Fantasy Football Drop or Hold: Kendre Miller, K.J. Osborn, Joe Burrow, Kareem Hunt

Let’s take a look at players our analysts consider on the fringe as you weigh your waiver wire additions for the week. And here is all of our fantasy football waiver wire advice for Week 5.

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Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Advice: Drop or Hold?

DROP RECOMMENDATIONS

Droppable with a chance of regret

• Kendre Miller
• K.J. Osborn

With Alvin Kamara back from suspension in Week 4, Kendre Miller played only five offensive snaps — fewer than Saints RBs Tony Jones and Adam Prentice. Jamaal Williams will eventually come off injured reserve and be the Saints’ designated between-the-tackles banger. Miller will eventually get a chance to make a meaningful contribution to an NFL backfield, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen in his rookie year.

K.J. Osborn is playing more snaps and running more routes than rookie first-rounder Jordan Addison, but Osborn isn’t doing anything with the opportunity. He’s caught a pair of TD passes, but he’s caught 8-of-15 targets for 117 yards and hasn’t had more than 36 yards in a game this season.

Don’t drop yet

• Joe Burrow
• Kareem Hunt

Joe Burrow‘s career passer rating entering this season: 100.4. Joe Burrow‘s 2023 passer rating: 66.2. The guess here is that if you offered Bengals head coach Zac Taylor the chance to go back in time and reassess the handling of Burrow’s calf injury, Taylor would keep his quarterback sidelined for the first few weeks of the regular season and give that nagging calf injury a chance to heal. Burrow has been a shell of himself so far this season, but the calf-related malaise won’t last all season. Just as Justin Fields broke out of a three-week slumber with a big game in Week 4, Burrow will eventually snap out of it and go back to being one of the best quarterbacks in the game. Resist the urge to spite-drop him.

Kareem Hunt‘s surface stats from the Browns’ 28-3 loss to the Ravens in Week 5 look ugly: five carries for 12 yards, with zero targets. But the Browns’ offense was doomed from the start after QB Deshaun Watson (shoulder) was a surprise inactive, and there was actually a silver lining around Hunt’s usage. Hunt played only 15 snaps, but he either had a carry or ran a route on 13 of those 15 snaps. Jerome Ford is unquestionably the lead guy in the Cleveland backfield, but Hunt will have a role, and he’d become a valuable asset if Ford were to go down.