Week 2 WR Waiver Pickups & Adds: Cold Blooded Sammy Watkins

Week 1 did not bring many surprises at the wide receiver position thus far. If you are in a position where you need to be grabbing a player off of the waiver wire at your WR spot and play them, then it is not a great landscape in all honesty. There are only a few viable options and one good option that seemingly will be available in most leagues. Make sure to not overspend your FAAB or waste your high priority waiver selection on a guy you are not sure about, just because he is the best option that week. Do not overreact to your week 1.

My biggest piece of advice is to see who is dropped following the waiver wire on Wednesday. Players will tilt and overreact, guys like Henry Ruggs, Preston Williams, etc. might be available, if not bigger names. These guys are solid options who just had mediocre Week 1’s and are much better bench candidates than most of what you will find here on the wire.

Highly Owned Players to Check:

CeeDee Lamb

If Lamb is on your waiver wire and you have a spot to place him on your bench, then go do it. Lamb is a tough start due to two great WRs being ahead of him but Blake Jarwin just went down for the season. Lamb should now be the sole #3 target on this team. Not to mention that if Cooper goes down like he has every season then Lamb could become a WR2 overnight. He looked great in his rookie opener and would be a nice stash/flex play in most leagues.

Top Waiver Wire WR:

Sammy Watkins

Do not let the fallacy of Sammy having a huge week one last year and fading deter you from picking up the true #2 WR for a stacked high-scoring Kansas City Chiefs’ offense. In the last four games that Sammy Watkins has played dating back to the playoffs, he has scored 9.6, 24.4, 14.8, and 21.50 points in PPR format. Watkins is a clear WR 2/3 and I am more than willing to take a risk on him.

Some things to remember about Watkins: He was a top 5 pick coming out of college and finished as a WR2 his first two seasons in the league with a horrible QB situation. Kansas City went out and paid him loads of money. In the game against Houston, he had several designed plays for him and if it were not for a bad Patrick Mahomes throw on an out route Watkins would have finished with another TD and Tyreek Hill would have busted. He is really the only true pickup that I can endorse this week.

I would be willing to spend 10% of FAAB to grab Watkins, but if you are desperate then there really is not another option like him and you will need to decide how much you value getting the top option on the wire.

Waiver Wire Ideas:

Marquez Valdes-Scantling

There was a reason that he did not succeed last year. In the Minnesota Viking game, MVS dropped two wide-open passes that could have made his 96 yards and 1 touchdown game even better. I like this play more than the rest on this list but not enough to put him as a top pick. MVS can work himself open but does not have the hands to be consistent, he can easily lose Aaron Rodgers’ trust. On the flip side, he will be going against some pretty mediocre CB groups similar to the Vikings with matchups against DET and ATL in the next three games. This is a boom or bust play that I see a lot of bust in. Dropping 6-8% FAAB on him is not the worst play if you need someone now.

Parris Campbell

Probably my personal favorite option, reeled in 6 catches on 9 Phillip Rivers targets. The issue here is that Rivers’ targets are not the most valuable as his noodle arm duck throws rarely go that far. However, Campbell could be a great PPR play. It is obvious that the IND secondary is going to struggle and the Colts will be in passing game scripts. Campbell was a nice shallow target for Rivers to go to over and over again. If you need a play this week he faces the atrocious Vikings defense, and from then on he is a great stash and see. I would be willing to spend 8% of FAAB on Campbell.

Russell Gage

You will be hearing just about every fantasy expert banging this drum following a 12 target game. However, Gage has a tough overall schedule and will not be in a garbage time shootout with the Seahawks every week. I fully believe this week was a fluke. However, at the same time, the WR waiver-wire landscape is very bare. He is a guy to take a shot on but I would not spend more than 5% of my FAAB on him, and that probably will not land him on your team. He is also a play only for PPR, so do not touch him in standard leagues. I see this as much closer to the Watkins situation of last year, great Week 1 then fading, than Sammy Watkins himself this year.

Scottie Miller

I saw a lot of celebration on the twitter feed for the Scottie Miller fan club; however, I am not there yet. Yes, he had 6 targets and 73 yards but in a game script where Tom Brady had to pass and it was clear that the Bucs did not want to. I think that Brady looked awful in the game which might benefit the tight ends of Howard and Gronk as well as the slot option of Miller. At the same time, I imagine Brady will be going to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin a lot more in the future considering that they are two of the best in the game. I think that 6 targets is the max you will ever get out of Miller and is a huge risk to play without seeing a lot more. I probably would not waste any FAAB grabbing him but putting a number I would say 2%.