Fantasy Football Adds, Drops and Standout Performers
Good morning to Aaron Jones fantasy managers. That was quite a Monday night miracle! If you don’t have Jones on your squad — or worse, fell victim to his 40-point outburst — you’re going to want to make some roster adjustments this week. That’s the focus of today’s Winners Club.
Navigating the Waiver Wire
Sunday afternoon brought what felt like dozens of quarterback injuries. Thankfully there are available quarterbacks who Jen Piacenti recommends you make claims on this week. A few backup running backs also outperformed the starters on their team this week and they’re largely available.
Ron Chenoy/USA TODAY Sports
Get your Week 3 Waiver Wire pickups and see how much FAAB to use here. Spoiler Alert: everyone is going after Cordarrelle Patterson, but find out who our TOP claim is this week.
Droppables
To go along with waiver addition advice, here are some players who you should subtract from your roster to make those moves.
Mark Ingram: Game script forced the Texans to pass the ball more often than they ran it against the Browns and Ingram’s volume was cut in half. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t do much with his 14 carries considering it took an NFL-high 26 carries to manage a mid-tier RB2 performance in Week 1. Houston has been feisty, but the offense may regress toward preseason expectations without the injured Tyrod Taylor at quarterback. Rookie Davis Mills is expected to start Thursday night.
Jameis Winston: It was foolhardy to think a five-touchdown, turnover-free outing was repeatable for the typically turnover prone Winston, but against Carolina we got all of the bad with none of the good. Fantasy managers who bit hard were punished with no touchdowns and two interceptions. You can safely part with Winston, even though I’m sure he’ll win us back with a 400-yard outing in a few weeks only to burn us again.
On the bubble: Because of the potential upside each of these players have, it’s hard to cut ties this early. They’re all on watch, though. Two weeks into Trey Sermon’s career, he has one carry, a fumble, and a concussion after being a healthy scratch. Russell Gage built on his zero-catch Week 1 outing against the Buccaneers, but he’s been a disappointment thus far. Though the Falcons offense may be more to blame than Gage, the volume simply isn’t there — he has the fourth most targets behind Calvin Ridley, Kyle Pitts and Mike Davis. Marquez Callaway caught two touchdowns in the preseason game that made many people fall for him. He now has three catches in two games. The idea behind drafting Callaway was that someone would have to catch passes in the Saints offense. So far, it’s not him.
Reading
Our betting analysts have been on fire. Frankie Taddeo went 3-for-3 on his Monday Night Football bets in a bounce back win for the Packers. And in the biggest college football game of the weekend, Richard Johnson had Florida covering a big spread against Alabama in a game the Gators almost won outright. For the latest NFL and college football lines, head over to SI Sportsbook.
Here’s what else is going on at SI Fantasy and Betting:
Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Shawn Childs ranked and projected performance for dozens of players for the week ahead for all of you fantasy baseball fanatics.
NFL Power Rankings: Mitch Goldich ranks the top teams 1-32 in his latest power rankings and I bet you can guess who holds the top and bottom spots.
Darnold Thriving Outside of New York: Albert Breer touches on the Panthers’ new quarterback in his MAQB and the weapons around him that helped Carolina to a 2-0 start.
Standout stats from the weekend
In lieu of picks on Tuesdays with no college or pro games to select, I’m going to single out a few fantasy stat lines and performers that stood out to me:
The Good
Courtland Sutton exploded for 159 yards and nine catches (both career highs) almost exactly a year after tearing his ACL. Good for Sutton and good for the Broncos, who were in need of a pass catcher to break out after Jerry Jeudy’s injury.
Derek Carr leads the NFL in passing yards and it’s not particularly close. He followed up his 435 yards against Baltimore with 382 against Pittsburgh. As a result, five Las Vegas players have at least 100 receiving yards — it’s not just Darren Waller who’s getting all the action.
The Bad
Trevor Lawrence threw two more interceptions against Denver in a loss. His debut was solid besides the three interceptions. Lawrence kept up the turnovers against the Broncos but regressed in yards, completions and touchdowns. Not a great start for pick No. 1.
Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports
Tyreek Hill was held to 14 receiving yards against the Ravens. Baltimore safety DeShon Elliott commended his teammate Anthony Averett’s coverage on Hill, who responded on Twitter. Keeping Hill in check is a feat worth celebrating, though. This round goes to the Ravens.
The Weird
Daniel Jones is the QB4 on the year. He may not look great doing it, but it’s hard to argue with his numbers: Four total touchdowns (two rushing) and only one turnover.
Cordarrelle Patterson has two of the Falcons’ three offensive touchdowns. He’s also an RB1. Just like we all predicted!
That’s all for today, folks. As always, good luck on the waivers. I’ll be back on Thursday.
