We all want to add the next hot thing from the waiver wire. After all, Isaiah Likely, or J.K. Dobbins, or even Rashid Shaheed, could prove to be league winners down the line. But, adding those shiny new toys comes at a cost. And that cost comes in blood. Okay, not literally blood, but metaphorical blood is spilled every week to make room for new guys on your roster. So, let’s take a look at who we will exsanguinate this week. To make this list, a player must be rostered in at least 50% of Yahoo! leagues. There’s no freebie Bryce Young drops, here.
QUARTERBACKS
These guys are likely part of a 2QB rotation in your league, and if you need to make room to snag someone else, I have no problem dropping down to a 1QB rotation, for now.
Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers (66% rostered)
The Chargers won ugly and on the ground on Sunday, just the way Jim Harbaugh likes it. Herbert, in turn, wasn’t a massive part of the game plan. A touchdown to Ladd McConkey in the last 4 minutes of the game gave him his only score, and he finished with 26 pass attempts for 144 yards, and just six yards rushing. This isn’t how every game is going to go, but this is how Jim Harbaugh wants them to go.
Kirk Cousins, Atlanta (64% rostered)
Captain Kirk was a mess on Sunday against the Steelers’ pass rush. He was sacked and picked off a total of four times, and he clearly isn’t recovered from the Achilles injury that cost him the final two-thirds of 2023. He isn’t pushing off of his repaired Achilles, to disastrous results. He gets a less-potent pass rush in week two (though it’s the Eagles, so it’s still not a good matchup).
Aaron Rodgers, N.Y. Jets (62% rostered)
Rodgers, like Cousins, is coming off of a repaired Achilles. Unlike Kirk, he was actually capable of moving around against the 49ers’ pass rush. Unfortunately, the offensive line looked like wet hot garbage, with Rodgers running for his life on nearly every play. His lone touchdown in week one came on a patented Aaron Rodgers Free Play. With Mike Williams used as a decoy (four routes), it’s possible that he was working with half a playbook, but that doesn’t make the offensive line better. I worry about Rodgers, and not just because of the clear degradation of the logic centers of his brain.
WIDE RECEIVERS
DeAndre Hopkins, Tennessee (77% rostered)
Hopkins had one catch for eight yards on Sunday, but that’s not the biggest problem. He revealed to media over the weekend that he tore his ACL and that his plan is to play through it. The term “play” is quite loose, here. Hopkins ran only 9 routes, for a 23.7% route share. This ranked below tight end Noah Whyle, and was less than half of both Treylon Burks and Chig Okonkwo. You’re just getting ahead of him getting shut down, here.
Joshua Palmer, Los Angeles Chargers (60% rostered)
Palmer, on the other hand, ran plenty of routes. But that’s all he did: run routes. Palmer ran a route on 96.4% of dropbacks on Sunday, but finished with four targets for two catches 15 yards. That won’t work, especially with a target per route run that ranked fourth on Chargers and a yards per route run that ranked fifth… of five players that ran a route for Jim Harbaugh on Sunday.
RUNNING BACKS
Chase Brown, Cincinnati (86% rostered)
The big idea with Chase Brown was that he would split with Zack Moss, and get passing downs work. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out on Sunday. Moss outsnapped Brown two-to-one, and doubled his carries inside the 20-yard line. Brown got zero carries inside the ten, and Burrow out-targeted Moss 4-3 in the passing game. Quarterback Joe Burrow even outrushed him, carrying the ball four times for 15 yards to Brown’s three carries for 11 yards.
Gus Edwards, Los Angeles Chargers (80% rostered)
I would personally hang onto Gus Edwards, despite him looking far worse than J.K Dobbins on Sunday. We’ve seen this story before, with James Robinson coming off of an Achilles tear in 2022 to the tune of 17 carries for 77 yards and a touchdown per game in the first three games before falling off of a cliff and averaging 7.4 carries for 24 yards for the remainder of the season.
But, Edwards looked like the player recovering from the Achilles tear on Sunday. He was sluggish and unproductive, averaging 2.36 yards per carry on his 11 carries in the first game of the season as the clear #2 running back in the rotation.
Chuba Hubbard, Carolina (65% rostered)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I am going to add 1,000 words to this word count really quick:
TIGHT ENDS
(notice that you DO NOT SEE MARK ANDREWS OR TRAVIS KELCE HERE, CALM DOWN)
Jake Ferguson, Dallas (96% rostered)
Jake Ferguson suffered a knee injury that I feared would cost him his season, but he appears to be week-to-week at this point. Ferguson is a top-ten tight end when healthy, so I am reticent to drop him, but you might have no choice.
David Njoku, Cleveland (95% rostered)
Njoku, unlike Ferguson, is likely to miss multiple weeks with a high-ankle sprain. I feared that he would get brought down to being a Blob tight end thanks to Deshaun Watson looking like warmed over dog poop whenever he steps on a football field, and that came to fruition. He had a 3.8 average depth of target in this one, which ranked sixteenth among the nineteen tight ends to get at least four targets in week one.
Dalton Schultz, Houston (85% rostered)
My biggest Dalton Schultz fears came to fruition on Sunday, as he finished with only three targets for 16 yards. His 9.4% target share ranked 26th on the week, behind Noah Gray, Tanner Hudson, Johnny Mundt, and other guys you aren’t putting anywhere near your fantasy team. He was the fourth fiddle on an offense that is going to be extremely top-heavy; his target share was exactly half of #3 (Stefon Diggs) who had an 18.8% target share. He’s going to be a lost man in Houston.
Luke Musgrave, Green Bay (56% rostered)
I have zero words to explain why you should drop Luke Musgrave, mostly because I have zero words as to why Musgrave was rostered in the first place. He had just two targets, for zero catches and zero yards. The Packers have five legit pass catchers ahead of him (the four receivers and Josh Jacobs). Just move on.
Cole Kmet, Chicago (59% rostered)
I would drop him for Isaiah Likely, but the Rome Odunze injury could just give him life. That having been said, he split the two tight end targets with Gerald Everett, so it might not work out well, especially since he ran only nine routes on Sunday.
