Fantasy
9/9/24
11 min read
Fantasy Football 2024: Week 2 Waiver Wire Targets
No matter what happened to your fantasy team last weekend, Week 2 brings the opportunity to improve.
Any manager looking to sharpen an early playoff contender must stay diligent and capitalize on their success. Those who didn’t fare as well to open the year should be even more eager to make upgrades before it’s too late.
The best way to make these improvements to your roster is to be active on your league’s waiver wire. It’s the cheapest way to acquire new talent for your roster unless your league operates on an FAAB budget.
So before you rush out to make blockbuster trades with your league mates, let’s review a handful of prime potential additions broadly available on large fantasy platforms such as Yahoo and ESPN.
Fantasy Football Week 2 Waiver Wire Adds
Baker Mayfield, QB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- ESPN Rostership: 34 percent
- Yahoo Rostership: 34 percent
Sunday’s matchup against the Washington Commanders was practically tailor-made for Baker Mayfield and company to go off, and the veteran signal-caller didn’t miss his opportunity to deliver.
The former No. 1 overall pick finished completing 24 of 30 attempts for 283 passing yards, a total that ranked third among all quarterbacks headed into Sunday Night Football. Also helping Mayfield’s fantasy cause are the four touchdowns he launched against the Commanders’ inexperienced secondary, a benchmark he’s cleared just four times in his six-year career.
Those looking for a fantasy quarterback shouldn’t bank on a quartet of passing scores weekly, though Mayfield demonstrated he’s comfortable in the Bucs’ new Liam Coen-called offense. We should expect to see him in a position to cook with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin (both of whom corralled at least five catches for 60 yards and a score) at his disposal.
Week 2 against the Detroit Lions may be difficult for Mayfield, though. Still, two of his next four games are against questionable defenses in the form of the Denver Broncos in Week 3 and the Atlanta Falcons in Week 5.
If you’re the manager who lost Green Bay Packers QB Jordan Love to injury this weekend, Mayfield is the best replacement option available to you right now, barring a trade.
Justin Fields, QB, Pittsburgh Steelers
- ESPN Rostership: 11 percent
- Yahoo Rostership: 14 percent
This call is a bit off the wall and, honestly, more so, the desperation plan B for Love managers. There's no guarantee that Justin Fields will even start for the Steelers next weekend against the Broncos.
Still, Fields performed admirably in Sunday's victory against the Falcons in relief of the injured Russell Wilson.
The ex-Bear achieved little as a passer (156 yards, zero touchdowns) in the road effort, but fantasy managers looking at the box score and seeing 57 rushing yards on 14 carries will undoubtedly raise eyebrows.
We'll have a better idea of how healthy Wilson's calf is by the middle of the week, but whoever starts at quarterback will get a chance to carve up a Denver defense that just allowed 304 yards of total offense to the Seattle Seahawks.
If this is the bar for where the Broncos' defense is, stashing Fields on your bench if he gets the nod to retake the field sounds like a potentially sneaky idea.
Justice Hill, RB, Baltimore Ravens
- ESPN Rostership: 3.3 percent
- Yahoo Rostership: 4 percent
Hopefully, those who read my pre-Week 1 waiver wire article already have Justice Hill stashed on their bench.
Even if you didn’t start the veteran in your lineup, you beat the waiver wire and secured one of the more impressive running back performers from the opening weekend of NFL festivities.
Hill was such a solid pickup to begin with because he averaged 10.6 points per reception (PPR) points per game across the eight games in which he secured eight or more touch opportunities (carries + targets) in 2023.
Granted, those kinds of good weeks for Hill are primarily predicated on game scripts being more pass-heavy to unlock the change-of-pace pass-catching abilities, but that’s what occurred last Thursday against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Hill saw the field on about half of the Ravens’ offensive snaps en route to securing six receptions on eight targets for 57 receiving yards in the loss. Baltimore played from behind for most of the contest, and thus, we saw Hill considerably more often than Derrick Henry managers would’ve liked.
Next up on the Ravens' schedule is a trio of contests against defenses who finished top 12 in team defense DVOA (Las Vegas Raiders, Dallas Cowboys, and Buffalo Bills) last season, according to FTN.
It’s possible Week 2 against the Raiders might not be a shootout, but the Cowboys and Bills games stand out as potential back-and-forth contests that would play right into the situations where Hill thrives.
Is he your new weekly flex? Perhaps not every Sunday, but we’re far from seeing the last of Hill’s name in fantasy discussion for 2024.
Jaleel McLaughlin, RB, Denver Broncos
- ESPN Rostership: 44.4 percent
- Yahoo Rostership: 38 percent
Before we dive into the prospect of Jaleel McLaughlin, let’s get one item out of the way: the Broncos’ offense is probably not good.
