Fantasy football 2018: top 10 waiver wire Week 6 pickups
Fantasy football owners have another week’s worth of games to digest, but it also means that scouring the waiver wire is becoming increasingly difficult as the early-season sleepers have already been identified.
With Leonard Fournette injured, fantasy football owners who scrambled to pick up Jacksonville Jaguars No. 2 running back T.J. Yeldon were rewarded handsomely. Though the Jaguars offense struggled to put up points due to Blake Bortles’s four interceptions, Yeldon had 122 yards from scrimmage and hauled in Bortles’s lone touchdown pass of the afternoon.
Yeldon is already unanimously owned in fantasy leagues, and he’s headed for a big Week 6 with Fournette most likely out. That said, other fantasy fliers at the running back position are still available, and this piece will highlight waiver wire pick-ups at both running back and other in-demand positions around the league.
WR: Chester Rogers, Indianapolis Colts
T.Y. Hilton may not be able to feature in next week’s game against the New York Jets, and no wide receiver stood out more in his absence in Week 5 than Chester Rogers. He kept making solid plays to move the chains for the Indianapolis Colts offense, and it’s becoming clear that Andrew Luck trusts him more than his other options.
Eric Ebron captured the spotlight, but Rogers did the dirty work and was more consistent than the former first-round tight end. Rogers caught 8 of 11 targets for 66 yards, showing more chain-moving ability than big-play ability in a Colts offense that is less focused on explosive plays due to questions about Luck’s post-injury arm strength.
Rogers also caught 8 of 11 targets, but for 85 yards, in a Week 4 loss to the Houston Texans, so his work against the New England Patriots on Thursday Night Football probably wasn’t a fluke.
The former undrafted rookie out of Grambling State is just 24, and the 2018 season is the first time when Rogers has been given serious looks in the Colts offense. He never caught 300 yards in a single season prior to 2018, and he’s already at 200. Rogers’s role in the Colts offense has grown over the past two weeks, and while Hilton will always be the clear No. 1 as a legitimately elite NFL wide receiver, Rogers looks poised to stay as an important piece of this offense even when Hilton returns.