The Bears have been trash this season. Now they have a possible Jordan Howard injury and an Alshon Jeffery suspension which creates a FAAB spending opportunity. I can’t say for certain whether we should pick up Bears running backs Jeremy Langford or Ka’deem Carey because I can’t say whether Howard is injured. My take on whether John Fox is truthful is “Nah, he ain’t ever been”. I’m with Howard on this one and that means the Jeffery suspension is our primary interest. It puts at least two players in the spotlight, Cameron Meredith and Eddie Royal. Marquess Wilson is also interesting if he’s going to play. Time to look at the waiver wire and spend some FAAB.
Cameron Meredith ($6) and Eddie Royal ($3) Meredith received 12 targets and 15 targets in back to back weeks and since then he’s received only 2 targets in each of three games. Thanks Obama. (Or is it Thanks Trump? Or John Fox? Or Jay Cutler?). Marquess Wilson should be acquired in very deep leagues. I actually think he’s the top wide receiver of this group if healthy, but I’m not assuming he is.
Ladarius Green ($5) According to Yahoo! Green only played 12 of 72 snaps. So it’s a good sign that he was targeted 4 times and caught 3 balls or 30 yards. Encouraging. Look, I really don’t know what to expect from him. The reality is he may not turn out to be useful. The opening is there, however, because there has been roughly ZERO consistency at wide receiver behind Antonio Brown.
Taylor Gabriel ($1) He has to be talked about now because he’s had 5 targets in each of his last two games. That’s not a lot! But it’s enough to talk about. He’s fast and possibly better at track than at football. To me it’s all about whether a volume of 5-6 targets per game is sustainable, if it is, he bears (again with the Bears??) some consideration.
Grab players like Rishard Matthews, Tyreek Hill and Eli Rogers first where still available, as they possible are in shallower leagues. Now can we talk about running backs? Are there any? Maybe. I’m not sure there are any worth talking about in 12 team leagues. But I’ll give it a shot.
Jeremy Langford ($2) Do I expect anything from him? I do not. Unless Jordan Howard is injured, than I do. But then I still don’t know if he’ll play ahead of Ka’Deem Carey.
Here’s some suggestions for players typically described as handcuffs, in the order I’d own them: Mike Gillislee (McCoy still has worrisome hamstrings), Fitzgerald Toussaint (Bell is injured more often than you probably remember and he’s a drug suspension risk), Damien Williams, Matt Jones (well, yeah, I guess he’s a handcuff now), and Benny Cunningham. The reason behind those ranks has mostly to do with the workload the handcuff would get were the lead back to go down and how likely I feel the lead back is to go down.
10-Team FAAB Recommendations
Kenneth Dixon ($8) Why the hell not? He’s the better 3rd down back than Terrance West and Baltimore is not a good team. When the team is not good, you want the 3rd down back. Take the chance on him being used more than Terrance West in the near future. I have no problem with a much more aggressive bid on him because I think he does have a chance to take the lead duties.
C.J. Prosise ($5) and Thomas Rawls($4) I think I’d rather own Prosise than Rawls. But I’d much rather own either of them than Christine Michael. It was a nice ride for Michael owners, but it’s finished.
James Starks ($3) Well, he got almost all the running back work. So there’s that.
Remember all your FAAB bids are relative. Relative to team needs, relative to what the market says about the players you are interested in, and relative to what budget you and your opponents have left. The market will be driven in large part by what the fantasy analysts at the biggest sites are saying. And I might not always agree with them. So last week I had Kapri Bibbs as my top add and for a significant amount of money. But if you’ll look at the comments section you’ll see that once I found out there was very little market for Bibbs I was not advising a large bid.
I wrote this one up very hastily so it’s possible I forgot someone completely obvious. Comment below to get my take on any such players. Good luck with all your FAAB based waiver wire acquisitions this week.
Follow Lance on Twitter @Rotolance.