The group led by rookie QB Bo Nix barely scraped together 231 yards of total offense against the Seahawks on Sunday and spent most of the contest trying to keep their heads above the water.
Should Week 1 tell us anything, Denver will probably hold a high pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
As such, we should be careful not to overhype the value of a player who logged a rather pedestrian 28 scrimmage yards. However, McLaughlin ended Sunday’s contest with 15 total touch opportunities to his teammate Javonte Williams’ 10— that’s not nothing!
Zoom in even further, and you’ll find that the former UDFA is clearly the pass-catching option out of the backfield.
McLaughlin saw five targets come his way to William’s two. While it’s disappointing that McLaughlin only netted one receiving yard on these touches, five catches from a running back is nothing to scoff at in PPR scoring formats.
Inquisitive detractors could easily attribute McLaughlin’s relevance to the negative game script that calls for his skill set. Still, at that point, you have to ask: how will that be different from any other game the Broncos will play this season?
McLaughlin should at least be on your radar as long as the Broncos continue to struggle.
Ty Chandler, RB, Minnesota Vikings
- ESPN Rostership: 52.9 percent
- Yahoo Rostership: 33 percent
If you’re beginning to sense a theme with the running backs, it’s absolutely on purpose.
Players like McLaughlin or Hill, who bring some upside in secondary roles, are about as good as it gets out on the waiver wire until a prominent starter either loses their job or gets hurt.
Making a bit of an exception here with Ty Chandler, who is still more broadly available on Yahoo than ESPN, the young back was able to find some valuable work running behind his team’s nominal starter.
Here’s how the Vikings’ backfield shook out after Week 1 vs. the New York Giants:
- Aaron Jones: 16 touch opportunities, 109 scrimmage yards, 18.9 PPR points
- Ty Chandler: 11 touch opportunities, 42 scrimmage yards, 7.2 PPR points
Any results that come from a game against the Giants should be taken with a grain of salt, as it was apparent the Vikings would win from a reasonably early point, but that shouldn’t take away from Chandler securing double-digit chances to have the ball in his hands.
Fantasy managers needing immediate help might not like Chandler in Week 2 vs. the San Francisco 49ers, but if you have a spot to spare in a 14-team league or deeper, Chandler is a name worth tracking on the wire.
Greg Dortch, WR, Arizona Cardinals
- ESPN Rostership: 1.6 percent
- Yahoo Rostership: 5 percent
The Week 2 waiver wire will not be kind to managers who need help at wide receiver.
The vast majority of strong Week 1 contributors outkick the 50 percent threshold of rostership to even qualify for this article, and the couple of low-rostered wideouts who did ball out, like Alec Pierce of the Colts, did so at the hands of big plays with unsustainable efficiency.
So, rather than highlighting busted coverage beneficiaries, let’s close this article with a pair of preseason sleepers I mentioned as names to watch at the end of August.
All 5-foot-7 of Greg Dortch led the Cardinals in catches (six) and receiving yards (47) in Week 1’s loss vs. the Bills. These efforts were strong enough for the Wake Forest product to finish with 11.1 PPR points, ranking 29th among wide receivers entering Sunday night.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this performance is that the only Cardinals’ pass-catcher with more targets than Dortch on Sunday was TE Trey McBride with nine.
We shouldn’t expect that weekly, especially considering rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. was essentially useless (one catch, four receiving yards), but early results show that Dortch is at least within the top three options of Arizona’s passing game.
You don’t have to trust him as a starter immediately, but you should at least add Dortch now.
Isaiah Likely, TE, Baltimore Ravens
- ESPN Rostership: 9.7 percent
- Yahoo Rostership: 28 percent
Speaking of surprising performances, how about the game Isaiah Likely posted last Thursday?
The entire argument for Likely’s sleeper status was that he tends to ball out and hit double-digit PPR points when Mark Andrews is injured and off the field. What we didn’t know, however, was that the Ravens would notice this and make him the second option in the passing attack.
In addition to finding the end zone, Likely posted a career-high nine catches and 111 receiving yards on 12 targets vs. the Chiefs. He almost saw the end zone twice had it not been for his pesky toe creeping over the goal line to end the contest, too.
While it’s worth remembering that Andrews has reportedly been recovering from a mid-August car accident, it’s hard to call what Likely did fluky.
He was objectively the most valuable target for QB Lamar Jackson and performed well enough that offensive coordinator Todd Monken has no reason to abandon him now.
We can expect better of Andrews and have hope for Likely being a more permanent fixture going forward; both things can absolutely be true.
Unless you already roster an established elite tight end, you should make a big play for the former Coastal Carolina standout on the waiver wire. The chances that he ends up being the steal at the position by year's end seem relatively… likely.
