If you’re still reading waiver columns in Week 16 then congrats to you, because you’re obviously doing something right! Hopefully, you took the best of my advice & ignored the worst & we can say we made it together! Either way, a special thanks to those of you who have stuck with me from start to finish, it was a hell of a year & this one’s to you.
My 8 adds for the Championship Round, Week 16:
Quarterback #1: Tua
| % Rostered (ESPN) | 25.5% |
| Avg. Fantasy Points/Game (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 14.1 |
| Last Week’s Fantasy Points (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 19.7 |
Jalen Hurts is still technically rostered in only 33% of leagues, but that’s inexcusable, so I’m just going to assume 67% of leagues are completely inactive. If you didn’t buy the pitch for Hurts the past 3 weeks, I’m sorry but it’s too late. Tua doesn’t offer quite the same statistical ceiling as Hurts (at least not in this iteration of the Miami offense), but he did throw for 3 TD’s two weeks ago against KC & then rushed for 2 more TD’s this past week in a win against New England (a rare feat for rookie QB’s). With a matchup against a reeling Raiders team that just allowed Justin Herbert to go for over 300 yards, 2 passing TD’s, & a rushing TD (on a short week, playing with mostly backups), it puts Tua firmly in position as a top-15 QB play this week.
Quarterback #2: Baker Mayfield
| % Rostered (ESPN) | 27.3% |
| Avg. Fantasy Points/Game (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 16.5 |
| Last Week’s Fantasy Points (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 20.9 |
Baker has been playing incredible football over the last month, with multiple TD passes in 4-straight games. So even though we just saw Jared Goff faceplant in what was supposed to be a cake matchup against the Jets this past week, it’s going to be hard to pass up on Baker in this matchup if you’re still streaming QB this late into the season.
Running Back #1: Tony Pollard
| % Rostered (ESPN) | 34.9% |
| Avg. Fantasy Points/Game (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 8.4 |
| Last Week’s Fantasy Points (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 28.2 |
I just would like the record to show that both Jalen Hurts & Tony Pollard have been included in my column for 3-straight weeks (!!!), and this’ll be the 4th. None of us knew if Hurts or Pollard were going to get their shot, but we knew if they did, it was going to be absolute fireworks. Well, here we are, and the fireworks are going boom. These kind of high-upside backups are always the kind of players you should be stashing heading into the fantasy playoffs, because now that they have been given their chance at a starter’s role, everybody and their mother is going to be trying to get them onto their fantasy teams.
Running Back #2: Salvon Ahmed
| % Rostered (ESPN) | 24.2% |
| Avg. Fantasy Points/Game (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 12.6 |
| Last Week’s Fantasy Points (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 21.2 |
The impending return of Myles Gaskin caused most of us to drop Ahmed off our radars as quickly as we had put him on it. Gaskin returned in Week 14 against Cincy, but was right back on the COVID list last week. If he misses another game this week, Ahmed slots right in as the starter, and he has rushed for 100+ yards in 2/3 starts & surpassed 12 PPR points all 3 times.
Wide Receiver #1: Allen Lazard
| % Rostered (ESPN) | 25.8% |
| Avg. Fantasy Points/Game (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 9.5 |
| Last Week’s Fantasy Points (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 8.1 |
When you need a WR to plug in for one week & there’s not a whole lot differentiating the available ones, what do you use as the tiebreaker? I like to use QB & matchup as the tiebreaker, and Lazard has got both of those things going for him. Aaron Rodgers has passed for multiple TD’s in 12/14 games this year & the Packers finish the fantasy season against a Titans team that has allowed the 7th most fantasy points to WR’s this year.
Wide Receiver #2: Rashard Higgins
| % Rostered (ESPN) | 16.3% |
| Avg. Fantasy Points/Game (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 8.0 |
| Last Week’s Fantasy Points (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 9.6 |
A lot of people picked up Higgins after the first game OBJ went down, and then got burned by a dud from him in the (somewhat) infamous “wind-game.” But he’s actually been really productive over the last few weeks & his rise in production has correlated with Baker’s. Higgins has put up 6/95/1, 6/68/1, & 4/76 over his last 3 games, and now, he gets the Jets.
Tight End #1: Irv Smith Jr.
| % Rostered (ESPN) | 7.4% |
| Avg. Fantasy Points/Game (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 5.4 |
| Last Week’s Fantasy Points (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 5.2 |
I really wish that I had two more TE’s to pitch you & didn’t have to include the same two as last week, but the available TE options just don’t turnover like that unless a starter goes down, which means you are probably left picking between Irv Smith Jr. & Cole Kmet again this week. I prefer Smith to Kmet simply because he’s a smaller & quicker athlete more in the mold of an actual receiver, and rookie TE’s are notoriously fickle to trust.
Tight End #2: Cole Kmet
| % Rostered (ESPN) | 14.4% |
| Avg. Fantasy Points/Game (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 3.1 |
| Last Week’s Fantasy Points (FanDuel 0.5 PPR) | 2.2 |
What did you think was gonna happen? Surely you didn’t think a rookie TE was going to continue producing fantasy points consistently, week-in, and week-out, did you? A dud for Kmet was always inevitable, but he still saw the most snaps he’s seen all season this past week, so it wasn’t all bad news. If you really are in a pinch you can do worse than plugging Kmet back in for another solid matchup against a Jacksonville squad that has allowed the 4th most fantasy points to TE’s this year.
