Fantasy Football Waiver Wire 2014: Top 10 Week 5 pickups

Jerick McKinnon-RB-Minnesota Vikings (0.8%)

McKinnon has been on our list since Adrian Peterson went down with an injury, but he hadn’t earned enough of the workload to show off the “high upside” before Sunday’s game.  Against the Falcons, McKinnon finally got an even share of the carries with Matt Asiata and made the most of his increased workload.  He ran for 135 yards on 18 carries and added one catch for 17 yards.  He didn’t find the endzone but did get stopped at the one-yard line on one run and looked like he could be a major contributor for the Vikings and fantasy owners going forward.

His upside is limited a bit still because of his situation sharing carries with Matt Asiata who will probably continue to get the bulk of the short-yardage situations.  McKinnon will be worth owning in all formats if he earns an even share with Asiata in Norv Turner’s attack.

McKinnon and the Vikings may be without Teddy Bridgewater this week with a quick turnaround to play Thursday night against the Packers.  Green Bay has struggled against the run this year, so expect McKinnon to get enough run to be a boom-or-bust flex play this week.  If Bridgewater is out, Christian Ponder will likely get the start which probably won’t help the Vikings offense be world beaters.  If you have to use McKinnon this week at flex, it’s a pretty big risk, but if you can sit him on your bench and see how he’s used this week, he could be a very nice flex play with RB2 upside going forward especially as we go through the rest of the bye weeks.