Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Week 6 Waiver Wire Podcast

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) and Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley) talk top waiver wire adds for the week. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. So it's the Waverwire podcast here at FantasyPoint.com. My name is Joe Dolan. His name is Tom Browley. It's week six. T-Bro, there are buys this week.

and when buys happen, injuries are also happening. They injuries don't go away because there's buys. And then all of a sudden, you're starting somebody who was at the dead, like, bottom of your waiver wire. It happens every single year with these buys. Yeah, it's not too bad this week. We got like the Texans. We do have the Lions who have actually been a good fantasy team. Raiders and the, did I say the Titans are the Texan?

Those two AFC South teams, the Texans and the Titans are the four teams on by this week. So it's not the worst buy week ever to start off. But certainly the poll gets a little bit thinner here starting this week. And I think they run through week 14 this year. So we got like the next nine weeks of game action here with buys. So the real, the war of attrition here starts this week here in week six. Tom, also, we've got, you know, some key injuries that we're going to get to here on the podcast. But I want to throw this out here because normally Tom and I have the Market Report recap podcast on a Monday.

Hell, we even did it last week, Tom, when I hadn't even seen the games and was completely useless. We did record one yesterday, but it only recorded about 11 minutes of Tom and 55 minutes. of me and Tom it was unselfishable. We're sorry about that. You can check out the article. That's essentially our podcasting. Yeah, that was the one saving grace about the whole thing, Joe. It was like, well, we had to do this anyway.

So it wasn't like we just wasted an hour of work. But I will say, since it didn't go out to the public, I mean, that might have been the finest hour of podcasting in the history of podcasting. I mean, it was complete fire, you know, from start to finish. It's a shame that people didn't get to hear it. Oh, man. Oh, boy. All right, T-Bro.

Let's get to the waiver wire. Let's get to the big names on it. I got the list of the injuries here. We'll rattle these off right off the bat. Rashad Penny, you know, broken leg, broken tibia. That's the big one coming out of week five. You know, injuries were kind of watching this week. Damien Harris picked up a hamstring injury.

It doesn't really affect the waiver wire too much. They kind of gave Ramandri Stevenson the full load. James Connor picked up a rib injury, so it doesn't seem serious, but people might be picking up, you know, Benjamin this week. T. Higgins with an ankle injury, played limited snaps in that Sunday night game. It could be an issue this week. Tyree Kill got his foot stepped on and left early. It was kind of a weird game. And Chris Olavee.

So wide receiver, not a whole lot of help at wide receiver, but there are some injuries at the position. and on top of the four by week. So we're not going to spend a lot of time on the wide receiver spot, but maybe we should list off some names because some people might be hurting that receiver if they're, you know, starting Higgins or Tyree Kill or Chris Olives. So those are the big injuries coming out of week five. Well, let's start there then, Tom.

Alec Pierce, available in over 90% of Yahoo Leagues. A really, I think he showed on Thursday night how talented he is. far be it from me to trust this Colt offense too much, but he's very clearly an option, and he's going to keep getting more snaps. Yeah, this is a tough offense to trust. They're averaging the fewest points per game right now. They somehow have won two games,

but Pierce's, I mean, we were, we chatted him up on Thursday. We were pushing him as a site, and he really stepped up and came through. And it's been a trend. since he came back from his concussion in week two. Just making big plays for this offense. Matt Ryan has already has complete trust in him.

The problem is he's still, for whatever reason, still playing behind Paris Campbell and two wide receiver sets. I don't think that's going to continue for the full season here. Maybe we'll start to see more of a transition where he starts to unseat him in those two wide receiver sets. And just the offensive environment. It's putrid right now. but everything all the signs are pointing towards this guy being a potential star.

He has to compete with Michael Pittman for targets, but he's earning his fair share of looks every week. And if teams are going to go out of their way to slow down Michael Pittman, he's showing big playability. And he's running a variety of routes too. He isn't just like a George Pickens type who's just all along the sideline. and it's all, you know, down the sideline. He's, he's running drag routes.

