Akron Beacon Journal Photo
By SPM Scott
As we look ahead to Week 3 of the 2023 National Football League season, it's time to take inventory and start to plan ahead. That doesn't mean that anyone should panic by any means, but it is time to start making an honest assessment of our draft targets and draft results while also taking inventory of our injuries and other potential areas of concern.
One thing to keep in mind is that in most full-season leagues all that it usually takes to make the playoffs is a record that is a game or two over .500. The goal isn't to run away with the regular-season title; we want to have our best lineup ready to go heading into the playoffs so that we can finish in the money.
Similar to real-life sports, it's not how you start; it's how you finish.
So, if you're 2-0 that's great, but now is not the time to get complacement. Almost every week there will be players on waivers that can make our teams better and contribute to a financially successful season. This can be the result of injuries that elevate a part-time player into a high-volume role or panic moves by other managers in the league.
Either way, no matter what our record is or how good we think our team is, taking a week off from looking at the waiver wire is a long-term losing strategy. Hopefully you got started with developing your weekly waiver-wire routine last week, but if you didn't, this week certainly is the one to start settling into a routine that you should repeat every Tuesday for the rest of the season.
For managers of teams who are 1-1 but think their teams are in pretty good shape, it's still important to make an honest assessment to see where the potential holes are and start thinking about players who might be available now or in the future - perhaps there are rookies who may take on larger roles as the season progresses - and can help us improve and build depth for late in the season.
Teams that are 1-1 despite slow starts by stars, sub-par performances by traditionally solid performers or unexpected injuries, may be a little more aggressive in attacking the waiver wire with the understanding that it may be a better long-term strategy to weather the storm and hang around .500 than to give up on potential key players after just two weeks. Adding a piece here or there and really focusing on making great lineup decisions likely is more prudent than any sort of knee-jerk reaction.
A team can be 0-2 despite putting up two solid or better weekly point totals simply because of bad scheduling luck. Or maybe the team has been average, but suffered close losses in the opening two weeks or the losses have been caused by bad starting-lineup decisions.
While an aggressive approach to waivers is fine for these teams if players are injured or not getting enough snaps, targets or touches, winless team managers should make sure to take a close look at their rosters to see if the situation is approaching desperation no matter what.
Maybe the draft strategy simply didn't pan out and it's time to check around the league for managers in similar situations - or teams that have an abundance of talent in one position - and think about potential trade partners. Perhaps injuries or underperforming NFL teams have left a manager's fantasy squad in a perilous situation that appears to be heading in the wrong direction.
If the situation appears dire, it may be time to consider a longer-term strategy that can set the team up for a potential late-season run. Is there a potential game-changer on waivers who it might be worth spending a larger-than-normal percentage of the free-agent budget on? Are there suspended players with high upside available who will be coming back in a few weeks? Is there an NFL team that is tearing it up offensively but that has some injury-prone players in key positions? Who are their backups? Maybe consider making a preemptive move for one of those players.
It's also not a bad idea to look around and find some other teams that might be in similar situations. Do their strengths match up with your team's weaknesses and vice versa? Is there a deal that can help both of you right away?
Perhaps an owner of an underachieving superstar like Ja'Marr Chase might be ready to give up on his star in return for a couple of more-consistent performers and you can buy low on a player who has the potential to lead a team to the promised land if he returns to form.
An 0-2 start isn't that hard to overcome for managers who are diligent and do their homework, but the situation certainly becomes much more dire at 0-3. Teams that fall to 0-3 need to go 8-3 over the following 11 weeks to have a realistic hope of making the playoffs in leagues that end their regular seasons after Week 14.
Taking Stock
The first step this week is to take a look at our draft targets and results. Was the overall strategy flawed to the point that we have one or more teams with several players underperforming or did we just miss on a pick or target or two?
After that we need to assess our injuries and determine if we have the depth to be patient or need to make any drastic moves to replace potential lost points. Then we msut analyze our underachievers to see if they just haven't hit their stride or are in situations that figure to continue to deteriorate and might not allow them to live up to their potential.
Finally, we will check the waiver wire in each league to see if there are players available who are simply better than players we have. We always will be in the market to improve our rosters, but we won't overspend for anyone unless we have an emergency hole to fill. For our eight teams - seven full-season PPR squads and one guillotine - it appears as though our draft strategy was relatively sound. Brian Robinson was a target to be our third RB on several teams, and he is getting exactly the type of volume we expected along with goal-line carries and even some targets through the air. Robinson is the type of consistent depth player that helps teams win. He won us games last week.
Several of our other RB targets have been up and down but are getting the volume and playing enough snaps to be the types of players that can give us a chance to win every week. These players include James Cook, Rachaad White and Kenneth Walker. The jury still is out on Javonte Williams, who continues to show flashes of his enormous talent but has yet to be a consistent scorer we can count on. Najee Harris and Alexander Mattison are concerning at this point. We thought they could be counted on as volume backs, but Harris basically splits touches with Jaylen Warren and Mattison seems to get lost in Minnesota's pass-happy offense.
