6 Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Pickups to Add BEFORE Week 1 (Ep. 2178)

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Attention, chicken nugget fans. Burger King heard that a lot of you didn't like the old chicken nuggets, so they got to work and reinvented them. These new chicken nuggets are their tastiest, crispiest, juiciest nuggets ever. And because better chicken nuggets deserve better sauces, they've reinvented several of their sauces. And they created a brand new one, the new Special Savory Sauce, which is only available for a limited time at participating U.S. restaurants. Don't wait around. You got to try the new Burger King chicken nuggets today. Welcome into the Fantasy Pros Football Podcast. I'm Alfredo Brown. And today we're talking about six fantasy football waiver wire pickups ahead of week one. I'm joined by Derek Brown and Tom Strachan. And gentlemen, today we're going to go quickly with this one. We got six players. They may not all be available in your leagues, but we did something here for everybody. Those of you who are in the shallower leagues, that there's some good players still out there in the waiver wire. And those of you that are in the deep leagues, all of you love to say, yeah, it's not available in my league. Well, we got a couple of those here, too. All right. But you know what? Hit us with the comments. Let us know that these players aren't available in your league because it helps the algorithm. You know what I'm saying? That's just that's just helpful for us. Guys, what we're going to do here is just to give a little brief outline. OK, we're looking at those early week one waiver wire stashes players that could pay off here, either in week one or down the line. And all these players are going to be available in at least 50 percent of leagues. And we're going to start. We're going to start out with some of the more highly rostered players, and then we're going to go and head down to those deeper league players. So if you're looking for those ninety nine percent, you know, available players, just just stick around, stick around for that one. All right. So deeper. Why don't you kick us off with the first guy here that you are looking to add before week one? Yeah. So for you talked about the keyboard heroes at the top of the show here for everybody that says, oh, that guy's already rostered in my league. I tell you to hold my beer and I say Jacoby Lane is rostered. He's in less than 20 percent of leagues. So if he's in your league, kudos to you. And if you have him already, kudos to you as well. And I'm kind of playing to the crowd here. I feel like this is probably a name Tom was going to bring up, but I stole it from him. So he couldn't get to a Raven to the sheet before I did. But Jacoby Lane, if all of the training camp hype and hope and promise and the preseason stuff does cross over to the regular season and he is the clear third option, second option on some weeks in the Baltimore passing attack, I think he's going to pay dividends. The people need to be rostering him because the opening schedule, I'm not telling you like the Indianapolis Colts, the Saints aren't matchups that I really want to attack. But then after that, boys, he gets the Dallas Cowboys, the Tennessee Titans and the Falcons. Why do all those matchups matter? Oh, no big deal. Just, you know, to close last season, they were all top five and fantasy points per target allowed to perimeter wide receivers. Pretty good matchups. A guy you could be looking at in the early part of the season, depending on how these games and if injuries do happen in them as somebody, it's like, Hey, uh, it's going to be like, it's pretty good black spot. Yeah, I think so. It all sounds like Zay Flowers is probably a pretty good pick in my home draft leagues. That was that what we're saying. Yeah, yeah, it would have been a good one. Yeah, yeah, it would have been. Yeah, there's, there is really a path here, Tom, for someone like Jacoby Lane to be very relevant early in the season. You got Mark Andrews, who's not a spring chicken anymore. You've got Rashad Bateman, who I'm not trying to put anything out there, but missed the games have followed him throughout his career. So if there was an opportunity. Fields. And if there was an opportunity, especially with a new offensive coordinator here, uh, we could see a heavier passing game, a better, um, a more interesting passing game with Jacoby Lane here. Uh, how do you feel about Jacoby Lane as a mustache before week one? Well, I think Jacoby Lane, like you said, and like you both said, the opportunity is there because what the Ravens need is more options in the red zone. Like much as we all believe in Zay Flowers and we all expect him to take a jump. That's never been where Zay Flowers has done his work with his size. It's not like you can expect him to necessarily be. Prototypical down there, but like a big body guy, like six foot four, Jacoby Lane, that can really help Lamar out because Lamar was not good in the red zone. And a big part of that comes back to the offensive line was awful. They let a lot of pressure through, particularly in the red zone. But if he's got a big target who can go up and make plays, which is what Lane's done all through training camp. And look, I've been a Ravens fan since 2008. I think I've never, ever seen this much sustained hype for a wide receiver. Not even when Zay Flowers came into the NFL because everyone expected