Waiver Wire Pickups Week 10

Waiver Wire Week 10

Some weeks just don’t make sense in fantasy football. This was one of those weeks. Olamide Zaccheaus scored two touchdowns, Tim Patrick had 85 yards and a touchdown, Devonta Freeman turned back the clock to 2015, putting up 82 total yards and a touchdown. Entering Sunday night football, your leading fantasy scorer on the week is James Conner, and someone named Josh Johnson is your QB5 despite only playing three quarters this week. In Week 10, the Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, New York Giants Giants, and Houston Texans are off. Between byes and the usual assortment of injuries, make sure you scour your waiver wire.

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QB Waiver Wire Pickups

Carson Wentz

Indianapolis Colts (58% Sleeper Rostership / 50.4% ESPN Rostership)

Carson Wentz enters Monday Night Football as the QB4 of the week. Despite outscoring Derek Carr, Ryan Tannehill, and Tua Tagovailoa on a per-game basis, Wentz is on fewer rosters (per ESPN fantasy) than each of those players. Because of some meme-worthy turnovers, you probably don’t realize how well Wentz has played this season. He’s already thrown nearly 2,200 yards and ran for another 121 yards, and tossed 17 touchdowns against just three interceptions. He’s coming off his best fantasy game of the season, leading into another good matchup. Next week Wentz welcomes the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars defense that gives up the ninth most fantasy points per game to the quarterback position. There is no legitimate reason for Wentz to be un-rostered in so many leagues.

RB Waiver Wire Pickups

Devonta Freeman

Baltimore Ravens (25% Sleeper Rostership / 13.8 ESPN Rostership)

Devonta Freeman has surprised many (okay, maybe just me) by looking like an actual, functional, productive fantasy football asset in the year 2021. It took him a few weeks to get reacclimate himself to the rigors of the NFL, but since playing on a season-low 8% snap share in Week 4, Freeman’s snaps have consistently risen, and he played on a season-high 58% offensive snaps this past Sunday against the Vikings. His 13 rushing attempts and 79 rushing yards also set season highs. Freeman is also being used as a receiver and has been targeted at least three times in three of the last four games. Freeman scored a receiving touchdown this week and has scored in three straight games, with rushing touchdowns each of the prior two weeks. Freeman has scored 11.3, 12.9, and 16.3 fantasy points the last three games providing RB2 production. Though two of those games came with presumptive starter Latavius Murray on the bench, Freeman is still someone I’d like to add to the end to my rosters.

Eno Benjamin

Arizona Cardinals (0% Sleeper Rostership / 0.01% ESPN Rostership)

With Chase Edmond suffering a high ankle sprain in the first quarter Sunday and unable to return, Eno Benjamin saw his most extensive usage with nine rushing attempts for 34 yards and one maddeneque touchdown run.

Edmonds is likely headed to the short-term IR as high ankle sprains can take up to six weeks to heal. This will naturally lead to more work for new starter James Conner but should also provide a role for Benjamin until Edmonds returns. Benjamin can play on all three downs and averaged 276.50 rushing attempts and 38.5 receptions in his final two college seasons at Arizona State. The Cardinals have split the backfield opportunities fairly evenly up to this point of the season, with Edmonds holding a 51.4% to 45.4% edge over Conner. Conner handled slightly more rushing work, and Edmonds saw a lot more of the receiving work. I don’t expect the workshare to be this even between Conner and Benjamin, but knowing Conner’s injury history, it would be wise for the Cardinals to continue the split in some manner. And if Conner were to go down to injury, suddenly you’ll have the starting running back from one of the league’s best offenses on your roster.

Brandon Bolden

New England Patriots (18% Sleeper Rostership / 7.4% ESPN Rostership)

This recommendation isn’t really about Brandon Bolden so much as it is about Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson. Both players left Sunday’s game with head injuries, likely concussions. If both, or even one, can get through the concussion protocol in time for next week’s tilt against the Browns. Next’s week matchup against the Browns isn’t especially appealing, as they surrender the 23rd most fantasy points per game to the running back position (16.32), but finding a running back who would be in line to see anywhere from 10 to 15 touches, is hard to find in Week 10 on the waiver wire. If Harris and Stevenson end playing next week, you can send Bolden back to the waiver wire.

Rhamondre Stevenson

New England Patriots (15% Sleeper Rostership / 6.1.% ESPN Rostership)

If Rhamondre Stevenson can play next week and Damien Harris cannot go then, Stevenson could see a full complement of starters snaps. Harris has averaged a 45.8 snap share, to just 10.7% for Stevenson. Stevenson has also hurt himself with fumbling and missing blocks which has caused him to be a healthy scratch on several occasions this year. But, when he has played, he’s New Englands most efficient running back from a fantasy perspective, averaging 47.9 fantasy points per 100 snaps. Stevenson had his most productive day as a rusher against Carolina with 62 rushing yards on just ten attempts averaging a robust 6.2 yards per attempt. He also hauled in both of his targets for 44 more yards. Even if Stevenson can’t go next week against the Browns, he’s worth stashing on your roster in case his workload does continue to increase in New England.

