2018 IDP Waiver Wire Pickups: Week 11
Hello and welcome back to the IDPGuru.com’s most popular in-season article, IDP Waiver Wire Pickups, which will be releasing every Tuesday of the regular season.
Although I’m happy to answer questions posted via the website comments section, IDP Forum, and email, I’m often quickest to respond via Twitter. So if you have IDP questions, it’s a good idea to Follow me on Twitter.
Let’s start things off by going through some IDP news, notes, and commentary from Week 10 of the NFL season.
Injuries
Thankfully, this week was fairly light in terms of defensive injuries…
The Browns placed veteran linebacker Christian Kirksey on injured reserve with a hamstring injury.
Recent reports state that Lavonte David has suffered a sprained MCL and could miss some time. With the Bucs out of contention, I expect the team to be overly cautious with David. Adarious Taylor receives another bump and Kendell Beckwith becomes an even more attractive pickup once he returns to the starting lineup.
Denzel Perryman suffered an LCL injury and will need surgery on his hamstring. Thus, he will miss the remainder of the season.
Matt Milano is considered “week-to-week” with a concussion.
Eagles cornerback Ronald Darby tore his ACL against the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football and will be done for the remainder of the season.
General Player Notes
In a continuation of their roster purge, the Raiders released Bruce Irvin. He was quickly picked up by the Falcons and is now reunited with former coach Dan Quinn. He failed to do much in the box scores in his first week with the team, but should have some value as a DL3-/DL4+ in leagues that classify him as such.
Daniel Sorensen made his season debut in Week 10 and compiled five total tackles while playing 44% of the snaps. He could very well eat into the playing time of Anthony Hitchens as the team has used Sorensen as a subpackage linebacker in years past, so it’s something to monitor.
For more updates on playing time splits across the linebacker position, check out the latest update of my every-down linebackers column.
Now onto The Guru’s IDP waiver wire selections for Week 11!
Defensive Linemen
(Previously recommended DLs: Markus Golden, Sheldon Richardson, Isaac Rochell, Larry Ogunjobi, Taco Charlton, Matt Ioannidis, Benson Mayowa, Margus Hunt, Kenny Clark, Stephen Weatherly, David Irving, Takkarist McKinley, Jerry Hughes, Jarran Reed, Trent Murphy, Corey Luiget, Romeo Okwara, Joey Bosa, Cameron Wake, Jarran Reed, Everson Griffen, Damon Harrison, Chris Jones, Markus Golden, Ezekiel Ansah, Dante Fowler, Matt Ioannidis, Markus Golden)
DE Dante Fowler (LAR) – Fowler made an appearance in this article last week, but I want to quickly mention him again after his 2-1-1, 1 FF, 1 FR performance. The Rams seem fairly invested in the former fourth overall pick as he’s received a big bump in playing time since coming over to Los Angeles. With two other huge pass-rushing threats on the defense in Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh, Fowler should have ample opportunity to continue his resurgence as a DL3+.
DE Jonathan Allen/DT Da’Ron Payne (WAS) – Both Allen and Payne (along with Matt Ioannidis) have been solid contributors fantasy-wise this season and are a big reason for the Redskins’ emergence as an above average defense. The Redskins face off against the Texans this week who have allowed the most points to opposing defensive ends and are allowing the fifth most sacks and most quarterback hits in the NFL. This said, all three of these guys are pretty good starts this week. Ioannidis is your best option but he’s most likely rostered at this point, so your next best bets are Allen followed by Payne.
DE Carl Nassib (TB) – Nassib, a favorite from this year’s season of Hard Knocks, has seen a serious increase in playing time in recent weeks (three straight weeks of 75% or more of the snaps) and he’s had four sacks over his last four contests. He’s not going to contribute much in the tackle column but he’s well protected playing opposite Jason Pierre-Paul and as long as he continues to see above average snap volume, he should remain on your radar as a DL3-/DL4+ in standard leagues.