He's running, uh, crossers and day, you know, he's, he's got the full array of routes, which was, it's at least a little bit of a surprise. I thought he was going to be more of just a vertical threat and, uh, a red zone guy, but he's, he's shown a little bit of variety in his route running. So, uh, impressive start for the second round pick for the Colts. Um, another, a couple of names, Tom. One probably usable a little, uh, sooner than the other. Well, first, let's talk about Rondale Moore because he was back in kind of the slot role that he should be in with A.J. Greenback against the Eagles.

And well, I think, Tom, if you were in on Rondale Moore in draft season, and of course he was dropped a lot since then because of the injuries, that was probably the game you wanted to see from Rondale Moore if you wanted him to be a usable fantasy asset. They actually used him out of the slot and got him the ball at the line of scrimmage and then beyond the line of scrimmage. It was actually kind of an interesting game for him. Yeah, this is what we kind of expected from him. Coming into the year, and obviously he got that hamstring injury right before week one and slowed all the momentum.

And he played out of position in his first game pack with AJ Green out of the lineup. He was running mostly on the perimeter. He's a tiny little guy. He's, I think he's about 5'8. He's built more like a running back than a perimeter receiver. But that's where he was running last week. but this past week in week five, he got back into the perimeter with AJ Green back on the field. And this is kind of what we expected.

He's not going to exploit, you know, he's not going to get the big plays necessarily. He's not going to be a red zone threat. But he has this potential to catch five or six balls for 60 yards and be a solid PPR factor here. So he has another week here without D'Andre Hopkins. That's the concern moving forward. You get Hopkins in the line of. Marquise Brown has been phenomenal the last month of the season here after a slow start. Zach Ertz is, you know, he had that groin injury and was slow out of the gates in week one,

but he's been great the last four or five weeks. So that's the one concern is that there's just not enough balls to go around in this offense. But more certainly showing that he could be a wide receiver three for this week in PPR formats. And there's at least some potential here moving forward. They used a day two pick on them last year and didn't live up to the hype, but maybe he's going to finally get his chance here. So he's certainly viable off the waiver wire. He's available in 82% of legs right now.

Though neither guy played in the London game. Tom, I think we finally got our answer on Wondale Robinson versus Cadarius, Tony. If you're going to stash one of these giant receivers, and quite frankly, they might look like an appealing stash because Daniel Jones is playing pretty well. Tom, it feels like Robinson's got to be the guy you stash. Yeah, and I kind of think that this week is going to be the week that he gets back. He finally started to get some work in before that London game. Wasn't quite ready, but he's finally, it appears, turning the corner from that knee injury.

So hopefully we get him back in the lineups this week. Six percent owned in Yahoo. I think a lot of people just threw in the towel. It's been a longer absence than anticipated. Usually if teams are looking at maybe a four or five week absence, they would have thrown them on the injured reserve. So it's been a bit of a slow recovery here, but it looks like he's finally going to be ready.

And as he said, Daniel Jones needs all the help he can get. Dary Slayton was basically chained to the bench through the first four weeks of the season. and he came out and played half of the snaps and, you know, was Daniel Jones's top targets. So they're searching for anything right now in the passing game. It's been all, you know, the entire offense has basically, you know, been, you know, revolving around Sequin Berkeley here through the first five weeks of the season. So maybe Robinson can give them a little bit of juice out of the slot. He's a guy that's widely available and should be, should be picked up this week because it looks like he's going to probably get his first action. Uh, Khalil Shakir, you want to talk deeper? I mean, Tom, I picked him up last week in our 14 team

league and I didn't play him, but I just picked him up, you know, what if he does something in this offense, then he might be a little bit of a hotter waiver wire commodity. Isaiah McKenzie will be back, which I think limits things, but Shakir just showed in week, in week five, that if he's called upon to make plays, he can do that. Yeah, we'll see. Isaiah McKenzie, he's a smaller type of receiver and they were hesitant to give him a full workload right out of the gates with James and Crowder. I'll be interesting. That will be one of the more, you know, I follow all this stuff from the Waver Wire. That will be one of the more interesting breakdowns if McKenzie is able to get back this week. I'll be very curious to see if he, because he's another guy that's pretty widely available.