As far as depth RBs go, we targeted Tyler Allgeier, Jerick McKinnon, Zach Charbonnet, Jamaal Williams and Gus Edwards. We also grabbed Kareem Hunt late in a few drafts in hopes that he might find an NFL home early in the year.
While we didn't get Edwards in every draft, we grabbed him on waivers for several teams after the JK Dobbins injury and are very happy to have him. He's going to get plenty of touches for a very good team and is used as the closer late in games.
McKinnon, on the other hand, has seen very few targets as a part-time player in a struggling offense the first two weeks of the season after being a key contributor to Kansas City's Super Bowl run last year. That sometimes can happen to good teams, but we have faith that Andy Reid will figure it out and get McKinnon more touches soon. We are only counting on him for heavy bye weeks anyway.
Charbonnet hasn't contributed nearly as much as was advertised, but he's a Walker injury away from being a high-volume back. If Hunt doesn't get a shot soon with all the RB injuries, it will be time to move on from him. In fact, we'd be willing to drop him this week for a player like Cleveland's Jerome Ford, who will be replacing the injured Nick Chubb.
At quarterback we hoped to draft one of the top four - Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen - with Justin Fields or perhaps Justin Herbert as the next target later on in the draft if we didn't get one of those players. Beyond that, the strategy was to wait for a player like Deshaun Watson in the ninth or 10th round and then come back quickly with a proven QB like Kirk Cousins or a big upside player like Anthony Richardson as his backup.
We ended up getting Hurts, Jackson and Fields on four teams with a Watson/Richardson combo on two and a Watson/Cousins combo on another. Herbert is our other starter. Hurts hasn't hit his stride yet but still scores, and after Week 2 we are very optimistic about Jackson. Fields is going to put up solid numbers even when he plays poorly and Herbert mostly puts up winning numbers win or lose.
Watson is a concern, but we are excited about Richardson and happy to have a highly productive Cousins, who has won us championships in the past, as a backup. If Richardson rebounds from his concussion and continues to improve, Watson may become expendable unless the Cleveland offense figures it out.
For the receiving positions (WR/TE), we wanted to get one of the following on as many teams as possible: Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill or Stefon Diggs. We hoped to pair those guys with players like Garrett Wilson, Jaylen Waddle, A.J. Brown, Amon-Ra St. Brown Chris Olave, DeVonta Smith, Davante Adams or Deebo Samuel or to grab two players from that group if we didn't get one of our top targets.
For depth beyond the top-two WR slots, our targets included Brandon Aiyuk, Mike Evans, Drake London, Chris Godwin, Terry McLaurin, Mike Williams, D.J. Moore and D.K. Metcalf. Our later-round sleeper targets were Nico Collins, Brandon Cooks, Tyler Lockett, Gabe Davis and Kadarius Toney, among others. We also targeted suspended Jameson Williams, Rashod Bateman and Curtis Samuel very late in drafts for a potential late-season spark and added depth.
We have all of those players on various rosters except Jefferson, Smith, McLaurin and Metcalf, and for the most part we are very happy with the receivers on our teams. We've also already added Tutu Atwell and Josh Reynolds to some lineups for immediate depth. Those two are playing very well and will make some of our upcoming lineup decisions very difficult.
London's Week 1 goose egg was concerning, but he had a nice bounce-back performance in Week 2 and is the clear No. 1 in Atlanta. All of the top guys have been great except for Chase, and given the Bengals' usual slow starts we have no interest in selling him off for less than his actual value at this point. Collins, Aiyuk and Evans have overachieved and been awesome. Davis is a legit No. 2 threat on a top offense, and Lockett is a pro who just catches passes and finds the end zone.
Hopefully Williams can add the intended spark and depth and Samuel is proving that he will be a very viable busy bye-week play. Bateman's window may be closing, while Toney continues to disappoint despite his enormous upside. We still believe that the Chiefs will figure it out, and if they do that Toney can become the type of guy who wins fantasy championships. We will be patient with him unless a serious injury forces our hand and we need immediate top-tier help off of waivers or via trade.
So far, we have two teams sitting alone in first place in their leagues, a few hovering around .500 and only one that is 0-2. We have built depth on most of our rosters and can afford to be patient, but we have potentially lost Saquon Barkley for a few weeks and Nick Chubb is lost from our guillotine team for the season. We also may need to look to the wire to replace the depth we would lose if Jamaal Williams is out of the lineup for a while.
If our WRs can cover the points we might lose if Barkley misses time, we may be able to wait for Barkley to return - if he's out - without making a big move, but we will have to open the check book in the guillotine league to replace Chubb. Unfortunately, even though a team was eliminated, there are no stud RB replacements available on the wire. We may try to grab Tony Jones or Dalvin Cook at bargain prices, or open the checkbook for Diggs at WR in hopes of replacing Chubb's points. Michael Thomas might be a target for relatively cheap, and maybe we'll try to steal Toney for next to nothing and pray that he becomes the player we think he can.