Linebackers
(Previously recommended LBs: Fred Warner, Darius Leonard, Nick Vigil, Matt Milano, Cory Littleton, Darius Leonard, Reuben Foster, Roquan Smith, Devondre Campbell, Duke Riley, Kenny Young, Austin Calitro, Vontaze Burfict, Leighton Vander Esch, Josh Bynes, Anthony Walker, Vontaze Burfict, Jatavis Brown, Jayon Brown, Jerome Baker, Zach Cunningham, Jaime Collins, Vincent Rey, Thomas Davis, Bradley Chubb, Adarius Taylor, Elijah Lee, T.J. Watt, Todd Davis. Jordan Evans, Jamie Collins, K.J. Wright, Marquel Lee, Leighton Vander Esch, Tanner Vallejo, Nigel Bradham, Kendell Beckwith)
LB Deion Jones (ATL) – Jones has been on IR-designated to return since the beginning of Week 2 with a foot fracture. He was just activated and is on track to start against the Cowboys in a critical game for the Falcons. It’s no guarantee he plays every down, but given his upside, he’s a must pickup heading into Week 12. If you have the bench room, you may want to stash him there for a week until we get a better sense of his immediate playing time. If not, he should be close to every down in Week 12 and for the all-important fantasy playoffs.
LB Nick Vigil (CIN)/Zach Cunningham (HOU) – Similar to Deion Jones, I expect both Nick Vigil and Zach Cunningham to return from injury this week. Both players haven’t played in multiple weeks and aren’t top of mind for some fantasy owners. So there is an opportunity to slide some of these players on to our rosters late in the season especially as some teams may already be out of the playoff race and not as attentive to the waiver wire. Both linebackers will be top 15-20 options upon their return.
LB Roquan Smith (CHI) – Smith had a fairly average start to the first half of the season as he struggled with game-to-game consistency issues. A lot of that was due to the holdout that caused him to miss valuable practice time in training camp/preseason; however, things finally seem to be clicking for him as he’s had back-to-back monster games of 10-2 and 9-1-1. He may be rostered in moderate to shallow leagues, but if he’s available, he should be picked up essentially everywhere as he should have LB2+/LB1- value the rest of the way.
LB Jatavis Brown (LAC) – Brown has been on fire as of late racking up 11 total tackles in Week 9 (playing just 63% of the snaps) and he put another 11 tackles this week in an every-down role. With Denzel Perryman and Kyzir White both now out for the season, Brown will keep that three-down status and be locked in as a high upside LB2. He should be one of the top waiver wire pickups at this juncture in the season.
Defensive Backs
(Previously recommended DBs: Kentrell Brice, Clayton Geathers, Terrell Edmunds, Jessie Bates, Justin Simmons, Ricardo Allen, Donte Jackson, Anton Exum, Damontae Kazee, Brian Poole, Tre Boston, Jessie Bates, Eric Reid, Damarious Randall, Jordan Lucas, Mike Mitchell, Kenny Vaccaro, Patrick Chung, Darryl Roberts, Kenny Vaccaro, Marcus Maye, Eli Apple, Justin Reid, Tedrick Thompson, Bashaud Breeland, Michael Davis)
S T.J. McDonald (MIA) – McDonald has picked up a lot of the Reshad Jones’ lost production this year. He’s coming off his two best performances of the year (8-1, 1 INT, 2 PDs and 7-0-0). He is on bye this week which is going to cause him to fall off a lot of people’s radars, but he shouldn’t especially since he has a top five matchup in the Colts in Week 12. He will be a top 20ish play that week.
S Adrian Phillips (LAC) – The Chargers like to utilize Phillips occasionally in a subpackage linebacker role. With two of their starting linebackers on injured reserve, I would expect Phillips to garner even more playing time in that spot. He’s seen a general increase in playing time over the last few weeks and it’s resulted in an increase in production as he’s generated stat lines of 6-1, 4-2, and 5-4 over the last three weeks. He’s worth consideration as a DB3-.
CB Bene Benwikere (ARI) – Benwikere has been pretty solid since taking over for Jamar Taylor, averaging nearly six tackles a game over the last six weeks. He should continue compiling consistent tackle numbers playing opposite shutdown corner Patrick Peterson. His lack of big plays however keep him relegated to the CB2 range.
If you found this article (or past articles) helpful, please consider DONATING. I put a lot of hours every week into my in-season content and make that content available free of charge to my readers, so any support you can throw my way would be greatly appreciated (even if it’s just enough for a cup of coffee).
If you have any questions, feel free to email me at theidpguru@idpguru.com or follow me on Twitter.
Last Updated: November 13, 2018