him to be good. But this is. He's just been crazy this summer, so hopefully you can follow through on it. I mean, not not many receivers been drafted for these Ravens that early since 2008. Was that before or after Brashad Perryman? I feel like that's like the the Perryman line for the Ravens here. I would say I definitely had a few years where maybe I took Brashad Perryman in fantasy leagues before I got smart with it. We're still holding out hope, man. We're still there. There are dozens of us truthers out there. We've got another player on here, Tom. You got a quarterback and this is probably the most widely rostered player that we have on this list. But I agree with you 100 percent. I think this is an important player to bring up again. Talk to us about Tyler Shuck. Yeah, Tyler Shuck's just in too good of a situation to not roster him because if he finishes, well, if he starts a season like he finished last season, then he's going to be somebody that when we get to waivers next week and the week after that, we're going to be talking about everywhere. Like he finished the top 10 option in three of the last five games of the season. He was QB nine in fantasy. We're going to be talking about five points per game from week 10 onwards, averaging 18.8 points per game, second highest completion rate in that period, 69 percent, seventh in yards per attempt, and everything just kind of clicked. But part of it was like why it surprised me so much was last offseason was split between him and Spencer Rattler. Now you get a complete offseason. Just everything was tailored to Tyler Shuck. The playbook is entirely tailored to him. You've got Chris Olave healthy, Jawan Johnson. It would be nice if Jordan Tyson was out there, but I don't really think it matters too much, particularly. Because they open up with an absolute cupcake game against the Lions, who, yes, they're favored heavily in this game. But they're without Brian Branch, they're without Kirby Joseph, and it's going to be a fast-paced game with a high over-under. And then you've got games against the Ravens, the Raiders, the Falcons. Like there are plenty of opportunities over the next few weeks for Tyler Shuck to start the season really strong. Can I just throw out Jawan Johnson as another guy that if he's on your waiver wire, like go out and grab him? Like there's no reason he should be on your waiver wire, just like Tyler Shuck. But if he is, that's another one. I want so many pieces of this week one Saints-Lions game. D-Bro, it sounds like you are right there on a bunch of these Saints players. Yeah, man, just look at the freaking total. It's 50 and a half. I got the over when it was at 40. It opened at 48 and a half, and it's been bet up, and it's probably going to close probably at 51. But the point by Tyler Shuck, like I also don't have a problem with anybody picking him up and starting him this week. Like you're looking at low-end QB1. Like do you feel better playing Tyler Shuck and a half? High total game, then you do like Rock Purdy. I like Shuck over Patrick Mahomes. If you're rolling on Kyler Murray. Yeah. Oh, easy. Yeah, dude. Like there's a bunch of names in that low-end QB1 territory. Or if you're playing in Superflex, where it's like as a QB2, ah, yes. Shuck could do a lot of things in week one. I think what happens, too, with a lot of these guys is like you get like name blockage almost, where it's like you're looking at the roster and you're like, oh, Patrick Mahomes, come on. This guy, you know, go, right? Well, that's true. It's a transition from draft season to in-season, and people are still in draft season mode about, oh, these are my thoughts about stuff. Maybe we are in in-season mode now. We care about matchups and stuff. Matchups and stuff. New name of the podcast. That's what we're just going to call it every week. I like it. Blows off the tongue, as it were. D-Bro, hit us with another guy here. I know I mentioned Jawan Johnson earlier as a tight end to pick up, but you've got another guy here at tight end that I absolutely love. Should have been drafted everywhere, but still available in a ton of leagues. I mean, maybe. I'm just running down too much of hype and narrative street right now. But if all of that offseason fodder does hit and come to fruition, then you need to be picking up and stashing Terrence Ferguson. Like, if you were one of these teams that, like, cobbled together like a Jawan Johnson, Isaiah Likely team, or a Dallas Goddard, and Dalton Schultz, or two of these guys, and you're like, I'm just going to play the matchups, or I'm just going to kind of figure it out and stream tight ends. Ferguson needs to be parked on your bench. Absolutely, unequivocally, now. Because if he does hit the upside, if he is the wide receiver three of the Rams, if he is the guy that's the move piece, what we want to invest in, boys, is young, hyper-athletic tight ends at that position. Because the highest correlation to fantasy success and the high upside outcomes of fantasy success goes back to good offenses and athleticism. And if Ferguson emerges out of, like, this muddy soup. Of that tight end room for the Rams of, is it Tyler Higbee? Is it Colby Parkinson? Is it none of them? Is it Terrence Ferguson? If he emerges as the clear top tight end, and he's getting, like, a 60% plus route share for this team, yeah, man. Like, he's got top 12 upside. If we knew he was the starter, he wouldn't be available on the waiver wires. Yeah, there's