Patrick Mahomes injury: 5 fantasy football waiver wire replacements

1. Sam Darnold, New York Jets

Darnold returned from mono in Week 6 against the Dallas Cowboys, and he promptly threw for 338 yards with two touchdowns and an interception as the Jets’ offense looked entirely different.

Darnold gets a tough matchup this week against the New England Patriots, and Week 8 against the Jacksonville Jaguars is a middling matchup that looks a little better now that Jalen Ramsey is officially out of the picture. After that though, it’s about as good as it gets with tight end Chris Herndon also in line to be back on the field for the Jets soon.

Darnold gets the Miami Dolphins on each end of the stretch from Week 9-Week 14, with the New York Giants (Week 10), Washington Redskins (Week 11), Oakland Raiders (Week 12) and Cincinnati Bengals (Week 13) in between. Of that group, only Oakland is better than bottom-10 of the league in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks (Yahoo! scoring), and they are allowing the 12th-most points to the position going into Week 7.

A lot of fantasy football owners seem to have seen Darnold’s Week 7 matchup, and thus not run to add him immediately. But that just creates an opportunity to get him as the week ends, if only to stash him for this week and use him from Week 8 right into the fantasy playoffs as a no less than a low-end QB1.

ESPN Ownership: 17.6%
Yahoo! Ownership: 28%

Other quarterbacks to consider adding to help replace Mahomes: Gardner Minshew, Cam Newton/Kyle Allen, Jimmy Garoppolo, Andy Dalton, Derek Carr, Ryan Tannehill, Matt Moore