Mike Maher | Sun, Sep 29th 2024, 6:10pm EDT

Fantasy Football Waiver Wire: Early Week 5 Pickups to Add (2024)

Week 4 of the 2024 NFL season is still wrapping up, but savvy fantasy football managers know it’s never too early to start looking ahead to Week 5. The best managers always have an eye on the upcoming schedule, and the early slate on Sundays is time for adding players to your watch list, watching players already on your list, and calculating FAAB bids and waiver priority preferences.

That’s what this space is for. We’re getting an early read on potential waiver claims ahead of the rush. Most leagues run their first waivers on Tuesday or Wednesday, but some run as early as Sunday night. So, it’s important for us to make sure we’re prepared. Most of the players below played on Thursday or Sunday’s early slate or went off during the first half of the late afternoon slate, which is when I’m writing this. These players are rostered in less than 50% of leagues.

Fantasy Football Waiver Wire: Early Week 5 Pickups to Add

We entered Week 4 with a TON of injuries to monitor. Through Thursday Night Football and the early slate on Sunday, we have even more. Giants WR Malik Nabers suffered a concussion at the end of Thursday night’s loss to the Cowboys. Christian Watson was carted off Sunday with what is being called an ankle injury. Anthony Richardson left early on Sunday with a hip injury. Travis Etienne left the game on Sunday with a shoulder injury but was able to return. Chris Olave was questionable with a late-week hamstring injury but played, though he did come off the field holding that hamstring at one point. Taysom Hill even got into the action, scoring two touchdowns and tilting Alvin Kamara managers everywhere before leaving with an abdomen injury.

And as I write this, the Kansas City Chiefs are bringing the cart out for Rashee Rice, who suffered an apparent knee injury while colliding with Patrick Mahomes after a Mahomes interception.

Get all that? Good, because there’s more. But let’s get into the early Week 5 waiver wire targets.

Dontayvion Wicks (WR – GB)

Rostered: 11.4%

Wicks was a popular sleeper candidate in the fantasy football industry heading into this season due to his strong finish to last season. I was fading him not because I don’t like the player (quite the contrary) but because I had concerns about the situation in Green Bay and all of the talented WRs there. I felt like he needed an injury to one of the other WRs in order to be consistently valuable in fantasy.

Welp, Christian Watson left today’s game, and Wicks stepped up. He caught five of his 13 (!!) targets for 78 yards and two touchdowns with Jordan Love back. Is this the beginning of a breakout? It’s worth the waiver priority and FAAB to find out.

Romeo Doubs (WR – GB)

Rostered: 33.1%

See the Wicks note above. If Christian Watson misses time, this GB WR room becomes a lot less murky. Jayden Reed, Doubs, and Wicks would all have value in that situation, especially if the Packers are going to throw the ball 50+ times a game (they aren’t). Reed is the No. 1, but Doubs and Wicks can also exist in this offense. I personally prefer Wicks, but Doubs has been valuable in fantasy before and received eight targets today after receiving seven targets back in Jordan Love‘s last start in Week 1.

Wan’Dale Robinson (WR – NYG)

Rostered: 27%

Robinson somewhat quietly has at least six receptions in three of his four games to start the season. In the other game, he only caught two of his four targets for 18 yards but found the end zone. All in all, he’s caught 26 of his 38 targets for 194 yards and a touchdown through four weeks. In Week 4, he was all over the place, catching a whopping 11 passes on 14 targets for 71 yards. Making matters more interesting is that, as mentioned above, WR Malik Nabers left late with a concussion while trying to make a catch along the sideline. Now, this game was played on Thursday, meaning Nabers has a longer window to clear the concussion protocol. Unless it’s a serious concussion, he’s likely to clear in time for a Week 5 matchup against the Seahawks in Seattle. Still, Robinson has shown that he has standalone value, especially in PPR formats. I wouldn’t empty the FAAB clip for him or make him my top priority this week, but he’s worth a speculative add.

