Should you add Audric Estime, Cedric Tillman, Dawson Knox, other fantasy football players dropped?

So far this season, the fantasy football waiver wire has been very bare, with few truly league-changing pickups and a lack of even solid options for many weeks (including this week). With that in mind, some of this season’s best wavier moves will be adding players that your league mates have given up and dropped. This week, in particular, could be one of the most profitable weeks to stay vigilant in the waiver wire, as managers will be pushed into some tough decisions by the huge amount of teams saying goodbye.

Fortunately, Fantasy Assistant is here to help. Fantasy Assistant uses Predictive Analytics to calculate Expected Drop Interest (EDI) for each player each week. EDI is an estimate of the percentage of leagues where a player will be or has been dropped each week. If you sync your fantasy league, you will be able to see which of these players have become available in your particular league. Here are this week’s leaders in EDI:

We’ll start with a few of last week’s streaming defenses, and then we’ll get right into a perfect example of how this season’s waivers have gone: , last week’s top pickup and one of the season’s more exciting prospects, is already being sent back to waivers in many leagues. We also have quite a few more players who have gone from hot adds to old news. Let’s break down who is worth grabbing if they are available in your league.

RB Audric Estime, Denver Broncos

In Week 10, Estime easily led the Broncos in trailing while recording just one rushing attempt. Leading up to Week 11, fantasy managers everywhere added Estime and benched Williams, while Sean Payton said the rookie would continue to see more opportunities. Of course, it all ended with Williams leading the Broncos’ backfield on Sunday, finishing with nine carries to Estime’s six while seeing a healthy 57% snap share. I wouldn’t ditch Estime just yet though. Williams has been consistently ineffective on the ground, and this backfield is clearly capable of change from week to week. There’s still a chance that Estime secures a big enough role to be a starting option (he’s already a desperation flex option for this week against a terrible Raiders defense).

WR, Cleveland Browns

Tillman is a must in any league where he has been dropped. He’s finished a top-20 receiver in three of his last four games, including a top-three finish in Week 8. He didn’t do much in Week 11, and the Browns’ schedule is taking a turn for the worse to come. But Tillman is still averaging a 21% target share and a 31% yardage share since being traded to the Bills. After throwing the ball around most of those weeks, that usage has translated to 9.8 targets, 128 air yards and 15.6 Half-PPR points for Tillman. It’s not just listable numbers – they’re elite numbers, WR1 numbers. Regression is likely coming for the Browns’ passing attack (Winston is averaging over 44 attempts per game in his three starts), but Tillman can afford to regress and still be a quality fantasy prospect. If he has been dropped in your league, add him immediately.

TE, Buffalo Bills

That’s one I won’t argue with. Streaming Knox in Week 11, in a great game against the Chiefs without , made a lot of sense. Now the Bills are on their bye and Kincaid will likely be healthy when they return. Knox can most certainly be left on the waiver wire.

QB, Pittsburgh Steelers

On the one hand, it feels tough to drop Russ after his first really bad outing since taking over as the Steelers’ starting QB. On the other hand, Wilson’s early success absolutely screamed inbounds regression as they relied on an unsustainably high TD rate and some elite catches from his receivers. If Wilson fails to take advantage of a paper-soft Ravens secondary, it might just be the first step in that regression. Even with multiple teams on byes, he won’t be in my top-12 quarterbacks in Week 12 – that alone is enough to put him out of business in one-QB leagues where non-elite QB production is easy to find .

WR, San Francisco 49ers

After a big outing in Week 10, Pearsall dropped a complete donut in Week 11, catching neither of his two targets. While I wouldn’t have predicted this goose egg, bad days were always inevitable for Pearsall, who is the fifth option for the 49ers’ offense when everyone is healthy. Even in his big Week 10 outing, he only had a 67% route participation rate, and that dropped to 57% Sunday. In deeper leagues, he can be listed as a boom-or-bust flex option. In shallower formats, don’t bother checking your wavier wire for the first round rookie.

QB, Houston Texans

The last time CJ Stroud finished as a top-12 fantasy quarterback was in Week 4. To be fair, he was without the superstar WR for most of those weeks, but his 13.7 points per game average. combat simply won’t reduce it. . He’s a streaming option for Week 13 against the Jaguars and Week 17 against the Ravens, but you definitely shouldn’t add him just to fill your bench in the meantime.

WR, Baltimore Ravens

I’ve always loved Diontae Johnson, so it pains me to say: You don’t need to add him if he’s been dropped in your leagues. In fact, because I loved him so much coming into the season, I found myself dropping Johnson in multiple leagues this week. Since being traded to the Ravens, Diontae has run a total of 14 routes and caught just one pass for six yards. Forget , , and even – Johnson has only run two routes more than . I’m holding out hope for a few deeper formats, but even that is probably a mistake. The chances of Johnson carving out a fantasy-viable role by the end of the season are pretty much nil.

TE, Dallas Cowboys

Things just keep going from bad to worse for Jake Ferguson. He was already struggling to provide serviceable production under center, and then the change to completely destroyed any hope of competence from Dallas’ offense. Ferguson then suffered a concussion in the Cowboys’ demolition at the hands of the Texans, which will likely keep him on the sidelines in Week 12. Unless you’re really desperate for TE production, he’s not worth chasing if he shows up on waivers.

QB, Atlanta Falcons

Cousins ​​hasn’t been quite as unproductive as Stroud, including a few weeks of truly elite production. However, he still fits in the same bucket of fringe QB1s without much upside. Especially heading into a bye and then two straight tough matchups, that’s not a profile worth keeping.

TE, Pittsburgh Steelers

The last time Freiermuth scored double-digit Half-PPR points was way back in Week 4. He’s also trending in the wrong direction, posting his lowest route participation rate of the season in Week 11 at just 61%. At this point, the only thing keeping him and Ferguson on the roster in one-TE leagues is name recognition – there are almost certainly better TE options on waivers, even in deep leagues.

Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for FantasySP. Find him on Twitter @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.