Last week’s waiver wire recommendations didn’t go entirely according to plan. Only the Rams defense and Jeremaine Kearse performed as I predicted. However, some of those guys like Rex Burkhead, Evan Engram and Younghoe Koo were me trying to play the long con. By season’s end is when they’ll start having their value.
Finally football season is back in full swing and we can start making REAL predictions. No more prognosticating — just cold, hard facts. Like the Jacksonville Jaguars and LA Rams meeting in the Super Bowl! FACTS!
Here we go with my waiver adds of the week! These are guys you should think of grabbing if one of your starters is injured or if Kirk Cousins was who we thought he was. Obvious grabs of the week: Marqise Lee (due to Allen Robinson’s injury),  Kerwynn Williams (due to David Johnson’s injury) and Kendall Wright (due to Kevin White’s injury.)
If you’ve got league specific questions, I’ve got league specific answers — leave a comment below!
Quarterbacks:
Philip Rivers, LAC, (66.7%): The Rodney Dangerfield of NFL quarterbacks gets no respect, no respect at all I tell ya. Last week against the #1 ranked Broncos defense Rivers still scored 17.7 fantasy points. He threw a TD pass to 3 different players and 3 players had 5 receptions a piece. Rivers is great at spreading the love around and has great weapons at all three skill positions. This week he sees a Miami Dolphins team that allowed the 4th most points to opposing QBs in 2016. If the game 1 sloppiness carries over to the Dolphins playing their first game of the season: Rivers could feast.
Sam Bradford, MIN, (11% owned): Get on board the hype train babbbyyy! Bradford was the third highest scoring QB in the NFL in week 1. Remember, it was against the Saints though. Saints are notoriously opposing-QB friendly. This week, Bradford gets the Pittsburgh Steelers who just allowed the Browns DeShone Kizer to drop 18.6 points on them. However, 17 yards and 1 TD of that came from Kizer’s legs. Bradford is a much better QB than Kizer and has much better receiving options than Kizer. I can see Bradford having another 20+ point game this week and would start him over someone like say…Kirk Cousins. You like that?!
Running Backs:
Chris Thompson, WSH, (64.9%): Consider this your PPR play of the week. With Kirk Cousins still establishing his rapport with Terrelle Pryor and Jordan Reed playing with a broken toe, Chris Thompson saw himself hauling in 4 of his 5 targets for 52 yards, one of those catches leading to him finding the paint. The Rams are a pretty strong defense for the Redskins and they could find themselves down and having to throw a lot in the second-half which opens up a lot of opportunities for Thompson considering they only attempted 13 total rushes against the Eagles in week 1.
Tarik Cohen, CHI (23.7%): Cohen played all the positions for the Bears in week 1 which will lead him to being one of the most-added players for week 2. He was the second highest scoring RB to only Kareem Hunt’s monster game against the pre-season favorite Patriots. He was also among the highest targeted players at any position with 12. The unfortunate injury to WR Kevin White is going to lead to an increased role for Cohen in the Bears offense on top of his amazing week 1 play. Jordan Howard is going to stay Chicago’s RB1, but Cohen is there RB 2, WR1, TE1, and even QB2 somehow.
Marlon Mack, IND, (1.4%): Consider this one of those long cons I was telling you about earlier in this article. There was nothing to like about the Colts offense in week 1 except for Mack who was surprisingly their leading fantasy scorer with 11.5 points. Frank Gore is 34 years old, has played in all 16 of his teams games for the past 6 seasons and has rushed over 250 times in each of those seasons. He is a reliable hard-nosed, work-hose back. However, now let’s read that previous sentence with a negative tone. He’s 34 years old and has played in 96 straight games and rushed 1,594 times in that span. Father Time, as always, is undefeated. Gore might be showing a sign of a breakdown and on a rebuilding team, coach Chuck Pagano might start giving touches to the 13-years younger Marlon Mack to see if he can be their RB of the future. The least you could do is add him to your watch list to see if he can be your RB of the future.
