XFL Week 4: What We Learned

March 2, 2020

Justin Carter reviews Week 4 of the XFL 2020 season with a recap of each game and identifies risers and fallers for fantasy football leagues.

We're four weeks into the XFL season and, for those of you in season-long XFL leagues, are halfway through the fantasy regular season.

Week 4 saw the first Texas Throwdown, in which the Houston Roughnecks beat the Dallas Renegades more to 4-0, and it also saw the Tampa Bay Vipers earn their first-ever XFL victory.

Every week, I'll be bringing you some thoughts on how the previous weekend's games went, plus a few fantasy risers and fallers. Let's get going.

New York Guardians 17 - Los Angeles Wildcats 14

Luis Perez isn't great, but he's the right choice for New York

With Matt McGloin (thorax) out, the Guardians turned to Luis Perez -- a former player at Texas A&M - Commerce who really burst into our consciousness when he quarterbacked the Birmingham Iron in the AAF.

It wasn't that Perez produced some huge game numbers-wise, as he was 18-for-26 for 150 yards and a touchdown. But he played smart football, and the Guardians ran the ball effectively, which took pressure off Perez.

He made some good throws, especially in the short passing game, and took a few risks downfield. They didn't always pay off, and he also didn't see an open Colby Pearson in the end zone at one point. But Perez did enough to get New York the victory, which is more than you can really say for McGloin.

One fantasy wrinkle with Perez: he spread the ball around a good bit, which could be a bit of an issue for anyone who rosters this team's pass catchers. Pearson was targeted six times, catching five passes for 34 yards. The other wide receivers all finished with 20 or fewer yards and two or fewer receptions, so...yeah, definitely something to watch out for.

Tre McBride heats up

With Nelson Spruce out, Tre McBride essentially became Nelson Spruce.

McBride -- who made his debut in Week 3 and caught five-of-six targets for 109 yards and two scores -- was targeted 12 times on Saturday, catching eight passes for 127 yards and a score.

The Wildcats as a whole had a weird day. Josh Johnson threw for 330 yards and two touchdowns, but L.A. finished with just 14 points, and the run game was a huge liability for them all day.

But hey, McBride -- who came close to making the Jaguars roster last year -- continued to emerge as a major threat, and when this team is able to pair him and Spruce up, we should see the Wildcats score a good bit more than 14 points.

St. Louis Battlehawks 23 - Seattle Dragons 16

St. Louis ran the ball a lot

Between quarterback Jordan Ta'amu and running backs Matt Jones, Christine Michael, and Keith Ford, the Battlehawks ran the ball 46 times on Saturday.

To put that into context, this season, NFL teams ran the ball 46 or more times just four times. Three of those games featured either Lamar Jackson's Ravens or Josh Allen's Bills, so quarterback running was a key part of that.

Which, yeah, quarterback running was an important component for St. Louis, with Ta'amu running 16 times for 63 yards, both team highs. While the actual backs struggled to move the ball -- Michael averaged 2.3 yards per carry and Jones averaged 1.3 -- Ta'amu took over, and his play had the Battlehawks in business. (His 74 percent completion percentage was also a big part of that as well.)

What even IS Seattle's offense?

Seattle was supposed to be what St. Louis is -- a team that runs the ball a lot and controls the pace of the game.

But on Saturday, the run game wasn't working for them. Their leading rusher in both yards and attempts was backup quarterback B.J. Daniels. Ja'Quan Gardner had just three carries. Kenneth Farrow and Trey Williams both got five carries, but Williams ended up with zero rushing yards.

Also, Brandon Silvers got benched. He was 4-for-10 for 27 yards. Daniels came in and as 5-for-10 for 100 yards with a touchdown pass, though his biggest impact was with his seven carries for 84 yards.

Also also, the final receiving numbers for Seattle looked like this:

Only one player had more than one reception!