If McKenzie's out in your Waver Wire, he's out there basically in about half of the league. So he's another guy that should be at it. We saw what this bill's off. offense is capable of, and they're going to be playing in a shootout with the Chiefs this week. So, but I'll be very curious to see how McKenzie and Shakir, how those snaps kind of break down starting this week. I think McKenzie will probably see, you know, the vast majority of them, but Shakir played pretty well in his first real major NFL action. And maybe Shakir can kind of, because Jake Krumer has been playing more on the perimeter in this path in this offense so far, but maybe Shakir can, you know, show his usefulness and maybe become

that strict number four wide receiver who will, like, jump into the lineup if there's an injury. So he's certainly a deeper stash. One more name, reaching deep here. If you're really hurting, you need a guy on Thursday night football here. Diami Brown, you know, busted loose for two long touchdowns. It's looking like Jahan Dotson is not going to play again. He didn't get any practices in. last week. So quick turn around here, you would think that he's probably out again this week. So the guy is literally owned in 0% of leagues, but Carson Wentz took a couple chances to him. He's, he's like that ultimate dart throw. You just hope that he catches that one long pass for a touchdown. And he did it twice last week. So if you're really hurting at the position, you know,

probably, that's probably more of a 14 or 16 team league, but certainly viable this week with Dotson looking like he's going to be out. Tom, we got to, talk about one tight end. And, um, oh boy. I mean, you have to. He's back. Like, when there's guys like Dalton Schultz and Hawkinson and any of these tight ends, Kyle Pitts, any of these tight ends can get shut out any given week. And I mean, how many of them have the upside for 30 plus fantasy points like Tayson Hill. Yeah, we were having a great discussion on this on the market report yesterday that nobody heard that. I think we determined that it was Travis Kelsey. We saw him last night with the four touchdowns. And Mark Andrews are the only two guys at the position that really have that weekly,

like, sealing potential that we just saw from Taysam Hill. And that's it. I mean, but Hill also, you got to take the good with the bad with him. He also, he also has the potential to, to give you a zero, like he did a couple times earlier this year. He has this one target. He's strictly being used as a running back. He's mislabeled here as a tight end, but we play by the rules that the leagues give us, and he's a tight end in most formats.

So he, but I mean, it was effective for the offense. The Saints have been struggling to this point in the year. They have a lot of injuries at receiver. Alvin Kamara is playing through a rib injury. Jabins Winston's been out of the lineup. So they did what was needed, and it worked. They're not going to play the Seahawks every week, one of the worst defenses in the league.

But I see this kind of being part of their game plan moving forward. It was honestly kind of surprising that he wasn't more of a factor through the first four weeks of the season. So we're at the point where he'll, hopefully if you pick him up and use them, he gets a couple opportunities at the Red Zone. personally. I have more Alvin Kamara than Jason Hill, so I hope he goes back to the bench, and we don't see much

of them going forward, but I don't see that happening. I do think he's going to be a bit of a weekly factor. It's not going to be consistent, but I don't, the cat's kind of out of the bag. I think they've got to keep using them here. Now let's go. You just mentioned the Seahawks in their awful defense. Well, they also had some awful

luck on offense. Okay, okay. All right. Let's go. Haydenhurst. This is if like T. Higgins doesn't play again. We saw what he, he kind of exploded in that Sunday night game, six catches, 53 yards and a touchdown. So, you know, if T. Higgins misses again, I know people are really hurting at tight end. We did recommend him. At least I did on our discord a little bit. You know, people were looking for a guy. And maybe a stash here, Greg Dulcich, Joe. I would expect him back. Albert O has been completely chained to the bench here. The new coaching staff,

which knows nothing, which probably bodes well for him in the future. But maybe Greg Dulcich in deeper legs needs to be picked up at this point. We'll see if he actually gets a roll right out of the gates. It was a pretty quiet summer for him. But they need some sort of spark in that Broncos offense. Maybe Greg Dulcich can give it at the position here.

