Week two is in the books, and I haven’t watched a lick of it outside of Thursday Night Football and the Monday Night Football game on my television while I write this. I was out of cell phone range for most of the weekend, and televisions were off-limits. I was out on the shores of Lake Shasta for one a bachelor party. Yes, you click the right link, this is the “who to drop” article. But what I want to tell you is a story about sometimes, letting go is the right decision.
As part of the bachelor party weekend, we rented a speed boat to tool around on Lake Shasta. Part of this rental came in the form of a large inner tube. If you’ve never tubed off the back of a boat, it’s basically up to the driver to decide how long the other party will stay on the tube. You can just crank the boat to the side and all but the most experienced tubers will go flying.
This weekend, I decided it was time to send the bachelor flying while he was tubing. I cranked the boat to the left, and it provided the appropriate response. The bachelor went flying, and we all laughed. When he got back into the boat, we did a debrief. He had let go of the tube and didn’t actually give me the desired result. Why? The line went slack, and he wasn’t sure what it meant, but he sure knew that holding on wasn’t the right idea. So, he let go, and saved himself some pain and heartbreak. And it was the right idea.
That brings us to this week’s cut list. Waleed Ismail has you set on who you should add for this week, but every roster move has an equal and opposite roster move. Who should you drop? So, I help you out with those choices. I find three guys at each position on rosters in at least 40% of leagues to give you an idea as to who can shimmy their way off their rosters. Every team situation is different, every roster situation is different, so these are only recommendations. If you don’t have anyone you want off the waiver wire, don’t just drop guys to drop them. This is a list of guys you should scope out if you want to add someone off the wire. Maybe you have a sentimental attachment to these guys, but you’re feeling the rope go slack. Maybe that means it’s time to let them go.
Quarterback Cut Candidates:
Baker Mayfield, Cleveland (75% rostered)
Well, I’ve never felt more like I was futilely screaming into the void as when I saw Baker’s roster percentage. I recommended dropping Mayfield last week, when he was 74% rostered. Now, he’s likely without Jarvis Landry for an extended period of time, and once again the Browns ran first, second, and third. He finished week two with 213 passing yards. He currently sits as QB19 on the season.
Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons (62% rostered)
Matt Ryan bled rostership in the last week, but his roster rate still isn’t what it should be. He had a bounceback game against the Buccaneers this week, throwing for 300 yards, two touchdowns (…and three interceptions…). It was pretty much as good as things could go for him, and he’s QB15 on the week. There’s no real reason to keep Matt Ryan around in a 1QB league; his upside is the backend of the top-12 QB ranks.
Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers (40% rostered)
Big Ben is a statue in the pocket and has 483 pass yards and 2 touchdowns so far this year through two weeks. What exactly are we doing, here? Things are about to get bad in a hurry, especially if Diontae Johnson’s knee injury ends up costing him multiple weeks.
Wide Receiver Cut Candidates:
Odell Beckham Jr., Cleveland Browns (93% rostered)
Odell Beckham probably shouldn’t be on a roster in a shallow league without injury spots. The Browns ruled him out for Sunday’s week two game on Tuesday. That means that best-case scenario, he is trending just fine but still some time away from playing. The worst-case scenario is that this is the start of a long, slow descent for Odell Beckham’s roster percentage until he bleeds off of every redraft fantasy football roster.
DJ Chark, Jacksonville Jaguars (80% rostered)
Don’t cut him, really. Find the guy in your league who still thinks that it’s the five-game stretch at the beginning of 2019 when Chark was actually good at football. Replace him with Marvin Jones, who does everything that DJ Chark does, but better. And this is a notice for people who continue to disrespect the best wide receiver in Jacksonville; Laviska Shenault is trending toward making his way onto this list. Chark has 16 targets through two games and just four catches for 107 yards and a touchdown. That’s not great, but I can understand keeping him around if a 25% catch rate intrigues you.
Marquez Callaway, New Orleans Saints (63% rostered)
We had a lot of fun with Marquez Callaway this draft season, didn’t we folks? We picked him up after his big preseason game, then he had another big preseason game. That’s it, time for Marquez Callaway to shine! Then, the regular season happened, and the Saints saw both their highest heights (38 points) and their lowest lows (7 points). Marquez Callaway did not even come close to mattering in either game combining for 3 catches for 22 yards on 6 targets across the two contests.
Running Back Cut List
None.
That’s right, none.
There are some disappointments like Ronald Jones or James Conner, but they are both one breath away from the head role in their respective rosters. Because of this, I’m not looking to move on from any running backs, not yet.
Tight End Cut List
Hunter Henry, & Jonnu Smith New England (53% & 67% rostered)
Until one of the New England TEs gets injured, they are going to cannibalize each other. Right now, however, Jonnu Smith is 2/2 for ending the week with more targets and catches compared to Jonnu. Therefore, he gets the nod here. You could also justify moving on from Jonnu Smith. While Smith has 5 targets in each of the last two games, he hasn’t done much with them
Juwan Johnson, New Orleans Saints (41% rostered)
Those two touchdowns week one sure burned a lot of people this week. Juwan Johnson jumped 27% rostership in the last few days, and it’s time to drop that right back down. He doesn’t really get snaps (30 snaps this season), run routes (18 so far), or targets (3 in each game this year).
So, what are we doing, here?
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