Let’s take a look at players our analysts consider on the fringe as you weigh your fantasy football waiver wire additions for the week. And here is all of our Week 4 fantasy football waiver wire advice.
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Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Advice: Drop or Hold?
DROP RECOMMENDATIONS
Droppable:
Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon gave a notably tepid assessment of rookie RB Trey Benson during training camp, suggesting that the third-round pick wasn’t exactly wowing his new employers. Over his first three games, Benson has 16 carries for 31 yards and no touchdowns. In Week 3, he played only two snaps, while veteran RB Emari Demercado played 12 snaps behind starter James Conner. There’s no reason to keep Benson on your roster.
In Week 2, Gus Edwards got 18 carries and cranked out 59 rushing yards in the Chargers’ easy 26-3 win over the Panthers. In Week 3, with a less favorable game script in a 20-10 loss to the Steelers, Edwards had only three carries for nine yards. J.K. Dobbins has emerged as the Chargers’ lead back, and it’s been easy to see why. Despite his extensive injury history, Dobbins has looked powerful and elusive. Edwards … has not. In fact, Edwards failed to record a single broken tackle in the Chargers first two games. You can dump Edwards. Even if Dobbins were to go down, it’s hard to imagine the Chargers would let Edwards handle the vast majority of the rushing duties.
Dalton Schultz is still rostered in 72% of Yahoo leagues. He has 7-48-0 receiving on 11 targets. The Texans’ passing game runs through WRs Nico Collins, Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell. Although tight end is a wasteland, you can certainly do better than Schultz.
Droppable with a chance of regret:
Rico Dowdle outsnapped Ezekiel Elliott 37-15 on Sunday, according to PFF’s Nate Jahnke. Dowdle also out-touched Elliott 11-4. It’s possible Zeke has hit the wall. Even if there’s still gas left in the tank, it has become apparent that the Cowboys want him in a complementary role and see Dowdle as their lead back.
Justin Herbert left the Chargers’ Week 3 loss to the Steelers after seemingly aggravating his high-ankle sprain. Herbert has also been dealing with plantar fasciitis and could miss time. Even if Herbert is able to go in Week 4, his mobility will be limited, and he’ll still be operating a run-heavy offense that tamps down his scoring potential. The Chargers also have a Week 5 bye coming up. If you drop Herbert, there’s a good chance he won’t be claimed before Week 6 at the earliest. It’s possible he’ll become startable at some point later this season, but Herbert isn’t playable right now.
Jaylen Warren has played 37.6% of the Steelers offensive snaps so far this season. In Week 3, he played as many snaps as former WR turned RB Cordarrelle Patterson, a favorite of Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. Warren has 14-54-0 rushing and 5-28-0 receiving. Najee Harris is clearly the Steelers’ lead back, and it will be hard to for Warren to carve out any stand-alone fantasy value as a part-time player when the Pittsburgh offensive line has been decimated by injuries.
The promise of heavy usage drew a lot of people to Zamir White during fantasy draft season, but White has been an unmitigated bust so far. He has 32 carries for 102 yards with no touchdowns, adding five receptions for 16 yards. White had a scrumptious Week 3 matchup against a bad Carolina run defense and finished with 10 carries for 34 yards. Adding insult to injury for the White stakeholders, his backup, Alexander Mattison, had a 2-yard TD run in the first quarter. The game wound up being a lopsided win for the Panthers — hardly an ideal game script for White. If you can’t safely start White against a team with one of the worst run defenses in the league, how can you feel comfortable starting him against anyone else?
Don’t drop yet:
FantasyPros has a robust Discord community, and the members of that community ask the FantasyPros analysts hundreds of team-management questions every week. This week, there will probably be two dozen Discord members who ask whether they should cut Anthony Richardson. The answer is no. Richardson has been sloppy as a passer this season and hasn’t given investors the rushing bonanza they’d hoped for. But the big rushing games are coming. Trust us: They’re coming. Colts head coach Shane Steichen has an excellent track record with quarterbacks. And because the Colts’ defense isn’t very good, Richardson could be thrust into a lot of track-meet game scripts where he’s throwing and scrambling a lot to keep up with Indy’s opponents. Do not pull the ripcord on Richardson yet.
You shouldn’t Anthony Richardson, nor should you drop his No. 1 receiver, Michael Pittman. Richardson’s struggles have affected Pittman, who has 11-88-0 receiving on 20 targets. It’s worth remembering that in Richardson’s first NFL start, Pittman had 8-97-1 on 11 targets. Over the last three years, Pittman has averaged 99 receptions and 1,053 yards. If you want to bench Pittman, fine. But don’t cut him.
It’s been a rough start for D’Andre Swift, who’s averaging 1.8 yards per carry and has yet to score a touchdown. Swift had a Week 3 matchup against a Colts run defense that had given up more than 150 rushing yards to both Joe Mixon and Josh Jacobs over the first two weeks of the season, yet the Indy defense held Swift to 20 yards on 13 carries. The case for holding Swift at least a little longer is that he still has some pass-catching value (6-46-0 on 10 targets), and he still led Chicago’s running backs in snaps by a comfortable margin in Week 3, out-snapping runner-up Roschon Johnson 48-33. (Admittedly, we don’t feel as strongly about hanging on to Swift as we do about hanging on to Richardson and Pittman.)
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