Sorry for jumping ahead of you there, T, bro. But you mentioned Seattle, and that reminded me, we hadn't talked about the big one. Yeah, we got two big ones from that. kind of this week, you know what I mean, Joe, at that quarterback position as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course, do you know. Yeah, but let's get, uh, Ken Walker. I mean, what, what, what are we going with? Kenneth, Kenny, Ken?

I think he, I think Kenny is his least favorite. Okay. Yeah, nobody. So he's fine with Kenneth, but he goes by Ken. Okay, we'll go Ken, then. Uh, Ken, you know, Ken Walker, he's, he's now the guy here at, you know, Rashad Penny, unfortunately, um, guy just, he's one of those, I know Edwin, He doesn't like to say there's guys that are injury prone.

But if there was a guy that is injury prone, it's unfortunately Rashad Penney, who's flashed quite a bit, especially at the end of last year. But this backfield is going to be kind of his. He's going to get all the running opportunities here. DJ Dallas and Travis Homer are still probably going to factor in some in passing situations. But, you know, the runway is clear. and all of a sudden this offense, we thought they were going to struggle to score points this year.

They've been one of the more dynamic offenses the last three weeks of the season here. All of a sudden, Walker has some major potential. He needs the past, you know, the receiving game element. Not sure he's going to quite get it, but he showed last week just how dynamic of a runner he is with that long touchdown run. So, you know, things are all of a sudden looking up for this offense,

and Walker is going to step into a big rule. I know Graham really loved him in the pre-draft process in his yards created. Cousel loved him. Yeah, Cassell loved him. So we loved him. I know you and me, me and you, both drafted him quite a bit in bestball formats. I didn't draft him too much in fantasy formats. but in season long formats.

But Walker, the runway is clear here. It's looking like takeoff for him, especially with this offense looking like it actually has some potential right now. Absolutely, Tom. And by the way, if you're like sitting here and you're saying, oh, you know, you guys, oh, Kenny Walker's not available in my league. You know, my league's competitive. Well, Tom, if there is somebody, like if you're talking like you've got the skankiest

waiver wire running back ever, Put in a claim for DJ Dallas or Travis Homer. Like, what if they don't trust Walker on third downs? Yeah, I don't think they will. You know, they, they weren't really given Penny that work. And he was a five-year veteran. So they were given those passing snaps to, to Dallas and Homer. So, yeah, those guys are viable as deeper options.

Certainly here. So, you know, Walker, I mean, he's 43% in Yahoo. So, yeah, most leagues, he's been. and most competitive leagues he's been owned. But, you know, people were getting a little itchy there. He was starting to get dropped. His number, his ownership number was, you know, up in the 70% range at the start of the season.

So this number has gradually ticked down. So make sure you go and look. Do the search. Search that Kenneth Walker there. He might be available. Somebody may have dropped them before week five. Tom, let's now do Eno Benjamin because Eno Benjamin. because, you know, Benjamin, there's a chance he could start a game here.

They say James Connor is fine, but he's got a rib injury. They can be fickle. Darrell Williams left with a knee injury. So there is a chance, you know, Benjamin starts a game here for the Cardinals this week. Yeah, and I also thought he looked good. I did, too. Yeah, I thought he gave that offense, a little bit of juice that James Connor has not given him to this point in the season.

