DL Streaming 101: Week 4

Professor IDP looks at the best DE and DT streaming options in your IDP fantasy football leagues for Week 4.

Sep 24, 2025

Welcome to the Week 4 edition of DL Streaming 101!

Welcome to the last week with no byes until Thanksgiving. This means plenty of good streaming options with all teams in action and injuries opening (or keeping the door open) for several players. Before hopping into the Week 4 streaming slate, let’s take a quick look back at Week 3 and the season so far.

Week 3 was a mini bounce-back for streaming, with an average streaming performance of 8.88 in Big 3 scoring. Nick “Himbig” lived up to his name and finished as a top 12 DL with 22.4 points. On the other end of the spectrum, Javon Kinlaw racked up only one assist to avoid becoming the second member of the DL doughnut club this season! Controlling for injuries in both camps, the preseason ECR averaged 10.18 in Week 3, so studs only marginally outperformed streamers.

Overall, streaming has had a 40% success rate (streamers scoring over 10 pts) with 12.7% boom games over 20 pts, and only 1.82% (1 player) who would have left you with a 0 for the week. The overall average is a solid 9.47 points per game, with ideal plays coming in at 11.70, solid at 9.30, solid (deeper) at 9.67, and dart throws at 3.13. The 2025 ECR average is 11.74, so there is only a 2.2 pt difference between streaming and studs and a .04 PPG difference between top streaming options and studs.

With that out of the way, let’s get into our next group of DL streamers with a bonus name (yet again) to help give more injury-based flexibility between now and game time. Full details on the ratings and metrics that drive the ratings are presented below the six/seven featured streamers for Week 4.

Featured DL Streamers

Tuli Tuipulotu, DE, LAC (🎓🎓🎓🎓)

The last time Tuipulotu was featured in this article, he posted an 18.75-point performance against the Raiders. Last week, he was tempting, but a horrific matchup against the Broncos led me to look in other directions. It’s a good thing too, because Tuli put up one tackle and one assist against which, believe it or not, was the 4th best DE performance against Denver early in this season.

Tuipulotu is primed for a bounce-back Week 4 against a Giants team that is allowing 31.95 fantasy points per game to opposing edges AND is starting a rookie QB. This is a perfect recipe for Tuli to rack up his first sack of the season after generating 16 QB pressures (5th most in the NFL). Should the Giants lean on the run, he has a 76.1 run defense grade that should put him in a position to build a nice floor. All of these factors, plus an 81% snap share in Week 3, place Tuipulotu as not only one of my favorite streaming options, but one of the best DE plays of Week 4.

Daron Payne, DT, WAS (🎓🎓🎓)

Payne feels like an underappreciated fantasy DT as evidenced by the fact that he is only rostered in 26% (where DT is often required) and 2% on Sleeper (where he gets lumped in with DL). Over the past 5 seasons, Payne’s worst finish was as a DT3, while he has multiple DT1 seasons on his resume. In 2025, Payne is currently DT10 (DL34) but has been inconsistent with a 23.65 point season debut, but a 0.75 point Week 2.

Week 4 looks like it could be another ‘up’ week for the former first-rounder in spite of a difficult matchup against the Falcons. Atlanta is only allowing 16.63 fantasy points per game to opposing DT in 2025 and has already stifled big names like Derrick Brown and Calijah Kancey. QB Nichael Penix will be sacked at some point this season and there are worse bets than a DT who is posting nearly four QB pressures/game with superb underlying pass rush metrics (his 81.2 pass rush grade per PFF ranks as 6th best among interior defenders).

Nic Scourton, DE, CAR and/or D.J. Wonnum, DE, CAR (both 🎓🎓🎓)

Pat Jones is dealing with a hamstring injury, which opens the door for multiple pass rushers in Carolina. Wicky wicky DJ Wonnum has posted nine pressures (zero sacks) while rookie Nic Scourton posted two QB pressures in his first game as a starter in Week 3. Fellow rookie Princely Umanmielen is the only Panthers edge to record a sack in 2025 but (for now) he appears to be the third option.