a lot of excitement building for Terrence Ferguson here. And so much of it is just the way he plays coming out of Oregon. He played tight end. Like a wide receiver. By the way, Jawan Johnson, we talked about earlier, was a wide receiver at Oregon, moved on to tight end. He was their field stretcher last year for the Rams. Like, his 8-out was through the damn roof. He was the downfield wide receiver last year. And really what he becomes, I think, Ferguson, is almost like a handcuff for both wide receivers. If either are to miss any time, he becomes the de facto wide receiver 2 on this team. Tom, any worries about, like, because I saw people say, the Rams have traded for 2-2 at will. And I said, there goes all the territory. Fergson bags. And I'm like, come on, man. Come on. They traded away the running back. were going to cut and then the dolphins did cut like it's not that no i mean the main pushback i've had is from people just switching on who perhaps aren't haven't been dialed in through the whole off season and we're going we're really hyping up a guy who had 11 catches for 230 yards and three touchdowns on like 25 targets in his rookie season but like there's so many little bits when you pull up the hood and like as deborah said the a dot was really impressive and that kind of tends to be some of the points towards future success nine of his 11 receptions went for first downs like this is a guy who showed plenty of talent and the rams are a team who are quite slow to bring rookies along and if everything they're saying this offseason is to believe then they tend to be one of the teams that we can believe more often than not then yeah this seems like it's going to be a really fun season for terence fergson i had the exact the situation you were talking about that scenario the exact same thing happened in my home league draft this weekend one of my buddies drafted terence fergson maybe a little early he took him before i took juan johnson in the 13th round but then one of the guys behind me is like i don't get it man everyone's in on terence ferguson like this guy did nothing last year why not just take someone you know is already doing it i'm like my guy fantasy football is quite literally predicting what's going to happen in the future you can't project it why even do a draft at that point so i i love this pick i've said it before and i'll say it again if you're waiting to see it you're already too late that's that's what the whole game is guys before we go on to the next three players we want to talk about here if you need to see it on the waiver wire each week and you need a little help with that we've got the fantasy pros waiver wire assistant here you can make smarter waiver wire decisions with the waiver wire assistant get instant advice powered by more than 100 fantasy experts all the experts like literally any single one you can think of that does fantasy football advice they are in there it is powered into this awesome tool that fantasy pros has and you can see how every little move can impact your team for this week or even the rest of the season get started head on over to fantasypros.com slash waiver and you can use that tool today all right gentlemen we got three more players here and these are going to be the players that are available in a few more leagues tom let's start with you on this one we got another tight end man this is i like this the the middle of this sandwich here tight end these are fun to talk about tom hit us with your guy yeah so chigakonko who in fantasy pros real-time adp was going as tight end 23 so we've been drafted in a lot of games in the last few years and i think he's going to be a really good player and i think he's going to be a really good player and i think he's going to be a really good player and i think he's going plenty of optimism starting to build for him and i think it was warranted like you look at this offseason how it's played out for a concro goes from the titans to a commander's team that we expect to have a far better offense signed a three-year 27 million dollar deal plenty of guarantees in there and this is a commander's team that over the last couple of years have sent the ball towards the tight end plenty when zach hertz was out there over the last two years he had 163 targets combined now yes they've got terry mclaurin they've got stefan diggs but they're still pretty thin behind that yes antonio williams is in there and they've got a lot of nice option who maybe will come on later on but a concro has been a pretty good option over the last couple of years like 50 plus receptions in each of the last three seasons topped 500 receiving yards in two of the three the bit that's been missing has been touchdowns for him with just five touchdowns over the last three years now tennessee ranked bottom six in points per game in each of those last three seasons like the turmoil there the quarterback situation the changing of staff no situation there has proved particularly good but if jayden daniels and the refs are coming back towards like the 2024 version of washington we saw when jane daniels was healthy and they were averaging like the sixth most points per game then i think that we're going to get a really good season from a concro he's probably not going to be an every week starter but he's the kind of guy that i would like on my bench and be able to choose when to stream him and he's the kind of guy again if we've talked about isaiah likely