Houston Roughnecks 27 - Dallas Renegades 20

Houston won despite Cam Phillips vanishing

Phillips came into this game with seven touchdown receptions on the season, but Dallas covered him well and took him out of Houston's game plan on Sunday, limiting Phillips to just one catch on three targets. His nine yards ranked behind seven other Houston players.

But with their best receiver unable to get anything going, Houston still won, because Nick Holley and Kahlil Lewis were targeted 23 times. This offense just has so many quality guys on it who can pick up the slack.

And, of course, it all starts with quarterback P.J. Walker. Walker wasn't his best on Sunday, but he still went 25-for-41 for 239 yards and two touchdowns. Dallas kept him from getting going as a running threat, but Walker made plays when he needed to, and Houston moved to 4-0.

What will Dallas do if Landry Jones misses time?

Jones left the game late with a knee injury, and while it wasn't the best outing from Jones, who threw three picks and had a fumble that was returned for a Roughnecks touchdown, it's still been clear this year that Jones has enough moments in him to make some things happen when he needs to.

And now, it might be Philip Nelson time again.

In Week 1, Nelson started for Dallas, going 33-for-42 for 218 yards and an interception as the Renegades scored nine points. With Jones in the lineup, they've scored at least 20 points per game, so an extended absence would be a serious problem for Dallas, whose offense across the board would take a hit.

Tampa Bay Vipers 25 - D.C. Defenders 0

The Vipers had two 100-yard rushers

It's not often in the NFL that a team has a pair of 100-yard rushers in a game, so you'd think it would be even more rare in the XFL, what with there only being eight teams and with no running back having recorded a 100-yard game yet in the brief time the league has been back around.

But Tampa did it on Sunday. De'Veon Smith had 24 carries for 122 yards. Jacques Patrick had 21 carries for 108 yards and a touchdown.

It helped that D.C. was so bad, which allowed Tampa to run 80 offensive plays, a little more than double D.C.'s 39 plays. The league's worst team -- or so many thought -- dominated on the ground, giving them some huge things to build off of moving forward.

Oh no.

I don't even know if I have words for the Defenders. I'll expand on Cardale Jones in the fantasy fallers section below, but really I think these numbers from the XFL website say enough:

Y'all. What happened?

XFL Risers and Fallers

RISER: Nick Holley (RB, Houston Roughnecks)

Holley is rostered by Houston as a running back but has just two carries all year. So, why's he a riser? Because he's taking on a sizable role in the passing game, getting targeted 10 times this week and catching eight passes for 97 yards and a touchdown. After having just two catches in Week 3, Holley appears to be back on the upward trajectory that he started the season on.

RISER: DeAndre Goolsby (TE, Tampa Bay Vipers)

Ignore this if you're reading my column for DFS purposes, but if you're in a season-long league that requires you to start a tight end, Goolsby is potentially out there on waivers still, and for the second week in a row he was targeted three times. This time, he caught all three, finishing with 41 yards and a score. That won't happen every week, but tight end is a very weak position, so why not take a chance on Goolsby?

FALLER: Cardale Jones (QB, D.C. Defenders)

The fall from "possible face of the league" to "I don't know if he starts in Week 5" has been swift for Cardale Jones. In Week 1, Jones threw for 235 yards and two scores. A week later, he threw for 264 and another pair of scores.

Then last week against the Wildcats, Jones completed just half of his passes and threw four interceptions. He turned it over less this week, but his final stat line -- 9-for-22 for 72 yards and a pick -- was just so, so, so bad. Jones struggled to hit his targets, blamed one of his receivers, and just overall looked lost out there. And with it happening two weeks in a row, it's really hard to just brush this off as one bad outing.

FALLER: Austin Duke (WR, New York Guardians)

Duke was a popular waiver add after Week 3, when he caught four passes for 43 yards and a score against St. Louis.

But this week, Duke was targeted just one time, which he caught for three yards. New quarterback Luis Perez just didn't seem interested in throwing to Duke, preferring instead to work the ball short to tight ends, on screens to backs, or to wideout Colby Pearson. Duke's the third or fourth receiver on a team that'll rely a good bit on the run going forward.

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