Joe Mixon Injury Update Could Make Giovani Bernard Week 4 Fantasy Sleeper

The fantasy football landscape has been turned upside down by injuries to a ton of top players already in 2020, and Cincinnati Bengals RB Joe Mixon may be the next early-round pick to be forced to miss some time.

Mixon was added to the injury report with a chest injury on Saturday, and he is questionable for Week 4's meeting with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Fantasy managers should go out and add Giovani Bernard right now, because Bernard will be an outstanding Week 4 fantasy sleeper if Mixon sits.

Giovani Bernard Fantasy Outlook

Over the last three seasons, there have been four games in which Bernard has served as the Bengals' lead back with Mixon on the shelf. The two that came in 2018 saw Gio average 20.0 opportunities (6.5 targets and 13.5 rush attempts) per game, and the two in 2017 saw him average 19.0 opportunities per game. He turned that workload into 19.4 PPR fantasy points per game.

That kind of workhorse volume would put just about any running back in play in fantasy football, regardless of matchup.

This isn't just any matchup, either. The Jags rank 29th in Football Outsiders' defensive DVOA metric this season — mirroring their 27th-placed ranking from last season.

Go grab Bernard off the wavier wire right now, and if Mixon is out you can feel good about starting Bernard as a top-20 fantasy RB in Week 4.

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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.