With week 5 in the books, it’s time to shift the focus back to the waiver wire to fine-tune your team. RB injuries have taken their toll in both Green Bay (Cedric Benson) and Arizona (Ryan Williams) so there are several intriguing opportunities to grab potential difference makers.
To help out with your decisions, we’ve rounded up a new group of Featured Pros. The experts were given a list of potential RB/WR/TE targets and were asked to rank the players based off of rest of season value. Their picks were then combined to produce consensus waiver wire rankings for week 6.
Before we take a look at the rankings, below are the featured experts that pitched in this week. If you’d like to check out more of their advice, we encourage you to follow them on Twitter (click each name) and visit their sites.
Featured Pros
Nick Raducanu – (The Fantasy Fix)
Walton Spurlin – (Fantasy Sharks)
Walter Cherepinsky – (Walter Football)
Waiver Wire Rankings (STD Scoring)*
| Player | Position | Team | Consensus Rank | Best Rank | Worst Rank |
| Robert Meachem | WR | SD | 3.6 | 1 | 9 |
| Alex Green | RB | GB | 4.0 | 1 | 8 |
| William Powell | RB | ARI | 4.8 | 3 | 7 |
| Kendall Hunter | RB | SF | 5.0 | 2 | 8 |
| Devery Henderson | WR | NO | 5.4 | 2 | 10 |
| Ronnie Hillman | RB | DEN | 7.0 | 1 | 13 |
| Kendall Wright | WR | TEN | 7.2 | 3 | 12 |
| LaRod Stephens-Howling | RB | ARI | 7.6 | 4 | 11 |
| Jahvid Best | RB | DET | 8.6 | 2 | 19 |
| Josh Gordon | WR | CLE | 9.8 | 7 | 14 |
| James Starks | RB | GB | 11.0 | 1 | 18 |
| Brandon Gibson | WR | STL | 11.6 | 8 | 15 |
| Daryl Richardson | RB | STL | 12.8 | 8 | 16 |
| Rueben Randle | WR | NYG | 13.8 | 6 | 19 |
| Chris Givens | WR | STL | 14.0 | 11 | 18 |
| Mario Manningham | WR | SF | 14.8 | 9 | 18 |
| Shaun Draughn | RB | KC | 15.4 | 11 | 19 |
| Joel Dressen | TE | DEN | 16.4 | 15 | 18 |
| Jordan Norwood | WR | CLE | 17.2 | 15 | 19 |
*List consists of players with less than 50% ownership in Yahoo! leagues
Week 6 Waiver Wire Advice
We also asked each expert to share a specific piece of advice for this week’s waiver wire (player to target, strategy tip, etc). Here are the experts’ suggestions.
Nick Raducanu – The Fantasy Fix
We’ve all been waiting for this year’s difference-making running back to hit the waiver-wire (think Larry Johnson circa 2005) and we finally have our first entrants into that sweepstakes with William Powell, LaRod Stephens-Howling and Alex Green. Regardless of running back need, each are worth putting a claim on with Ryan Williams out for the season and Cedric Benson nursing some sort of foot injury that has him in a walking boot (I’ve heard Lisfranc being thrown around). There are also a few wide receivers who should garner some attention with Robert Meachem finally showing a pulse against his former team, Josh Gordon justifying a high supplemental draft pick with a monster game, and Devery Henderson doing what he does best (teasing us with one big week). The most intriguing pick-up (read: high upside) is Jahvid Best, but his concussion issues represent a neon red flag and only owners with the strongest of stomachs will want to venture into those murky waters.
At this point in the year, fantasy owners need to start cutting ties with the dead weight they drafted that hasn’t panned out, and start taking some chances. This week, some really nice potential is riding the waiver wire in Alex Green, William Powell, Daryl Richardson, and Ronnie Hillman. We all know running back is the toughest position to find quality guys, so that’s where you probably need to switch things up a bit. Cut ties with James Starks, Isaiah Pead and Tashard Choice, and move on to guys who might be closing in on extended playing time. The same goes for deeper leagues and speciality leagues. If you are in a double-QB league, now would be the time to stash Brady Quinn, Tarvaris Jackson and possibly even Chad Henne.
Walter Cherepinsky – Walter Football
My two favorite targets are Ronnie Hillman and Kendall Hunter. Willis McGahee is making too many mistakes, and if he keeps this up, he’ll be in John Fox’s doghouse. Hillman has been getting more work each week, so Peyton Manning may want him in the lineup if McGahee keeps screwing up. As for Hunter, Frank Gore always gets hurt, so he’s bound to get injured soon. Owning Hunter would give you a high RB2 if Gore goes down; Hunter’s very talented and runs behind a mauling offensive front.
Waiver Wire RBs are the rarest thing to find at this point in the season. While Beanie Wells is a good target if you have the depth to get you by until Week 12, the situation I want to look at closely is the one in Green Bay. If Cedric Benson has to miss more than a month with the foot injury, James Starks will get another shot at winning his old RB job back. We all saw what Starks was capable of last season (60-80 Total Yards/game) when he split time with Ryan Grant. Although Alex Green looked decent Sunday, let’s keep in mind it was against the Colts. Devery Henderson is also not a one week wonder with the Saints on pace to throw the ball over 755 times this season.
Walton Spurlin – Fantasy Sharks
Alex Green and David Wilson have to be 1 and 1A in this week’s waiver wire. With the injury to Benson, the fact that James Starks has shown already what he can and can’t do for the Packers, Green will be the man in Green Bay. Their offense lends itself to huge running lanes and Green can also catch the ball out of the backfield. Wilson has emerged from the dog house in New York with his performance Sunday and Ahmad Bradshaw will need to have his touches monitored if the Giants want him to last the season. The rookie will supplant Andre Brown on the depth chart and has probably been dropped in most leagues, so go get him.
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Thanks to this week’s Featured Pros for stopping by to share their advice! Stay tuned for more picks as their weekly rankings are unveiled shortly.