He's been very ineffective through four weeks. So I think he's a good, stash for this week. Maybe he gets to play. Maybe you get the plug and play them. I also think he's a good stash moving forward. I think they should consider giving him more of a role. I kind of thought there was a chance that he might earn like a Chase Edmonds type of role that we've seen the last couple of years next to James Connor. It really hasn't materialized. But I think after his week five performance, there's a chance that he at least gets more of a rule moving forward. And maybe he's a viable option. you know, a flex option and 14 team leagues, 12 team leagues,

if he's able to maybe carve out like 35% of the snaps and get some passing game work. And hopefully, you know, he's a 10% own guy. So we're always looking for any kind of potential off the waiver wire here. So he showed a little something to me last week. So a good stash guy. And maybe maybe you get to play him this week if Connor is unable to play. I know it was popular to pick him up last week. so he might have been well-ristered in your league.

But Mike Boone, Tom, proved he's still available in 60-plus percent of Yahoo Leagues. He proved that he's a playable flex, especially, you know, with some of these bye weeks coming up. Yeah, Boone and Rashad White is also 34% owned. They're both sub-40% owned. They're great handcuffs at this point behind top backs, and they're both kind of carved out some standalone value. As we said, this is the buy-weeks. This is the start of them. We're going to be reaching.

deep here at points looking for guys that have some sort of role in the backfield. And both Boone and White, they were about, you know, 40% of the snaps. It's kind of changed in Tampa Bay. They're working him in. And Brady is throwing the ball a ton. They're not trying to run the ball. And he's been feeding his backs here. So White's been very active here recently.

And Mike Boone, we've touched on in previous podcast, the Melvin Gordon's you know, ball security issues. So there's always a chance that, you know, that that continues. And Mike Boone has elevated to a starters type of role. So I thought he also looked, Melvignore it still looks fine. I mean, but he's a little loose with the ball. He's not quite as good as he once was. And I thought Mike Boone played pretty well in his first real major action of the season here. So we'll see if he can continue to be involved in the passing game. We've seen Russell Wilson struggled to throw the ball downfield and Denver running backs have been heavily targeted in the passing game to start the season.

So Boone has, you know, could have some potential PPR value if he continues to get a lot of passing work, passing game work here in this back field. Tom, I hate these questions and I know you hate them too. But percentage of fab for Ken Walker. Tom, I, this is one of those ones where the offense is better. than we expected. A massive role is opening up, and it's a young, talented player. Like, I don't, if you need running back help, let me put it this way. It's, it's not the time to get cheap if you need running. Yeah, I, yeah, I would use well over half of my, probably my budget.

I'd use probably close to all of it quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it depends, yeah, it depends, the league to league, but if you're in a super competitive league, yeah, it's probably almost all of it. But I'm viewing him right now going, you know, just a middle of the road kind of projection. I think he's going to be a mid-arby-2 with maybe high-end RB2 potential. But you're right. If this offense continues to play at the level it's playing at, if he can grab a little bit of that passing game work, he has some RB1 potential moving forward. It's not a likely outcome, but it's an outcome that is certainly out there.

More of an outcome, we would have never thought this was possible three or four weeks ago. But the way the offense is performing right now, he has that potential. And Tom, let's talk about that offense because Gino Smith, I mean, just like I ignored this for like two weeks. And, you know, in leagues where I'm streaming quarterbacks. and I mean, do I expect this to continue? Not necessarily, but he's playing exceptionally well right now, and he's got two great weapons and an awful defense, which means they're going to have to score. Yeah, our data guys, they put in our Discord yesterday, but how, how Gino Smith is basically playing right underneath that Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen tier. And it's looked that way to me. I don't,

I don't watch the all 22. I don't, you know, I'm not sitting there breaking down film for 24-7, but just watching games and seeing the highlights. And it's looked like he's playing at a real high level. And then, you know, Brett showed us a breakdown of some of his best throws from Sunday. And he's, it's just, it's unbelievable. I can't really find a comparison to this. The one that kind of comes in mind is like Rich Gannon.