like there's a lot of projection going on with him if you've drafted him as your tight end one having someone like sugar concro that you can ping pong back and forth between feels pretty good to me tom everything changed for sugar concro when stefan diggs signed there for the commanders and honestly maybe it shouldn't have changed so much in the adp you said he was going he was what like tight end 23 according to real-time adp time 23 according to our real-time adp behind tj hawkinson kenyan sadiq brenton strange and i understand like players like this you take a lot of times no jayden daniels still finishes the tight end 20 and he missed four plus games and we're just like ah i don't know this younger more athletic version with his quarterback in here probably not going to do that there's a lot of other context that goes with it but deep bro you still good with with chicken concro yeah i'm good with the concro and especially if you're looking at the upcoming matchups like philly and dallas are not teams i really want to pick on but if you fast forward to weeks three and four seattle a ton of too high coverage they're going to funnel targets and they're going to funnel targets and they're going to funnel targets and they're going to funnel targets underneath so a lot of usage for the running backs well i mean that's good for rashad white but it's not so great for bill like he's not known as a pass catcher so i think jig can get a lot of targets against the seattle seahawks as well as dude the colts they have been a tight end funnel and this is more of a lou and rumo thing like we're last year the colts were horrible versus tight ends you go back to like five ten years for the bingles basically and rumo's entire tenure they've been horrible so it's a defensive design thing and i think so again even if you're not looking at a conclo is like okay full season what's the upside and things like that if you're piecing together tight end or if you got somebody like a george kittle and let's just fast forward guys and say week one he only plays like 40 or 50 percent of the snaps and everybody that drafts him is freaking out they're like what am i gonna do with tight end then you can pick up chick and you're like okay well cool i'll play in week three i'll play on like four week four and i'll figure it out and honestly week two like let's just say he does have himself a big week here in week one like he just catches it's a big week here in week one and i think it's a big there's always the tight end stat line of like three catches on three targets for a touchdown and he becomes everyone's favorite waiver wire pickup tight end 12 yeah for the week and then in week two you're looking at a shootout against dallas and so like this is going to be one of those guys you can kind of see the writing on the wall where everyone's going to be already talking about him it's the week two waiver wire pickup there at tight end deeper let's go to the next player you got on here is a wide receiver that is still still available in 87 percent of leagues so commenters this is insane chill out don't get angry at him do you bro picked up the good one here for you dude this is this is absolute insanity like i i talked about him like for a ton at the end of draft season the fact that he is this wildly available is a travesty you need to pick up don tavian wicks like i i you need to pick him up now because before week one i mean just i'll read off the beginning of his schedule he gets the commanders the tennessee titans and the chicago bears no biggie they just gave up the sixth the second and the they were allowed to perimeter wide receivers mckay lemon missed most of rookie camp most of training camp most of the preseason new offense no big deal worried about his role no big deal don tavian wicks capping off a monster training camp where every day he's posting spots where he's making big time catches in practice he's been a deeper analytics darling over the last two years for a player that's ranked uh third and 24th in separation score sixth and seventh in route win rate yes i mean again when he's been on the field he's out of the money ball wide receiver rooms he's gonna play a full-time role if there's a player on this roster that could that could shove mckay lemon into a luther burden-esque type of rookie season where he struggles to consistently get on the field it's don tavian freaking when you said you said the magic word to get me get me going you said luther burden there thanks buddy and don't take me a wicks too like this is a guy who can win contested catches and that was something that jalen hurts really liked to do with aj brown last year and some of that is just like the chemistry being off but as great as davante smith is as a receiver and as a route runner like sometimes you're gonna want to go with maybe the slightly beefier guy for for the contested catches that they have there i want to reference that draft i did this past weekend mckay lemon went in round nine ahead of dejan same in my home draft there's a lot of excitement because he was a first round nfl draft pick so a lot of people are saying okay well that's the first round pick for the eagles right like he jumps into this aj brown role don tavian wicks went undrafted what he went undrafted in this league and it was a 16 round draft he's sitting there on the waiver wire for me so it's just this is a player who i think a lot of people are still sleeping on man