Bjorn Yang-Vaernet examines which players on the waiver wire are worth prioritizing for Week 8 and highlights others to stash preemptively.
Fantasy football can feel like a game of attrition sometimes. I never head into a season thinking that injuries happen as frequently as they do, but each week someone important goes down. In Week 7, several fantasy-relevant players left their respective games early, including:
- Jets – Breece Hall (knee)
- Chargers – Mike Williams (ankle)
- Seahawks – DK Metcalf (knee)
- Browns – David Njoku (ankle)
The ACL injury to Hall is particularly upsetting because he was just starting to flash his immense upside. Hall had big, explosive runs/receptions in three consecutive weeks.
The season must go on and fantasy managers must learn to embrace and handle the chaos. With that, the pickups and stashes for Week 8 are below.
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 be published once on Mondays with a quick run through my favorite pickups and again on Tuesdays with more charts and data points added in.
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. In lieu of free agent acquisition budget percentages, which are highly dependent on the makeup of each league, I have highlighted which players I would prioritize on the week.
Quarterback
Daniel Jones (Available in 71% of Leagues)
Daniel Jones is a streamable QB in Week 8 — going up against the Seahawks. After Week 7, the Seahawks have allowed opponents to score an average of 26.5 points. In addition, Jones has some sneaky upside. Through seven weeks, he has had two games with two or more passing TDs and three games of either 50 or more rushing yards or a rushing TD. Jones has not had a game where those two parts of his skillset have occurred simultaneously. Week 7 was the closest he has gotten to a massive breakout (one passing TD, 100 yards rushing, one rushing TD) and he scored 28 fantasy points. Week 8 could be the week it all comes together against a porous Seattle defense.
Running Back
Gus Edwards (Available in 87% of Leagues)
Gus Edwards returned from his ACL injury in Week 7 and led the Baltimore backfield in snaps and touches. However, in typical Ravens’ fashion, that amounted to 36% of snaps and 50% of the RB opportunities. Fortunately, Edwards received three red zone opportunities and turned two into TDs. I think there is some risk that the Ravens continue to ease Edwards in, especially with the recent J.K. Dobbins experience fresh in mind. Regardless, Edwards is worth a pickup as a potential 20-touch RB in an explosive run-heavy offense.