Wide Receivers:
Kenny Golladay, DET, (21.3%): Matthew Stafford had a field day with his wide receivers against the Cardinals defense. Golladay was the biggest beneficiary with 2 TD receptions, but Golden Tate had 10 targets for 107 yards and Marvin Jones picked up a TD reception as well. Stafford is going to have a bit tougher time with the Giants stout defense, but if Big Blue’s offense continues to be so terrible, it will put extra pressure and time on the field for their defense which Stafford can take advantage of as they’re gasping for air. Golladay isn’t going to score multiple TDs every game obviously, but with all of Stafford’s WR and RB targets, he could continue to find himself open as the 4th guy defenses have to cover.
NE Patriots receivers: The Saints secondary just made household names out of Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen (who was highlighted in my start/sit article last week) on primetime Monday so I would grab any Patriots receivers new or old this week. Granted, if you take the media’s word for it, Tom Brady is dead and should retire immediately. You know, Tom Brady, the guy who won the Super Bowl last year. Cooks is already 100% owned and started, but watch for Chris Hogan (only started in 10.8% of leagues right now) to also get a lot of looks and a lot of love this week. Danny Amendola as you might have expected, is suffering through an injury already so also look for Phillip Dorsett as a deep, deep threat level midnight sleeper. The Saints have no one who can keep up with Dorsett’s speed so I predict at least one big long toss to him for a TD.
Mohamed Sanu, ATL, (16.1%): Sanu has been the Prince who was Promised for what feels like forever now. I remember drafting him in 2013 hoping Sanu would get all of the targets when AJ Green was double-teamed in Cincinatti. Here we are four years later and four years older and Sanu is now lining up across the field from another elite WR in Julio Jones. In week 1 in Chicago, Sanu lead the Falcons in targets and receptions with 9 and 6 respectively so maybe Andy Dalton was actually the problem (Andy Dalton is ALWAYS the problem!) If Sanu is now getting noticed by Matt Ryan in his second season in Hotlanta he could have some sneaky value.
Tight Ends:
Baltimore Ravens Tight Ends: This is the 14+ team league tight end add of the week. In 2016 the Browns allowed the most fantasy points to opposing tight ends and they started 2017 off by allowing 22.1 points and 2 TDs to Pittsburgh’s Jesse James. The Ravens are slowly getting Joe Flacco up to speed after missing almost the entire pre-season with a back injury and what better way to ramp up his throwing activity by lots of passes to big tight end targets like Nick Boyle. Again — deeeeeeep leagues only. With 7 E’s.
Jesse James, PIT, 14.1%: Speaking of Jesse James…did I mention he scored 2 TDs last week? Well this week he’ll find himself against the Minnesota Vikings who allowed 16.4 points to Saint’s TE Coby Fleener. James was second in targets from Ben Roethlisberger and if that trend continues for the season you could have yourself a nice little value from the Outlaw.
Defense/Special Teams:
Rams, 36%: I’m gonna do it again! I’m going to recommend the Rams until they prove me wrong! Which will probably be in week 4 when they head to Dallas. The Rams tied for the highest-scoring defense in week 1 against the hopeless/hapless Colts. This week they’ll get the Redskins who looked equally hopeless/hapless against the Eagles defense allowing 23 fantasy points to their defensive unit.
Ravens, 27.2%: The Ravens aren’t going to nab 4 picks, 5 sacks and shut-out their opponent this week but — hell, they might. Browns rookie QB DeShone Kizer had a nice debut against the Steelers, but he’s going to have a tougher time against the Ravens defense that is riding high after shutting out the Bengals. And here’s a math formula for you: Bengals offense > Browns offense. Ravens defense > Steelers defense. Therefore, the Ravens defense is way > than the Browns offense.
Kickers:
Giorgio Tavecchio, OAK, 14.3%: For the first time in over a decade the Raiders have a new kicker in the boy from Milan, Italy: Giorgio Tavecchio. If you had a chance to see his heart-warming speech after receiving the game ball at the end of the Raiders win over the Titans you had to fall in love with Tavecchio. If you somehow started Tavecchio last week you probably fell in lust with him as he was the highest scoring kicker with 19 fantasy points. This week Tavecchio, Derek Carr and the Raiders will carve up the Jets for another high scoring fantasy day.
Greg Zuerlein, LAR, 3.9%: The second-highest scoring kicker for week 1 was also probably not started by anyone, but he’ll see his ownership rise over the coming weeks. Zuerlein went 3 for 3 in Field Goals and 5 for 5 in PATs. This week he’ll face the Redskins who allowed 13 fantasy points to the Eagles’ Caleb Sturgis.
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