Tank Bigsby (RB – JAC)

Rostered: 11%

It feels like our own Derek Brown has been trying to make ~~fetch~~ Tank Bigsby a thing for years now. It’s actually only been since before last season when DBro was high on him as a prospect, but I like to exaggerate a bit for dramatic effect. But while we have seen flashes, he has largely been an afterthought in the Jacksonville offense since the beginning of last year. In 2023, he rushed 50 times for 132 yards (2.6 YPA) and two touchdowns and hauled in one of his four targets for six yards. This year, it’s been more of the same story as he has remained buried behind starting RB Travis Etienne Jr. Our ears perked up after he rushed 12 times for 73 yards in Week 1, but he came out of that game with a shoulder injury and received zero touches in Week 2 before carrying the ball just two times for nine yards in Week 3.

But in Week 4, it was Etienne who left with a shoulder injury. And while Etienne returned to the game, that opened the door for Bigsby to rush seven times for 90 yards (12.9 YPA, with a long of 58). Unless Etienne misses time, it will be hard to trust Bigsby on a weekly basis. But he is gradually carving out a role in this offense and, at the very least, could see more red zone touches going forward. This is a longer play and tough to predict, but the Jaguars are now 0-4, meaning HC Doug Pederson could be on the hot seat. If he ultimately gets fired, this offense could change dramatically.

Rashee Rice Injury

As of this writing, we don’t yet know how serious the Rashee Rice injury is. But it didn’t look great. He was down on the field for a while in pain, had trouble putting any weight on it as they looked at him on the sideline, and appeared dejected as he lay on his back while being carted to the locker room for further evaluation. Early breakdowns of the video on Twitter speculate that the worst-case scenario is an ACL tear while the best-case is a bone bruise.

From the fantasy perspective, there isn’t a clear candidate to step up with Rice has to miss time. Xavier Worthy will continue to start and is already rostered in most leagues. After Worthy, it would be some combination of Justin Watson, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Skyy Moore, and Mecole Hardman. And it would likely be a frustrating and difficult rotation to predict.

My best guess is that JuJu Smith-Schuster could see an increased role similar to what he had in the past with the Chiefs. But given how this offense works, there are no priority adds here.

Joe Flacco (QB – IND)

Rostered: 1%

In the year of our lord 2024, Joe Flacco is still slinging touchdown passes. Colts starting QB Anthony Richardson left the game early on Sunday with a hip injury, and Flacco entered the game and, well, did Flacco things. He completed 16 of his 26 attempts for 168 yards and two touchdowns while leading the Colts to a win over the Steelers.

The early word is that Richardson might not miss much, if any, time. If he does, then Flacco gets to face a Jaguars defense that is currently allowing the third-most fantasy points to opposing QBs. He isn’t someone you definitely need to add in single QB leagues, but he is a potential streaming option in deeper leagues and Superflex formats, especially as we get into next week’s bye weeks.

Tucker Kraft (TE – GB)

Rostered: 4.2%

Jordan Love returned this week, and so did the Green Bay passing attack. Love threw a whopping 54 passes, completing 32 of them for 389 yards, four TDs, and three INTs. Nine of those passes went Kraft’s direction, and he caught six of them for 53 yards and a touchdown. Fellow TE Luke Musgrave caught three targets for 13 yards. Kraft’s numbers weren’t very impressive through three games, but two of those games were with Malik Willis under center. With Love back, we could see more consistent targets for Kraft. With the TE position in chaos for fantasy managers right now, Kraft needs to be rostered in more than 4% of leagues.

Tre Tucker (WR – LV)

Rostered: 7.3%

Tucker was the most-added player in leagues synced to FantasyPros this week, but his roster % is still below 10%. With Davante Adams out, he was set to have a bigger role in Week 4 against the Browns. And after catching seven of his nine targets for 96 yards and a touchdown in Week 3, he has four catches for 41 yards at halftime. If Adams is out again in Week 6, Tucker could be a valuable streamer in your flex spot as we get into the bye weeks.

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