The Week 5 Fantasy Football Waiver Wire appears to be a mixed bag, it oddly resembles waivers we've seen the past couple of years, like the exact same names! There are a few new names mixed in, but with all of the early season injuries this year, we are mostly looking to those has-beens or never-will-be's to fill in the gaps and bye weeks.
Looking at the overall meta of scoring this year it seems that defenses have gotten sophisticated enough that QB's can't get clean, pre-snap reads. Leading to not being able to get the ball to wide receivers consistently, and overall scoring is WAY down because of it. Strong run game and short passes are the way to defeat the cover-2 defense, so running backs get more touches. It doesn't seem as if there is some sort of bell-cow running back Renaissance, it's just that all other parts of offenses are getting stopped.
Waiver Wire Adds
If Taysom Hill is TE eligible and available on our waiver wire you must add him immediately.
Dontayvion Wicks is a solid starter for the short term while Christian Watson is out. He reportedly will not be going to go on the IR with his ankle injury, but it looked bad enough that he could miss three to four weeks. There are multiple ways Wicks pays off for the entire rest of the season. He could win the job outright, the talent difference between Wicks and Watson is negligible at this point. In Watson’s first games back from injuries over the past two years he saw just 25 percent, 9 percent, 46 percent, and 41 percent of the team snaps, making him unusable for fantasy. Wicks also has contingency value if any of the other receivers go down.
Rico Dowdle's running back rush shares in Weeks 1 and 2: 32.0 percent and 33.3 percent.
Rico Dowdle's running back rush shares in Weeks 3 and 4: 61.5 percent and 61.1 percent.
@LateRoundQB
Kareem Hunt has been complete dust over the past year and a half, but he saw two-thirds of Kansas City's running back rushes and a 10.7 percent target share on Sunday, leading the KC backfield in Week 4.
Be early on Jonathon Brooks, he should return from IR next week and the Panthers have had a resurgence after a change at QB and the second round rookie should take over the backfield in a few weeks.
Wan'Dale Robinson saw a 37 percent target share in Week 4 and has dropped below a 24 percent target share in just one game this year. His season-long target share is 27.9 percent, per @LateRoundQB
Braelon Allen scored two touchdowns in Week 2, on only 9 touches, and followed it up with 68 yards, on 14 total touches in Week 3. He is a legit, one-for-one replacement if Breece Hall goes down. In Week 4, we saw Breece Hall lead in snaps over Braelon Allen, 51-27, while Breece had 15 opportunities, Braelon had 9.
Rachaad White’s usage continues to get worse. After 21 total touches in Week 1 he has had only 11 and 12 touches in Week 2 and Week 3. Bucky Irving continues to get incrementally more involved with a 37.5 percent backfield carry share in Week 1, increased to 41.1 percent in Week 2. Irving split touches evenly with White in Week 3, out-carrying White 9-6.
Irving saw his RB rush share dip week-over-week from 56 percent to 48 percent, but he got over the 40 percent snap share mark for the first time this season in Week 4, per @LateRoundQB.
Tucker Kraft ran 48 routes to Luke Musgrave's 17 in Week 4, per PFF. Kraft has seen at least a 15 percent target share in each of his last three games. @LateRoundQB
Jordan Whittington
With a full-time role in Week 4 Whittington had a; 97% route participation, 28% target share, and a 26% air yards share. It won't be long before Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua return, but we could see something in Week 5 against the Packers.
Erick All saw a season (and career) high 13 percent target share on Sunday, but his route participation (30%) wasn't much different from his previous two games. @LateRoundQB
Sell High
Aaron Jones
Chuba Hubbard
In Week 3 and 4 it seemed as tough most analysts were suggesting starting Cam Akers in the flex after Joe Mixon and Dameon Pierce were pronounced out. Akers was a healthy scratch in Week 1 and fumbled in limited touches in Week 2, not to mention he is coming off a slew of injuries himself. The touts got bailed-out by a screen pass TD in Week 3, but Akers was NOT a strong play, as we can see from his Week 4 performance. Akers saw 82% of Houston's running back rushes in Week 3, and that fell to 62% in Week 4.
Players We Can Drop
When we make waiver claims most of the time we can easily determine who to add, but we struggle with which players to drop. It is very difficult to give-up on a player we thought was worth drafting in the first place. If you are struggling, you should be dropping your questions or concerns in our FREE Discord channel. Don't be afraid of it, I'm over 50 and navigate it fairly well.
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