Our main tight end target was Kelce or Mark Andrews in the first four rounds and T.J. Hockenson right after that if it worked out and he was available. We got Kelce and Hockenson once each. Dalton Kincaid was a late-round target who we grabbed for a few of our teams. He's had a slow start, but plays in the slot often, and we love his upside. We did reach and take Kyle Pitts in one league and are regretting it. Dallas Goedert was our main mid-round TE target, and we did snag him a couple of times. Later in drafts we looked to players like Zach Ertz and Dalton Schultz, who we did get one one team each, as well as guys like Cole Kmet.
We did not get Kmet, but we have looked to add depth in waivers or improve production by grabbing players like Hayden Hurst and Logan Thomas. On teams that don't have a legit, consistent tight end, we will look to stream when it makes sense. We're not ready to give up on Pitts yet, but if it doesn't get better this week we will consider trading him to someone willing to overpay.
This Week's Top Waiver Availability
These are the players worth considering who appear to be available on waivers in most leagues:
Quarterback
Baker Mayfield, Russell Wilson, Mac Jones, CJ Stroud, Sam Howell
Grab 'Em if you See 'Em
We have seen these players on waivers in a few instances and would be very likely to try to get them if they were available: Kirk Cousins, Matthew Stafford, Jordan Love, Daniel Jones, Geno Smith
Running Back
Tony Jones, Jerome Ford, Latavius Murray, Matt Breida, Jaleel McLaughlin, Trayveon Williams, Craig Reynolds, Rico Dowdle, Salvon Ahmed (unless injured), Michael Carter, De'Von Achane, Chuba Hubbard
Targets:
We would only target Jones, Ford or Breida off this list. Maybe Murray, as he seems to be the goal-line back in Buffalo, but only if we had a hole that we had to fill and no other options. We would not spend money on him.
Grab 'Em if you See 'Em
We have seen these players on waivers in a few instances and would be very likely to try to get them if they were available: Kenneth Gainwell, Tyjae Spears, Zach Moss
Wide Receiver
Tank Dell, DeVante Parker, Robert Woods, Jayden Reed, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, River Cracraft, Curtis Samuel, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Jonathan Mingo, KJ Osborn, Brandon Johnson, Isaiah Hodgins, Darius Slayton, Parris Campbell, Alec Pierce, Josh Palmer, Mack Hollins, Chase Claypool, Kalif Raymond, KaVontae Turpin, Marvin Mims Jr., Justin Watson
Targets:
Our wide-receiver depth is pretty good, so we wouldn't be that interested in most of these guys, but the ones we would consider are Dell, Parker, Woods, Reed, NWI, Samuel, Mingo and Osborn.
Parker played 74 snaps in his first game for the Patriots vs. the Dolphins, which is about what the top receivers in the league average. He also had eight targets. Dell has been targeted 14 times thus far, including five times in the red zone, while averaging more than 50 snaps per game. Woods has 19 targets overall and three red-zone targets in two games. Reed is more of a home-run threat who isn't targeted as often as those guys, but he has produced and scored TDs. NWI has 10 targets, three red-zone looks and 96 routes run. Samuel touches the ball 6-8 times a game and has three red-zone targets. Mingo has 13 targets to go along with 126 routes run, and Osborn has 12 targets, and three red-zone targets while running 57 routes per game.
Grab 'Em if you See 'Em
We have seen these players on waivers in a few instances and would be very likely to try to get them if they were available: Zay Jones, Adam Thielen, Jakobi Meyers, Treylon Burks, Kadarius Toney, DJ Chark, Brandin Cooks
TIght End
Zach Ertz, Jake Ferguson, Kylen Granson, Taysom Hill, Cole Kmet, Dalton Knox, Hayden Hurst, Logan Thomas, Mike Gesicki, Cade Otton, Tyler Conklin, Noah Fant, Dalton Schultz, Gerald Everett, Donald Parham, Irv Smith.
Targets:
Most of these players are very similar. They are consistent and good for 6-10 points a week in most instances, but can be worth streaming if the matchup is right.
Of this group, we are most interested in Ertz, Ferguson, Granson, Hill and Kmet. Ertz leads all tight ends to date with 18 targets and has been targeted twice in the red zone. Ferguson hasn't caught many balls, but he's had seven red-zone looks and 11 overall targets. Granson has 10 targets and has played 83.7 percent of the team's snaps. Hill has only caught a couple of balls, but he ran the ball nine times for 75 yards vs. the Panthers and even threw a pass. If he carries the ball eight or nine times, gains 50 yards, catches a couple of passes and finds the end zone that's a really good game for a TE. Kmet has 13 targets and two red-zone targets while playing nearly 60 percent of the Bears' snaps.
Grab 'Em if you See 'Em
We have seen these players on waivers in a few instances and would be very likely to try to get them if they were available: Hunter Henry, Sam LaPorta, Luke Musgrave