 2021 season is the last time Lamb had fewer than 20% of the team targets in three straight games.

This is another good spot to get him going unless Lamb’s ankle is more of an issue than we have been informed.

Stay patient with him as a lead WR1.

The last time these teams hooked up, Lamb caught 11-of-14 targets for 151 yards and a touchdown.

To open up this season, the Giants have already allowed three touchdowns to WR1 targets, allowing 1.81 points per target to wide receivers (21st).

Malik Nabers: After breaking out in Week 2, Nabers delivered another strong game against a stout Cleveland pass defense that had previously limited opposing wideouts going back to last season.

Nabers collected 8-of-12 targets for 78 yards with 2 touchdowns.

Nabers is the first player in league history with over 20 receptions and three touchdowns in their first three games.

He also leads the league with six catches of 20 or more yards.

Regarding rate stats, Nabers leads all pass catchers with 37.8% of his team’s targets and 56.8% of the team’s air yards.

Those rates are even more outrageous when Nabers has faced man coverage.

Against man coverage, Nabers has been targeted on 53.3% of his routes, accounting for 57.1% of the team targets and 80.4% of the air yards.

Under Mike Zimmer, the Cowboys’ man coverage rate has decreased to 29th in the league (13.4%).

Against zone coverage, Nabers has been targeted on a mortal 25.6% of his routes but is still fourth among all pass catchers with a 30.3% team target share and eighth in the share of air yards (45.5%).

He has WR1 usage, and the Giants are creating a passing game around him.

He has a non-zero chance to lead the league in targets as a rookie.

He already has set-and-forget status in fantasy circles.

We are only three weeks in, but if we immediately reshuffled the deck and drafted over, Nabers would, at worst, be in the same area of drafts where Garrett Wilson, Marvin Harrison, Drake London, and Chris Olave were going.

Wan’Dale Robinson: Robinson has 24.5% of the New York targets, drawing 12, 4, and 8 targets over the opening three games.

Robinson has been targeted on 27.3% of his routes, which would be a career-high if that holds.

Robinson only has 123 yards, so he is not someone to get overly aggressive with in season-long leagues, but he has usage and a floor if looking for a single-game DFS play or a deeper-league FLEX in full-PPR formats.

The Cowboys have limited slot receivers to start the season, allowing only 2.9 tards per target (3rd) to those receivers.

Brandin Cooks: Cooks caught 2-of-6 targets for 16 yards Sunday, giving him 75 yards through three games.

Cooks has reached 50 yards in just three games since joining the Cowboys.

If looking for a carrot to chase with Cooks in deeper formats or as a single-game DFS play, he did have his only 100-yard with Dallas in this matchup a year ago, catching 9-of-10 targets for 173 yards with a touchdown.

The Giants are also 30th in points to outside wide receivers through three weeks, which provides some added matchup appeal.

Jalen Tolbert: Tolbert grabbed 3-of-5 targets for 42 yards and his first touchdown on Sunday.

Tolbert was boosted by the pass-heavy game script, having all his catches in the fourth quarter.

With Jake Ferguson returning to the lineup, Tolbert only had 2 targets before the fourth quarter, running a route on 80.0% of the team dropbacks. He had a 91.1% route rate with Ferguson out in Week 2.

Tolbert is a name to monitor in deeper leagues because he is still behind Lamb, Cooks, and Ferguson for playing time in this passing tree.

Tight End

Jake Ferguson: After missing Week 2 with a knee injury, Ferguson was back in action without significant limitations in Week 3.

He ran a route on 72.7% of the team dropbacks (TE14 on the week), catching 6-of-11 targets for 95 yards.

He also did not have a big bump by the game script compared to the ancillary targets like Tolbert or Kavontae Turpin.

Ferguson only had 2 catches for 22 yards in the fourth quarter.

Before the final quarter, he had 26.9% of the team targets, which would have been TE2 on the week.

Gamers who thought Ferguson suffered a significant injury to start the season have a weekly TE1 starter back in the fold.

The Giants have not been pressed by tight ends to open the year (Minnesota, Washington, and Cleveland without David Njoku) but have allowed 8.1 yards per target to the position.

Theo Johnson: Johnson ran 30 routes (76.9%) on Sunday but only grabbed 1-of-3 targets for 13 yards.

He did have his first end zone target, but Daniel Jones rushed the throw under pressure, and Johnson missed pulling it in one-handed.

Through three weeks, Johnson has caught 2-of-7 targets for 31 yards.

You are only chasing a touchdown with him.

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