but Rich Gannon wasn't even like really a high high end draft pick. I mean, for a guy to be irrelevant for this many years and the, you know, first round talent at the time when he was drafted out of West Virginia. But I mean, to come on like this in his early to mid 30s and all of a sudden, like he looks like he could be a top 10 quarterback here. So he's still out there on your waiver wire. I'm not guaranteeing that this continues. We have a long history of the last decade here with Gino Smith that it probably won't continue,

but maybe he has turned to corner. Maybe he has figured out his game here later in his career. And he certainly has the weapons with, you know, D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. The defense is playing. It's a bottom three defense right now. You put them with the Lions as maybe the two worst in the league. So they're going to be playing in shootouts every week. So Gino Smith, I mean, at this point, he has like QB1 potential moving forward.

Like top 10, top, you know, top 12 potential here. So if he's still sitting out there on your waiver wire, as crazy as this sounds. And maybe this will sound crazy in a couple weeks. But I think it's worth the bids or using waiver priority to pick him up to see if this continues. And then obviously, Tom, we got some buys. So there's going to be some streaming quarterbacks, you know, Kenny Pickett, Wilson's out there. I don't love Daniel Jones because his weapons right now are struggling, but he's playing pretty well. I mean, you can still find some appealing options out there on

the deeper end if you need. Yeah, are we ready? Are we given Justin Fields enough? We ready to dip our toes in there? He's been dropped a lot. If you can use him now, it's good matchup this week against the commanders. I mean, it's still a low point total. It's sitting 39 and a half, 40 points. But yeah, he is, he's starting to turn a corner. Maybe he's a, you pick him up and you stash him and you hope that better things are coming. Or maybe this isn't a barrage, but this week is going to be kind of a good barometer, especially on Thursday night football to see if he's starting to turn a corner. But the last two weeks have been better here. The numbers are starting to pick up a little bit. You have to remember, he's also playing with, you know, first year coaching staff and

they're trying to get used to their personnel. So maybe, maybe things are starting to starting to turn a corner here a little bit from Justin Fields. Yeah, and I'm, I mean, I'm not expecting him to go for 3.50 and three touchdowns this week, but if he keeps running a little bit more and not just like making egregious mistakes as a passer, he's at least going to be like usable. He's not, he's not Jalen Hertz anytime soon. Yeah, that's what he really wanted out of him. Yeah, he was a, you know, the 15th, 16th quarterback off the board in drafts. But we, you know, we thought he'd have that usable floor where he's getting 40 to 50 rushing yards a week and, you know, maybe he scores a rushing touchdown every other week.

And he's just good enough as a passer. Get us 200 passing yards with a passing touchdown every week. And we'll take that. And he's starting to get into that territory here the last two weeks. So hopefully it can continue here. Thursday night will be, as I said, a good barometer to see just where he is at in a beatable spot, but there's also some prime time pressure there. want to see how he performs there. Tom, this has been a great WaverWire podcast. I actually think the podcast

recorded the whole damn thing. Woo. Woo. That's better than yesterday. Oh, yeah. Follow him on Twitter at Tom Brawley. I'm at FG underscore Dolan. If you're not sure who to drop or, hey, Joe, what would you do in this instance? Or, hey, Tom, what would you do in this instance? Well, then you need to sign up the FantasyPoints.com and get to our subscriber discord because, well, that's what Tom and me and the guys do. We answer questions on Discord when we get to them. And I've been spending a lot of time in there this year, Tom. I know you've been spending plenty of time in there as well. It's been a community that is definitely growing. So by the way, if you use the code Brawley 22, you get an extra 10% off at FantasyPoints.com, which is already 25% off. So for Tom, I'm Joe. Thank you for joining us for this edition of the WaverWire podcast.

Good luck with the bye weeks, everybody. And we'll talk to you. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.