Fantasy Football: Potential replacements for injured players on waiver wire
By Zach Cohen
Replace Christian McCaffrey with: Mike Davis, RB, Panthers
Confidence Meter: Medium
ESPN Rostered Percentage: 0.8
There’s a legitimate chance that the first two picks of your fantasy draft will not finish as top-15 players at their position. While Barkley will miss the season, McCaffrey will have an opportunity to return as his high-ankle sprain should only keep him sidelined for 4-6 weeks. Still, that’s a significant chunk of time. Most fantasy leagues are only 11-12 weeks long anyway.
Like with Barkley, you won’t find a player who can fill the McCaffrey-sized hole on your fantasy roster. Nonetheless, Davis could be an intriguing option.
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He only played 19 percent of Carolina’s snaps, yet he still caught all eight of his targets for 74 yards. While that’s a viable stat-line, the caveat here is that the Panthers played from behind the entire game. I’d probably prefer Lewis, though there isn’t much separating the pair.
Both have a challenging schedule ahead, though you should always target guys who can get the bulk of their team’s carries. That could be Davis, though nothing is set in stone yet.
Replace Jimmy Garoppolo/Drew Lock with: Ryan Tannehill and Gardner Minshew
Confidence Meter: High
ESPN Rostered Percentage: 34.5 (Tannehill), 19.5 (Minshew)
Garoppolo and Lock’s backups, Nick Mullens and Jeff Driskel, respectively, don’t instill much confidence in fantasy football. So instead, I’m looking elsewhere for their replacements, especially since the pair wasn’t starter-worthy anyway. The available options in 12-team leagues aren’t great. But it has come to my attention that, in 10-team leagues, Ryan Tannehill and Gardner Minshew are mostly available.
And to that, I say: Why? Didn’t you read my preseason fantasy guide, with advice for 210 players? Or my sleepers guide, where I listed Tannehill and Minshew as their team’s respective sleepers?
I praised the two quarterbacks as best values in fantasy drafts. Needless to say, Tannehill and Minshew have proven their worth through the first two games. Both are beyond worthy of a starting spot — Tannehill is the QB8 and Minshew is the QB12 — and nothing suggests that they’ll fade into fantasy irrelevance anytime soon. Hop on these trains while you can.