Jordan Howard

Philadelphia Eagles (17% Sleeper Rostership / 8.1% ESPN Rostership)

First things first. I have to offer a mea culpa for last week. In the Week 9 waiver wire article, I suggested picking up Boston Scott while completely ignoring Jordan Howard. That was the wrong call. Though Scott was still used by the Eagles this week, he saw ten rushing attempts compared to 17 this week for Howard. Howard has 29 rushing attempts to Scott’s 22 over the past two weeks and has three attempts from within the five-yard line compared to Scott’s two. Both of Scott’s attempts came last week, as did his two rushing touchdowns, while Howard added another goal-line attempt and conversion this week.

Ground and pound FTW#LACvsPHI | #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/xpwVGeZnXG

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) November 7, 2021

To add to the confusion, the Eagles had another goal-line attempt on Sunday, and Kenneth Gainwell took the attempt and converted the one-yard attempt for a touchdown. Without Miles Sanders for at least another week, we can expect Howard to remain a vital part of the Eagles (newly) run-heavy offense. It should be noted that the Eagles do face a Broncos defense that is giving up the ninth fewest points this season to running backs. But considering it’s Week 10 of the NFL season, Howard isn’t a bad option that you can pluck off the waiver wire.

WR Waiver Wire Pickups

Elijah Moore

New York Jets (41% Sleeper Rostership / ESPN Rostership)

Elijah Moore is starting to get hot, with 20 targets over the past three weeks. This past Thursday was Moore’s breakout performance, tying a season-high with eight targets, along with season highs in receptions (seven), receiving yards (84), adding two touchdowns. Those eight targets tied Keelan Cole for the most this week for the Jets. It’s been a slow burn for Moore with 5.20 or fewer fantasy points in three of his first four games, but he’s scored at least 10.20 each of the past three weeks and averaged 16.9 points per game during that stretch. Moore was an impressive prospect coming out of Ole Miss, sporting exceptional college breakout age (82nd percentile), college dominator rating (85th percentile), and college market share (98th percentile).

Next week, the Jets could welcome back starting quarterback Zach Wilson against the Bills or turn back to Mike White, who is also trending towards playing next week after leaving the Jets loss to the Colts in the first quarter. Hopefully, if Zach Wilson returns, he takes note of how much Moore was targeted by Mike White and Josh Johnson in his absence and continues the trend.

Brandon Aiyuk

San Francisco 49ers (71% Sleeper Rostership / 45.6% ESPN Rostership)

I’m not exactly sure why Brandon Aiyuk is rostered in so many more Sleeper leagues than ESPN leagues, but I thought I should at least make a note of it. What is also noteworthy is Aiyuk’s usage over the past two weeks. After a brutal start to the 2021 season, Aiyuk has seen 15 targets over the past two weeks. Sunday, Aiyuk was targeted eight times which was tied for second-most on the 49ers, and his 89 receiving yards also were good enough for second-most for the 49ers this week. Aiyuk is clearly behind Deebo Samuel and George Kittle in the target pecking order but is coming off the best week of his season, and his snap share indicates he’s worked his way out of Kyle Shanahan’s dog house.

Rashod Bateman

Baltimore Ravens (57% Sleeper Rostership / 24.8% ESPN Rostership)

The Rashod Bateman blow-up is coming. After starting his career with back-to-back six targets weeks, he saw that number increase to eight in Baltimore’s win over Minnesota on Sunday. He’s behind Marquise Brown and Mark Andrews in the pecking order, but Bateman has carved out a healthy 17.1% target share in his first three career games. Considering that Bateman is a rookie who missed all of the pre-season and the first five games of the season recovering from groin surgery, it’s impressive that he’s been able to immediately find a role on the Ravens offense. Bateman has scored 11 and 10.2 fantasy points in his last two games, providing a nice floor for a flex play. If Bateman continues to expand his role in the offense, he could also provide some spike weeks for your roster.

TE Waiver Wire Pickups

Tyler Conklin

Minnesota Vikings (35% Sleeper Rostership / 46.2% ESPN Rostership)

Would you believe that the target share leader for the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday was Tyler Conklin? Conklin saw seven targets monopolizing a 25% market share in Sunday’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens. Lest you think this is a one-week fad, Conklin is the second most targeted player on the Vikings over the past three games with a 23% market share. Yes, he’s seeing more targets than Justin Jefferson.

Conklin has turned in three straight weeks with at least five or more targets, three or more receptions, 45 or more receiving yards, and 11.6 or more fantasy points. His hot streak has bumped him up to the TE16 overall before this week’s action games, and he is currently the TE10 this week (before the afternoon’s games). Conlin is scoring fantasy points without scoring touchdowns and could be in line for positive regression on that front, considering he has 44 targets on the season and just one receiving touchdown. He’s not sexy, but Conklin has been a TE1 over the past three weeks.