Big Blue View
Wading into the free agent pool for roster help
Welcome to the Fantasy Football Waiver Wire for Week 10! A strange this is happening on the NFL injury front this season. Wide receivers have been dropping like flies with a wide array of injuries, while running backs, remarkably, have for the most part stayed healthy. It’s a reverse of what we’re accustomed to seeing and it’s had a huge impact on both the NFL and fantasy football this season. It’s also had an impact on the waiver wire. I went back and looked at some of my waiver wire columns from the past three seasons and by and large the top names to target each week were running backs, in large part due to a steady stream of injuries to starters.
This Sunday’s action saw the continuation of that disturbing trend at WR. CeeDee Lamb, A.J. Brown, Drake London, and Chris Olave — all huge names at the position — went down with what could be multi-week injuries. For Brown, it’s his second injury this season. Olave’s situation is a scary one. He had one concussion while at Ohio State and now has suffered four in three seasons with the Saints, two of which occurred in the last three weeks. In addition to those Week 9 injuries, D.K. Metcalf, Mike Evans, Nico Collins, and Tee Higgins remained out this week from earlier injures, and that’s on top of multiple high-end WRs either missing time earlier this season or suffering season-ending injuries. It’s too many players to list, and you know who they are. You probably had one rostered. Sorry for the reminder. Anyway, we’ve seen this happen to the running back position, but I can’t recall a year where the WR position was decimated like this. When RBs go down, there’s often an immediate beneficiary who steps into a sizable portion of the injured player’s role. For the most part, that doesn’t happen in the same way with receivers, although injury often creates opportunity for others.
As for this week’s crop of free agents, it’s not so great and I wouldn’t go blowing too much free agent budget on anyone. But there are players that can help you, and with four teams on Bye, I suspect the wire will be a busy place in most leagues. Let’s get to it.
The Process***:*** Each week, I try to identify the top Waiver Wire targets and evaluate the short- and long-term prospects of those players. I also do my best to reveal which players who are coming off a big week are fool’s gold. Finally, I look at streamers who might help you in a pinch (this is usually more important during Bye weeks). Note that I’m writing this column BEFORE the Week 9 Monday night game (TB@KC).
Some players discussed won’t be available in your league. I try to list players who are available in more than 50% of leagues. But what does that even mean? A 10-team league with six...
