Ouch babe. Week 7 was a rough one on the injury front with a couple of season ending injuries to fantasy stalwarts (Martin, Wayne), a few multi-week injuries to useful players (Finley, Foles), and the loss of my favorite QB, Jay Cutler, for at least 4 weeks. I am still depressed over what happened to my Bears, but I’m going to put it past me for however long it takes to write this waivers recommendation. If injuries weren’t depleting your rosters bad enough, this is the first week with 6 teams on bye (Chi, Bal, Hou, Ind, SD, Ten).
The silver lining of all these injuries is that there are a couple new useful players on the wire. For teams fighting to stay alive in the standings, this is a good opportunity to plug some holes in your starting lineup. I’m going to stick with my positional format from last week, since no one complained (or noticed:).
All players on this list are owned in less than 60% of Yahoo leagues.
QB:
Terrell Pryor OAK (32%): Wouldn’t recommend Pryor as your starter, but if you’re the kind of owner who keeps a back-up QB, a high-upside guy like Pryor makes a lot of sense.
Max FAAB: $7
Jake Locker TEN (7%): Over his last three starts, Locker has thrown 6 TDs with only 1 INT and an average QB rating of 102. His rushing yards (38 YPG over last 3) are a nice bonus and he seems to be figuring things out. You could do worse if you are looking for a replacement for Jay Cutler.
Max FAAB: $7
RB:
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Zac Stacy STL (49%): This is bordering on ridiculous. Just because D-Rich & Pead were bad, doesn’t mean Stacy is! He has started three consecutive games for the Rams and has looked better every week. He’s averaging 4.3 YPC and has caught more balls every week (0,2,4). Stacy is a decent RB2 right now.
Max FAAB: $35
Mike James TB (8%): I don’t know much about the 6th round pick out of Miami, but with Doug Martin’s season ending injury (labrum) James should get enough carries to be useful in fantasy. He wasn’t overly impressive Sunday (14-45) and his next few match-ups are brutal (Car, Sea, Mia) but I’m think that every starting RB is worth owning and that’s James for the foreseeable future.
Max FAAB: $23
Joe Randle DAL (52%): He’s the starting RB for the Cowboys which is enough for me. Randle didn’t look like anything special in his first start (19-65) and isn’t getting the red-zone carries (Tanner), but he will be involved in the passing game (3-28) and is explosive enough to find the end zone on a long run. Moving forward, Randle is a low-end RB2 or a solid Flex play until Demarco Murray comes back.
Max FAAB: $15
Andre Ellington ARI (47%): Rough game vs Seattle last Thursday (13 total yards), but I still consider Ellington rosterable. Eventually the Cards have to realize Mendenhall is garbage right? Ellington was averaging over 7 yards per touch before the Seahawks debacle and I think it was just a fluke bad game. Plenty of more established RBs have been shut down by the Seahawks defense.
Max FAAB: $12
Chris Ivory NYJ (28%): Meh. If you think Ivory will keep getting close to the 34 carries he got in week 7, then by all means go get him. If you’re not delusional, then he could be worth a spot at the end of your roster, but don’t go crazy bidding on him.
Max FAAB: $5