With the fantasy football regular season hitting its homestretch, it’s time to make sure that your rosters are trim and tight, and ready to find the new hot additions off of waivers. While most sites will tell you who to add, I have no problem telling you who you can move off your roster this week.
The normal caveats apply: this isn’t a comprehensive list, and it doesn’t mean that all these players are must-drop. These are merely where I would look first to move players off my roster should I have a hot pickup. As always, these players are all rostered in at least 50% of leagues.
Quarterbacks
Kirk Cousins, Minnesota (69% rostered)
Last week’s cover boy for this article failed his first test, scoring just 4.92 fantasy points against the Denver Broncos. He has the Bye this week, and the Chargers (who have allowed just over 200 passing yards and a passing touchdown per game in the last five weeks) before taking on the Vikings and their top-ten passing defense.
Geno Smith, Seattle (57%)
If the Seahawks had run the ball with Kenneth Walker at the end of the game instead of the 49ers completely ignoring Geno Smith and allowing him to score a rushing touchdown, Geno would have ended up with under ten fantasy points. But, the play happened, so he finished with 15.74 fantasy points in week eleven. That marked the fourth time in his last five games that he failed to notch 20+ fantasy points in a given week. If you’re running Geno as a part of a 2QB tandem, then you can go ahead and move on. His roster rate is higher than Bo Nix’s, and that needs to change immediately.
Aaron Rodgers, N.Y. Jets (51% rostered)
Rodgers finished week 12 with 16.04 fantasy points on 184 passing yards and two scores. This marked the fourth straight game that Rodgers failed to notch 250 passing yards and the seventh time in the last eight games that Rodgers failed to cross 18 fantasy points. The Bye looms, and then he gets Seattle and Minnesota coming out of the Bye.
Running Backs
Kareem Hunt, Kansas City (87%)
Kareem Hunt was pathetic against the second-best running back matchup in all of fantasy football, finishing with 14 carries for 60 yards, which made for his perfect exit from relevance. The Chiefs will welcome Isiah Pacheco back next week for a primo matchup with the Panthers, the worst run defense in the NFL. You can hang onto Hunt if you fear that Pacheco won’t return and you want that juicy matchup, but Hunt’s time is likely over in Kansas City.
Raheem Mostert, Miami (77%)
Mostert is the clear #2 running back in Miami and is nothing more than a handcuff at this point. He has 5 touches for 5.2 fantasy points in the last two weeks and has just one game inside the top-30 since Miami’s week six Bye. Things don’t get better on the horizon: the Dolphins play four teams in the bottom half of fantasy points to running backs in their last six games.
Jordan Mason, San Francisco (55%)
Christian McCaffrey has been back for the 49ers for two games. In those two games, Jordan Mason has 5 snaps, 3 carries, 18 yards, zero targets, and just 1.8 fantasy points. The greatest fear for Mason, a complete relegation to irrelevance, is upon us.
Wide Receivers
Jaylen Waddle, Miami (89% rostered)
Week one versus Jacksonville. Five targets, five catches, 106 yards, and 3 rushing yards. That was the last time that Jaylen Waddle finished inside the top 36 at wide receiver. Since that point, he’s finished no higher than WR36, while finishing as low as WR91. Things just aren’t working in Miami, and Waddle has virtually no primo matchups left on the schedule as the Dolphins descend into their standard issue November and December doldrums.
Diontae Johnson, Baltimore (70% rostered)
I bet you forgot that he was on the Ravens. Well, to be honest with you, so did the Ravens. In three games with Baltimore, Diontae Johnson has 33 snaps, 4 targets, 1 catch, and 6 yards. You can do with him what the Ravens will do with him after the season: throw him away.
Tyler Lockett, Seattle (60% rostered)
The Seahawks have little use for Tyler Lockett these days. Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s emergence gives them a rock-solid one-two punch with JSN and DK Metcalf. Plus, they’re just a few tiles away from spelling “HIJINKS.” This leaves very little left for Lockett, who has at least 78% snap share in each of the last three games while garnering only 10.5% of Geno Smith’s targets in that span. He’s just out there running wind sprints until one of JSN & DK Metcalf goes down with an injury.
Tight Ends
Jake Ferguson, Dallas (84% rostered)
I wrote this before Monday Night Football: Cooper Rush is awful, and Trey Lance is worse. They will barely maintain enough usefulness for CeeDee Lamb, let alone CDL and Jake Ferguson. I don’t want anyone with a star on their helmet not named CeeDee.
During MNF, Jake Ferguson went down with a concussion and did not return. Cooper Rush threw about 500 balls that should have been interceptions, and those were just the passes that touched Derek Stingley.
Pat Freiermuth, Pittsburgh (57% rostered)
Freiermuth has under 25 receiving yards in five of his last six games, and four of those games were under 20 receiving yards. He briefly touched the hallowed heights of TE9 in week ten thanks to a touchdown, but he isn’t a primary part of this offense.
Cole Kmet, Chicago (51% rostered)
It’s been four games since Cole Kmet topped four targets, and because of this, he is averaging 3.7 PPR points since their bye. He isn’t done as a relevant fantasy asset, but he’s better off in the streaming discussion. And, with Minnesota on the docket, you’re better off with other streamers.