like he can be a good one real quick on him too if you look at this entire depth chart davante smith do you profile him to play the x no do you profile does anybody should anybody that's kind of like i was aghast i was aghast when you were like people projecting mckay lemon to play the x that's not what he's gonna do he's not an x receiver mckay lemon's not gonna do that so i think that role goes to don tavian wicks and when they're we're discussing who is in out on the field in two wide receiver sets i think it's don tavian wicks and davante smith oh yeah and honestly i'm i'm saying half these things deeper because i know it's gonna get you riled up and it makes for good content yeah let's go let's go all right last player on here tom you got a running back and honestly i i know that people say it is one of the easiest positions to get laid on the field but i think it's going to be in the season right to find an rb2 but if you can do that now before the games start to kick off you're a step ahead of the game so talk to us about your yeah it's still in samson and i think that this was one which really matters to get him now before the games are played because i think that this isn't going to be as defined as people expect with quinshawn jokins taking huge amounts of the workload which is what you'd assume when you look at their adp and which is why dylan samson's available this much heading into week one but todd munkin rotates back so i think it's He likes to have the ground and pound guy and he likes to have the receiving back, we've seen that throughout his career. We saw it with Derek freaking Henry last year, taking him off the field for Justice Hill in clear and obvious passing situations. And Dylan Sampson is the receiving back in Cleveland. You look at the yards per out numbers and it's massively in favor of Dylan Sampson. Same for yards per target, same for yards per reception. And I think that this weekend we're going to see this come to fruition, particularly because they're playing the Jags, who were an excellent run defense last year, ranked second in EPA allow per attempt. And if they shut down the run and put this game script the way we expect and the Browns are having to pass more, then Dylan Sampson is going to be out there plenty. And I think that's going to be the way it goes throughout this season because there is no Myles Garrett, there is no Jim Schwartz. They're going to have to pass the ball more often and they're going to have to figure out what they've got at quarterback. And that just leads me to wanting Dylan Sampson. Yes, there will be weeks where it ends up being a bit of a wet fart, but ultimately I think he can PPR scam his way to relevancy this year. But I mean, yeah, when you look at this team, do we think they're going to be leading a lot of games? I think we're going to find them in a lot of passing scenarios, whether it's Deshaun Watson, Shador Sanders, Dylan Gabriel, Talon Green, maybe not Talon Green, he'll probably run. But amongst those other three, we're looking at a lot of guys that will probably be checking down a ton. And that's something that we saw in Dylan Sampson's rookie season. And if Quinshawn Jenkins is not as healthy as everyone wants him to be, then we'll see. We can see more Sampson here. D-Bro, how do you feel about Dylan Sampson? I like him, especially if you're looking at like a PPR-centric flex for the beginning of the season, because I was kind of like walking his beginning of season schedule. So he gets the Jaguars, Bucks, Panthers, Steelers, Jets in the first five weeks. Three of those five opponents, if you go and look at receiving fantasy points per game allowed to running backs, oh, just amongst the top 12 happen to be, Buccaneers at the second most, the Jets the fourth most, and the Jaguars at the 11th most. So three top 12 matchups, just three top 12 matchups in the first five weeks for Dylan Sampson, receiving back on a crappy team, paired with a running back that doesn't catch passes, and Quinshawn Jenkins. Yeah, I mean, listen, these are all, all six of these are great options that should be available for nearly all of you still here out on the waiver wire. As always, man, like this is, this has been a blast, guys. This is good. This is good. Clean family. Fun. It was entertaining. It was informational. And I want to thank the audience for joining us here today, for watching and listening all the way through. For myself, for D-Bro, for Tom. We'll see you next time. Adios. Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football Podcast. If you love the show, the best free way to support us is by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts at fantasypros.com slash review or on Spotify. Follow us on X, Instagram, and TikTok at Fantasy Pros and subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash fantasypros. You've upgraded a few things in life. So why are you still running with rough nicotine pouches? On Plus Nicotine Pouches with Nico Silk Mesh. No corners, no rough edges, just the softest pouch on the planet. You've evolved, and this is what's next. On Plus Nicotine Pouches. Not all varieties available in all geographies. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. The entire draft room groans because you just took the guy they wanted. There's no better feeling than crushing your fantasy. I'm JJ Zacharyson, host of the award-winning Late Round Podcast. 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