Week 2 of the NFL was a great week for watching games. There was that Cowboys/Falcons debacle, Josh McDaniels insisting on running the same play over and over until it stopped working, and Josh Allen turning into a superstar. But for fantasy football, week 2 was a fantasy football hell. Saquon Barkley and Courtland Sutton are out for the year. Christian McCaffrey’s going to miss 4-6 weeks. Davante Adams has a hamstring injury which tends to be the most impossible to predict. Not to mention for deeper leagues, Drew Lock is going to miss up to 5 weeks. This is brutal.
Injuries suck. They’re impossible to predict, and they end up leaving you scrambling for replacement players. That being said, I’d be careful about who you rush out to grab on the waiver wire this week. Players like Wayne Gallman and Dion Lewis provide low ceilings but will probably be rostered in over half of ESPN’s leagues by tomorrow afternoon. Mike Davis, McCaffrey’s replacement, is a good pickup, but be wary of dropping one of your big bench pieces for him. Davis will only get a chance to start in 6 games at most this season, and we have no idea what his production is going to be. The waiver wire is great, but there’s a reason a lot of these players are out there. I talked about it last week, but to reiterate, fantasy owners that formulate their lineup on a weekly basis dependent on their waiver additions are doomed in season-long leagues.
I’m going to close this out by reminding everyone again to pick up Joshua Kelley. He’s making his way into the Melvin Gordon role with the Chargers. There’s still a ton of Ekeler value there, but remember last year when teams would play both Gordon and Ekeler? That’s because the Chargers work best when they have two running backs rolling. He’s still available in 60% of ESPN leagues. Grab him while you still can.
Week 2 Waiver Wire Pickups: Joshua Kelley (RB, LAC), Mike Davis (RB, CAR), Darrell Henderson Jr. (RB, LAR), Devonta Freeman, (RB, FA), Marquez Valdez-Scantling (WR, GB), Corey Davis (WR, TEN)