The concerning parts about relying on any of these pass rushers are threefold. First, we don’t know if (or how much) Pat Jones will play. Second, none grade out particularly well with Scourton leading the group at a 62.5 overall defender. Third, the team they play on is not likely to be in many shootouts to generate pass-rush opportunities. Why I am optimistic about playing Wonnum (regardless) and Scourton (if Jones is out or limited) is the matchup against the Patriots.

New England is allowing a league-high 52.6 fantasy points per game to opposing edges thus far in 2025. Granted, they have faced some stiff competition, but they have also allowed big games to less-than-household names in Malcolm Koonce, Tyree Wilson, and Nick Herbig. This could be a ‘get right’ game for New England, but the Panthers are coming off a trouncing of Atlanta, and the Pats’ line has yet to show much life (and Mac Jones is among the league leaders in generating own pressures), so I’m riding the good matchup until proven otherwise.

Jordan Davis, DT, PHI (🎓🎓🎓)

Disclaimer: do not expect a long TD recovery every week, nor for him to score you 26.75 points again in Week 4, but Jordan Davis is a damn good football player who we should be paying more attention to. For the season, Davis is DT1/DL12 and his worst fantasy output is 13 points. The biggest knock on Davis has been his stamina. Entering this season, he has played over 50% of snaps in only 10 games (out of 54) in his career.

Thanks to losing weight this offseason, the departure of Milton Williams, and the spitting incident with Jalen Carter in Week 1, Davis has played at least 53% of snaps in every game this season, with a new single-game career high of 87%. While his playing time has been up, his performance has been solid, grading out as the 2nd-best Eagles defensive lineman at 78.9 (a full 10 points better than teammate Moro Ojomo and nearly 20 points better than Carter). Tampa has been a tough fantasy matchup for DTs in 2025, but it has only faced one player of Carter’s caliber all season. The Bucs might be getting Tristan Wirfs back this week, but that only means the rest of the o-line will be shuffled, with Carter as a potential beneficiary of the learning curve.

Jonathan Allen, DT, MIN (🎓🎓)

Daron Payne’s former teammate has found a new home in Minnesota and appears to be acclimating well (at least as a pass rusher). On a team that features Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Dallas Turner, and Javon Hargrave, Jonathan Allen ranks second in QB pressures with 10 already in the 2025 campaign. The reason Allen is streamable is that none of those pressures have gotten home (and his tackling has been abysmal), resulting in a total of 19.25 fantasy points across three games.

The Vikings face the Steelers (in Dublin) this week. Pittsburgh allowed four QB sacks to opposing DT in Weeks 1 and 2, but then stifled Milton Williams and Christian Barmore in Week 3. If the Minnesota defense plays half as well as it did last week against the Bengals, this should be a competitive game yielding plenty of opportunities for Allen to register his first sack of the season. Even if he does not pick up a sack, Allen’s poor run defense early in the season is moving in the right direction to boost his floor. Week 3 saw Allen not miss a tackle (after 3 misses in Weeks 1-2) and post an 80.7 run defense grade (after 54.3 and 33.7).

Bryce Huff, DE, SF (🎓🎓)

Count me among those gutted by Nick Bosa’s season-ending injury last week, as he was my most rostered ‘premier’ edge in my dynasty leagues. It is with those dynasty leagues in mind that I call attention to Bryce Huff as he is only rostered in one-third as many leagues as rookie teammate Mykel Williams. Playing Huff is not without its risks. Huff has been a career rotational piece that his been hard to pin down in terms of his boom games. Jose Luis Sanchez, who covers the 49ers for Sports Illustrated, recently wrote that Huff (and Williams) are likely to feel the pain of Bosa’s absence the most.

Count me among those who are more optimistic. Huff did not have elite pass-rush company with the Jets in 2021 and 2022 when he posted pass-rush grades of 86.8 or better each season. If Huff was posting his 11 pressures with poor underlying metrics, I would be more concerned that QBs were running away from Bosa and into his waiting arms. That is not the case. Huff is one of only seven defenders to post pass-rush grades above 90 for the season so far. While there may be better streaming options out there, and Huff has the pedigree of a boom-bust play, give him a look if you are in a dynasty league where managers have forgotten about him.

Good luck, and if you have any questions about deep DL plays, my office is always open on Twitter (@ProfessorIDP).

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