In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by New Era:
Zero RB generally requires patience.
The goal is to dominate your opponents at the non-RB positions and tread water at RB until the chaos of the season kicks in.
At that point, injuries and depth chart maneuvering can vault backup RBs into significant roles that supercharge your team.
But in the case of the Bucs backfield—the thesis is playing out much sooner than expected.
In Week 3 vs. the Broncos, Bucs rookie RB Bucky Irving got 56% of the rushing attempts while Rachaad White was relegated to mostly a passing-down role. He also passed the eye test, looking shifty and explosive on his touches.
On the season, Irving is averaging 6.2 yards per carry and now has more rushing yards than White (145 > 66) on 7 fewer carries.
Fortunately for fantasy nation, it appears the Tampa Bay coaching staff is also very aware of this development. In his postgame press conference, Todd Bowles said that Bucky has earned more reps going forward.
I assume this goes without saying, but just in case—Bucky should be rostered everywhere. White isn’t going to go away in the passing game, but Bucky could easily ascend to the 1a here in short order and cement himself as an every-week fantasy starter.
What else is in today’s newsletter?
- Dwain’s Utilization Report: One WR Riser and a Pair of WR Fallers
- Kendall Valenzuela’s Week 4 Waiver Wire Adds
- Watercooler: MNF Recap
- Ian Hartitz’s Sheesh of the Week
UTILIZATION REPORT: Week 3 Takeaways
Marvin Harrison Jr. is who we thought he was.
It was a rough Week 1 for Marvin Harrison Jr. managers with a 3.2 Utilization Score, but the highly lauded rookie followed that up with marks of 8.7 and 8.4. Over the last two games, Harrison has averaged 23.2 PPG with a 34% target share and 55% air yards share.
For the season, Harrison sits at a 7.5 Utilization Score. His comps averaged 14.8 points per game, with 21% reaching WR1 status, while 56% finished as WR2s. However, I am slightly more bullish, given how strongly Harrison scored in our Rookie Super Model (the best score ever).
Harrison UPGRADES to high-end WR2 territory.
What should we do with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle?
Not even the magic pixie dust of Mike McDaniel has been able to keep the Dolphins offense on track without Tua Tagovailoa. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle have looked unrecognizable during the last two games with Skylar Thompson and Tim Boyle at the helm. Waddle is averaging 7.5 points, while Hill is at an unimaginable 6.6.
You have to think that the 12% and 16% target shares improve, given the talent profiles of the two WRs. However, even with more targets, there is no guarantee that this dynamic duo will return anywhere near our expectations.
Perhaps Tyler Huntley can steady the ship, but we are talking about a QB who has averaged 187 passing yards in games with at least 20 dropbacks—a slight improvement over the 150 from Thompson. We need Tagovailoa back.
Will Tagovailoa return this season? It sounds like he wants to play, but we have no guarantees. The Dolphins' performance and Tagovailoa's return timeline could theoretically reach a point where it makes sense for him to sit the rest of the season.
The earliest he could return is Week 7, but what if the Dolphins are 1-6? What if his timeline is in six more weeks? The further that goes, the greater the risk of not seeing Tagovailoa under center.
I am not a doctor and don't have any insider information. I am simply playing out some potential scenarios, and getting to some worst-case outcomes doesn't take long. Therefore, I want to be open to moving Hill and Waddle via trade right now.
We will see how the market develops this week, but Hill is currently valued similarly to Amon-Ra St. Brown, Ja'Marr Chase, A.J. Brown, Marvin Harrison Jr., and Nico Collins. That is too high, given Hill's potential downside.
Here are some one-for-one trades that have happened in the last two days that I would accept:
- Hill: Ja'Marr Chase (2x), Rashee Rice (2x), Chris Olave
- Waddle: Chris Olave, J.K. Dobbins (2x), DJ Moore, Tee Higgins
Without Tagovailoa, Hill DOWNGRADES to midrange WR2 status, and Waddle is a WR4.
More Utilization Takeaways From Week 3
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Week 4 Waiver Wire Pickups
So the injuries couldn't get worse than last week … right?! It felt like we were preparing for battle heading into the waiver wire with a CVS-length receipt of injured players. Thankfully, this week was a little better.
The first bye week will come in Week 5 when four teams have off: the Detroit Lions, Los Angeles Chargers, Philadelphia Eagles, and Tennessee Titans—so we need to start planning accordingly.
You know what we have going on here! Let's go through the biggest fantasy-relevant injuries for this week and dive into the players worth picking up on the waiver wire. As always, the names are in order of priority and all players listed are below 40% rostered. Good luck!
