Bjorn Yang-Vaernet examines which players on the waiver wire are worth prioritizing for Week 10 and highlights others to preemptively stash.

This was a really strange week of football. One of the premier games of the week was played in Germany — which was showing really early for people on the west coast of the country like myself. The main Sunday slate was filled with backup QBs and in some cases, third-string QBs. But somehow, in the end, it was thrilling as always, from Josh Dobbs’ heroic win without knowing the plays to C.J. Stroud’s late-game dimes. Let’s enjoy football while we have it.

Before diving into the waiver wire targets, I want to give a shoutout to Michael Hitchcock and his DraftKings DFS writeup from this last week. He featured the Houston Texans as his article cover photo and labeled them as “one of the few good leverage points on the slate.” A Texans’ stack won $1 million this weekend. If you play DFS, be sure to check out his article this week!

Lots of talk on the wonderful Lolz recently by @peteroverzet & @BrianHooper__ about who is the DFS🐐, but @youdacao might have cemented his status with his large field Milly win yesterday. Milly win #7? #8? We've lost count – but this was his first truly large field Milly win:… pic.twitter.com/nkDpSTdnF2

— The DFS Daily Newsletter (@dfs_newsletter) November 6, 2023

And now back to the waiver wire.

The waiver wire is one of the most important pieces of season-long draft leagues. It is the easiest way to acquire new players and every year there are gems to be found. The goal of this article will not only be to highlight which weekly breakout players to prioritize but find others to preemptively pick up before the breakout happens.

This article will only reference players that are less than 50% owned in ESPN leagues. The players are categorized by position group and within each group is the order of how I would prioritize them. 

Quarterback

Kyler Murray (Available in 64% of ESPN leagues)

The majority of the following text is from my Week 8 waiver wire article.

The Cardinals opened the 21-day practice window for Kyler Murray after Week 6. In Week 9, the Cardinals traded Josh Dobbs to the Vikings and Clayton Tune got the start. Tune was as bad as I expected — remember the Cardinals chose to make Dobbs their opening-day starter after about a week of being in the building (via trade) over Tune who had the entire training camp to learn the playbook. The Cardinals got shut out and Tune amazingly had a completion percentage 12% less than expected despite having an average depth of target of 2.8 yards, according to Next Gen Stats. 

On Monday, Head Coach Jonathan Gannon announced that Murray will be the starter in Week 10 if all goes well in practice this week.

The reason to pick up Murray remains the same as last week:

At this point in the season, the waiver wire is about finding players who can fill in for a bye week or an injury or stashing players with league-winning upside. Murray fits the latter category. Murray has been an extremely fantasy-friendly QB throughout his career so far — primarily using his legs to extend plays and scramble. The obvious caveat is that this production was before his ACL injury and it’s uncertain how much he will run when he takes the field next.

For teams that have a bench spot to use, Murray is an excellent hold to see if he is even 80% of the player he was. An 80% Murray could definitely be an important part of a roster that makes a late-season push for playoffs and beyond.

Will Levis (Available in 61% of ESPN leagues)

Will Levis is my QB waiver wire streamer of the week. He took over for an injured Ryan Tannehill two weeks ago and will probably be the starter for the third consecutive week in Week 10. Tannehill did not practice in any capacity in the lead-up to Week 9.

Levis has a solid matchup in Week 10 against the Buccaneers. The main reason is that the Tampa Bay defense is a huge pass funnel. Through Week 8, opponents are passing at the tenth-highest rate in neutral situations against the Buccaneers, according to the RotoViz Pace tool. In Week 9, the Texans passed on 73% of their plays, a game that was played fairly tight throughout.

As a result of many teams tilting to the air, several pocket-passer QBs have put up strong games against the Tampa Bay defense in 2023 including:

In contrast to the QBs above and their respective teams, the Titans are typically more stubborn in their approach to games — leaning on Derrick Henry — and are unlikely to unleash Levis. This gives Levis a broader range of outcomes than the QBs I generally seek to highlight in this article. However, I think Levis has the best ceiling of any QB that is widely available in ESPN leagues and that is what makes him so appealing in Week 10.

Running Back

Zach Charbonnet (Available in 70% of ESPN leagues)

Zach Charbonnet led the Seahawks backfield in snaps for the second straight week. Charbonnet had a 56% snap rate in Week 8 and a 55% rate in Week 9. Honestly, it’s difficult to know what to make of this split. In Week 9, Kenneth Walker was dealing with an injury entering the week that could have unofficially played a part in his limited role. In Week 10, the Seahawks were blown out by the Ravens and Charbonnet was probably on the field more than Walker because of the obvious passing downs late in the game. 

I like looking at the share of the RB opportunities (rush attempts and targets) to gauge how involved coaches want their RBs to be. For Charbonnet, his share of the RB opportunities declined from 44% in Week 8 to 31% in Week 9. Charbonnet may be playing the majority of the snaps, but the coaching staff is calling more plays specifically for Walker.

However, what I do know is head coach Pete Carroll speaks very highly of Charbonnet. For this reason, I think Charbonnet should remain involved when all of the external factors are more “normal.”

#Seahawks coach Pete Carroll on Zach Charbonnet’s increased workload in Week 8 and what makes the rookie RB so effective pic.twitter.com/bxoYrZEkVO

— The Coachspeak Index (@CoachspeakIndex) October 31, 2023

For fantasy football, Charbonnet is one of the better RB stashes. I wrote this last week about his potential workload in the event of a Walker absence:

In the event of Walker missing games, I think there is a good chance Charbonnet would keep the majority of the pass-down work — the role he currently is trusted in — and then take on a lot of the early-down work that Walker currently has. I think the Seattle coaching staff would likely use DeeJay Dallas to spell Charbonnet on some passing downs — given that he is best suited for that role rather than one on early downs. Altogether, it is not hard to envision Charbonnet being an 80%+ snap player getting most of the RB touches.