Darren McFadden looked revitalized on Sunday and is a prime waiver target moving forward
Losing a player is never a good feeling and unfortunately, Week 7 brought another major injury to the NFL. If you haven’t heard by now, Arian Foster suffered a torn Achilles tendon. The good news is, his fantasy replacement is probably available in a decent number leagues. The bad news is, his replacement will not likely match the contributions that Foster put up. Speaking of replacements, Darren McFadden turned back the clock five years and looks like a starter in Dallas. This came on the heels of reports that Christine Michael would get a crack at starting duties. The confusion left McFadden owners to jump ship leaving him with a 36% ownership rate in Yahoo leagues.
Whether your’e going after McFadden or Alfred Blue on the waiver wire, our featured experts were asked to rank the top waiver options that are readily available (based on Yahoo ownership) so you have more than a couple choices. However, if you do decide to make a run at Blue, we’ve asked the pundits what percentage of a free-agent acquisition budget (FAAB) should owners spend.
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Featured Pros
K.J. – Fantasy Team Advice
Zach Greubel – Gridiron Experts
Dennis Esser – Coach Esser
Waiver Wire Rankings (Standard Scoring)
| Player | Position | Team | Consensus Rank | Best Rank | Worst Rank | Yahoo Ownership % |
| Darren McFadden | RB | DAL | 1 | 1 | 1 | 36% |
| Alfred Blue | RB | HOU | 2.7 | 2 | 4 | 17% |
| Marvin Jones | WR | CIN | 3.7 | 3 | 5 | 40% |
| Eric Ebron | TE | DET | 4 | 2 | 5 | 23% |
| Khiry Robinson | RB | NO | 5.7 | 3 | 10 | 4% |
| Robert Woods | WR | BUF | 7.3 | 7 | 8 | 5% |
| Ted Ginn | WR | CAR | 8.7 | 6 | 12 | 33% |
| David Cobb *Eligible to return Week 9 | RB | TEN | 8.7 | 6 | 10 | 9% |
| Nate Washington | WR | HOU | 9 | 6 | 13 | 4% |
| Orleans Darkwa | RB | NYG | 10.3 | 4 | 16 | 3% |
| Danny Amendola | WR | NE | 10.7 | 7 | 13 | 13% |
| Chris Conley | WR | KC | 12.3 | 9 | 17 | 0% |
| Tyler Lockett | WR | SEA | 13 | 12 | 14 | 15% |
| Jamison Crowder | WR | WAS | 13.7 | 9 | 17 | 12% |
| Tavon Austin | WR | STL | 15.7 | 11 | 18 | 49% |
| Branden Oliver | RB | SD | 16 | 9 | 20 | 8% |
| Ben Watson | TE | NO | 16.3 | 14 | 20 | 41% |
| Chris Polk | RB | HOU | 16.7 | 14 | 19 | 3% |
| Albert Wilson | WR | KC | 17 | 16 | 19 | 1% |
| Dwayne Harris | WR | NYG | 17.7 | 15 | 20 | 4% |
Week 8 Waiver Wire Advice
Each expert was asked to share the reasoning behind their waiver rankings as well as what percentage of their FAAB should owners spend on Alfred Blue. Here’s what the experts had to say.
Q1: With the injury to Arian Foster, what % of FAAB budgets should be spent on Alfred Blue?
K.J. – Fantasy Team Advice
“I recommend spending approximately 20-30% of your FAAB budget on Alfred Blue if you really need help at RB. While he is projected to be the head of the committee in Houston, and had 31 carries the last time Foster was out, there is a lot of uncertainty as Chris Polk and even Jonathan Grimes may be contending for carries the rest of the season.”
Dennis Esser – Coach Esser
“Alfred Blue is not where I will be spending my free agent acquisition budget. With that said, if Blue was the best available option I would stick to a lower % of my budget like 8% or so. I would rather save my bullets for a bigger target down the road than waste them on Blue. Blue will not fill the void that losing Foster creates. He’s not used in the passing game the same way and only had one good performance which happened to be when the game flow was a positive for him against the Buccaneers.”
Zach Greubel – Gridiron Experts
“Alfred Blue will have a solid outing here and there, but he doesn’t play consistently well enough for fantasy owners to break the bank for him. He is now the team’s leading running back, though, and those are non-existent on waivers. If there is a need at running back, I would spend 15-20% of my free-agent acquisition budget on Blue.”
Q2: Give us your thoughts on another waiver wire target (or two) you especially like as a pickup.
K.J. – Fantasy Team Advice
“There really isn’t much out there on the week 8 waiver wire, but for deeper leagues I’m liking Danny Amendola. 9 targets in back to back games, and while his role may diminish with the return of Brandon Lafell, it appears that Amendola and Brady have built a repoire which could carry over the rest of the year. If you want to gamble in deeper leagues, Danny is owned in just 13% of formats and could turn out to be a nice flex play the rest of the year.”
Dennis Esser – Coach Esser
“My top target is Darren McFadden and it’s because of the use he got coming off of the bye week. Jerry has always been a big fan and it looks like he took the bye week to get into Jason Garrett’s ear. As a sneaky pickup, I really like Nate Washington with Cecil Shorts sidelined. In PPR leagues, he could be a sneaky bye week fill in that could make all the difference as defenses pay more attention to DeAndre Hopkins.”
Zach Greubel – Gridiron Experts
“He didn’t do a lot yesterday, but Dorial Green-Beckham should be on more rosters. He’s only 10.6% owned in ESPN fantasy leagues. He’s still on his rookie learning curve, but Green-Beckham has too much talent and too much size to not be more involved in the Titans’ offense, especially in the red zone. Plus, the Titans have trailed and likely will be trailing frequently in games, forcing them to pass more than they probably want to. If you don’t have much depth at wide receiver, Green-Beckham is worth an addition.”
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Thanks to the experts for ranking their top waiver pickups for Week 7. For more advice from them, please follow them on Twitter.
