CASE SUMMARY: Back in Week 3, the Judge's Verdict focused on Seattle WR Tyler Lockett and Jacksonville rookie RB James Robinson, who scored 32 and 28 points, respectively, that week (as always, 1/2-pt PPR). Both players outdid those performances this week, with Lockett catching 15 balls for 200 yards and 3 TDs in Sunday night's overtime loss to Arizona, for a massive 45.5 points, the best fantasy performance by any WR this year, a full 6 points ahead of Chase Claypool's 110 yds + 3 TDs in Week 5. Robinson ran for 119 yards and a TD, plus 18 yards receiving on 4 catches, including another TD, for a total of 27.7 points, in a losing effort against the Chargers. Despite his huge day, Robinson was only the #2 RB of the week, as San Francisco's Jeff Wilson Jr scored 31. This presents a bit of a dilemma for the Judge. Generally, he doesn't like to repeat a player, especially less than a month between verdicts. Then there's Wilson, who was listed as questionable after missing Week 6 with a calf injury. It was assumed, even if he did suit up, that he'd be 3rd of the Niners' depth chart, and had a season yards-per-carry average of just 2.4. Add up all these factors, and most analysts didn't have him in their top 50. There is a large gap between Wilson and Robinson and the #3 RB, Todd Gurley, with 21 points, on 82 total yards with 2 TDs. Ironically, Gurley was supposed to avoid scoring that 2nd TD and kneel instead, and the mistake was nice for fantasy owners but allowed Detroit to mount a comeback and ultimately beat the Falcons. A similar situation exists with TEs, where the top TE of the week was unheralded Harrison Bryant of the Browns, who scored 20 points via 4 catches for 56 yards and 2 TDs. Bryant replaced Austin Hooper who had an emergency appendectomy on Friday, and was a late decision to start over David Njoku, thus, he also was low on almost every analysts' rankings, generally between 19 and 25. The next best TE, Rob Gronkowski, had a 15-point game which was nice but isn't particularly noteworthy. So this week's verdict will focus on Lockett, who did have an epic week and whose past few weeks provided differing opinions from our analysts, and this week's top three quarterbacks, all of whom had their best fantasy performance of the season. Tops was Chargers QB Justin Herbert, who threw for 347 yards and 3 TDs, plus another 66 yards and a TD on the ground. Herbert's week was the 3rd best QB fantasy day of the season, just 1.5 points behind season leader Pat Mahomes. The Judge will also take a look at Kyler Murray (who he expects will have elite rankings by nearly everyone), who scored 37 points (vs 38.5 for Herbert) on 360 yards and 3 TDs + 67 rushing and a score. Just a quarter-point behind Murray was Tom Brady, responsible for 5 TDs (4 passing, one QB sneak) and 369 yards passing. This was Brady's second 5-TD game of the season.

CASE SUMMARY: This week's top 2 quartbacks are both guys who have had a shaky start to the season so far. Tops was Deshaun Watson of the 1-5 Houston Texans, who almost followed up their first win last week with an upset of the undefeated Titans, but gave up a TD with 4 seconds left in regulation and then gave up a TD in overtime. Watson had his best game of the season, however, throwing for 335 yards, 4 TDs, and no INTs, totalling 32 points. It was only Watson's 2nd game of the year without an INT, and first with 4 TDs since Week 5 of last year. Less than a half-point behind Watson was Matt Ryan, who led the Falcons to their first win of the year, over Minnesota. Ryan threw for 371 yards and 4 TDs without any INTs. Ryan had thrown for just 1 TD in his previous 3 games combined, with 2 INTs during that span and not reaching 300 yards in any of the three. Kenyan Drake was the #2 RB (behind Derrick Henry) of the week with 28.4 points, on 164 yards and 2 TDs as Arizona routed Dallas 38-10. Drake finished last season with 87 points in his final 3 games, but hadn't croken 100 yards so far this year until Sunday. At WR, the top performer by far was Minnesota rookie Justin Jefferson, who caught 9 balls for 166 yards and 2 TDs to rack up 35 points, although the Vikings fell to Atlanta. Jefferson's day was the 3rd best by any WR so far this season.

CASE SUMMARY: Carolina RB Mike Davis has shown to be a capable replacement while Christian McCaffrey's ankle heals. He scored in each of his games so far, and like McCaffrey, he's a threat to run and to catch passes. Carolina's Week 5 win over Atlanta was Davis's best game yet, collecting a combined 149 yards, 9 catches and a TD. His 25 points (half-PPR) led all running backs for the week. Ryan Fitzpatrick has been reasonably consistent, fantasy-wise, for the past few weeks, scoring between 21 and 25 points in each of weeks 2, 3 and 4, although the way he scored those points varied. This week against the 49er defense, however, he had everything going right, racking up 350 yards and 3 TDs. His Quarterback Rating of 154.5 for the game was the highest by any QB in the NFL this year, and his 27.6 fantasy points were 2nd in the league this week, behind only Patrick Mahomes. (Note this week's writeup was written Monday Oct 12 before the NO-LAC and BUF-TEN)