Jauan Jennings, 49ers (32% rostered, Yahoo)
Do we even need to break this one down? Jauan Jennings was the ABSOLUTE HERO this week for your fantasy teams—46.5 fantasy points is absurd. But that's not all Jennings accomplished. According to ESPN Stats and Info, Jennings became the first 49er to have 3 touchdown receptions, more than 10 catches, and 150 yards since Hall of Famer Jerry Rice posted the stat line in 1995.
Jennings will be on every graphic for waiver wire articles this week.
And it seems like the opportunities aren’t going to stop right away, either. Deebo Samuel is expected to miss multiple weeks with his calf injury. George Kittle will need to be monitored on the injury reports this week to get a true sense of where his hamstring injury is at. Hopefully, you were able to get Jennings last week, but if for some reason he is still out there then he is the biggest waiver wire priority this week.
Bucky Irving, Buccaneers (35% rostered, Yahoo)
As Pete alluded to in the intro, patience is about to pay off for all Bucky Irving managers, and if you don't have him on your fantasy team then now is the time to target him on waivers. Irving ran for 70 yards on 9 carries and also caught 3 passes for 14 yards. Rachaad White had 6 carries for 17 yards and also notched 5 receptions for 18 yards.
Irving handled 56% of the Buccaneers’ rushing attempts against the Broncos and while White played all four quarters, he was primarily the passing-down option with 58% of the routes, according to Dwain McFarland.
Head coach Todd Bowles also said on Monday that the rookie has earned more snaps moving forward, so there is a lot of promise in these next few weeks. GO GET BUCKY IRVING!
The latest fantasy nuggets, silliness, and NFL gossip from our merry band of football nerds:
🔥 MNF Recap: Ja’Marr Chase, the Jayden Daniels-Terry McLaurin connection, and this first-half stat line from Josh Allen. Wow.
🚑️ Injury updates: Steelers backfield, Jordan Love, Sam LaPorta, Tank Dell, Sam Darnold, CMC, Adam Thielen, Trey McBride, Cooper Kupp
💀 It might be joever for D’Andre Swift. That’s a tough scene.
👻 What is up with the TE position? A spooky stat.
😬 CMC is going where to get his Achilles checked out?
🤝 Dwain and Ian talk Utilization Report and Waiver Wire Pickups in this action-packed show live today at 9 a.m. ET.
✅ Pick up Jauan Jennings. Who else? The Fantasy Life Waiver Wire Tool can help you out.
The Week 3 ‘Sheesh of the Week’ Goes To …
by Ian Hartitz
Giants RB Devin Singletary … SHEESH
Singletary has had a solid start to his tenure with the Giants, racking up 255 total yards and a pair of scores to go along with a league-high 0.4 missed tackles forced per carry. This comes out to 14.2 PPR points per game—the 20th-highest mark among all RBs through three weeks of action.
That said: The 27-year-old veteran's decision to prioritize his real-life team's success ahead of loyal fantasy managers made for one helluva sheeshy end to Week 3. Roll the tape.
Annoyingly popularized by the likes of Brian Westbrook, Nick Chubb, and Todd Gurley over the years, the technically smart and selfless decision to ice the game instead of putting another TD on the board is just about as brutal of a feeling that fantasy managers can experience as they hope for just a bit more production before the clock hits zero.
Of course, Singletary wasn't the only player to finish a mere three feet away from finding the end zone …
RaSheesh Shaheed (sorry)
While drops are a somewhat subjective stat, you know one when you see one—and I unfortunately saw the following 3 dropped TDs with my own two eyes:
- Saints WR Rashid Shaheed: Would it have been a lot cooler if Derek Carr threw the football a few yards further? Yes. Should Shaheed have probably come down with this potential 40-yard TD anyway? Also yes.
- Cowboys WR Brandin Cooks: Got open down the sideline for a potential 16-yard score, only to let the reasonably well-thrown pass go off his hands and fall incomplete. Not the most egregious drop in the world, but certainly a ball you would have liked to see caught.
- Panthers WR Diontae Johnson: The aforementioned 6-yard TD drop admittedly wasn't the easiest catch in the world, but still: Sheesh.
Also note that Panthers WR Xavier Legette did his best Jonathan Mingo impression when the rookie seemingly jumped for a ball that he didn't have to and then failed to get two feet down inbounds on what should have been a fairly routine two-point conversion.
Of course, sometimes sheeshy non-TDs should be blamed a bit more on the person throwing the pass in the first place …
More moments that simply made fantasy managers say, "Sheesh!"
