In this edition of Win the Waiver Wire, Curtis Patrick shares his top waiver targets for Week 4 in seasonal fantasy football leagues.
Whether by injury, snap count, or role, every fantasy owner can look at their squad and identify a player who disappointed relative to expectations in Week 3. There are some priority claims to focus on this week, including a few players who I think could be flex-level starters (or even more) for the rest of the season. The season is still very young, but some of what we saw in Week 3 was actionable. It’s very important to churn your bench based on trends if you want to be in position for a title at the end of the season. If you aren’t adding and dropping, you aren’t trying. I’ll also provide free agent auction bid (FAAB) guidance.
*For the purposes of this series, I’ll be using Yahoo! “percentage rostered” data. Players are listed in the order of priority, by position. To make the most of my time and yours, I only provide analysis for players who are available in around 50% of leagues in 12-team formats.
Quarterback
Solid Multi-Week Option – Gardner Minshew (available in 43% of leagues)
FAAB: 3%
Minshew is now rostered in more than half of Yahoo! public leagues. However there’s a solid chance he’ll be cut as part of this week’s waivers runs after his Week 3 Thursday Night Football dud performance against the Dolphins. I think it was a bit of an outlier, as it was a short week and he was also without D.J. Chark.
He’s averaging 20 fantasy points per game since entering the league (a 17-game sample) and has topped that mark in four of his past six games dating back to 2019.
He draws the Bengals in Week 4, a squad which just surrendered an inefficient QB11 line to Carson Wentz in Week 3. Minshew has three starts remaining until his Week 7 bye: at Cincinnati, at Houston, and home against Detroit.
The hits should keep on coming for Minshew, at least for the next month.