2020 IDP Waiver Wire Pickups: Week 4
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Hello and welcome back to the IDPGuru.com’s most popular in-season Fantasy NFL article, IDP Waiver Wire Pickups, which will be releasing every Tuesday of the regular season.
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Let’s start things off by going through some IDP news, notes, and commentary from Week 3 of the NFL season.
Injuries
Chase Young injured his groin and did not return the WFT’s game against the Browns. Although the injury isn’t expected to be serious, we don’t yet know Young’s status for Week 4.
Melvin Ingram was somewhat surprisingly placed on IR mid-way through last week and will be out until at least Week 6 with a knee injury.
Matt Ioannidis suffered a torn biceps and is likely to miss the remainder of the season. This should open up more playing time for Jonathan Allen moving forward.
Veteran Jurrell Casey will be out the rest of the season after a tearing his tricep against the Bucs on Sunday.
Christian Kirksey suffered a shoulder injury in the first half of the Sunday Night game and did not return. Early reports indicate he is likely to miss a few games. He was replaced in the lineup by Ty Summers.
Rookie Seahawks linebacker Jordyn Brooks suffered a knee injury and did not return.
Jamal Adams injured his groin in the third quarter and did not return to the game. It’s looking like he may miss this coming week’s game as a result.
DB1 Budda Baker played in Week 3 but is slated to undergo thumb surgery this week and miss the team’s Week 4 contest. He is expected to be back for Week 5, however.
Jordan Fuller played just 8 snaps before succumbing to a shoulder injury and not returning the game. He was replaced at safety by Taylor Rapp who had lost the starting job to Fuller at the beginning of the season.
Cornerback Quinton Dunbar was a surprise inactive against the Cowboys last week after Pete Carroll indicated he expected him to play when talking to the media on Friday. He was replaced in the starting lineup by last year’s starter Tre Flowers.
DeMarcus Lawrence played on Sunday but was limited to just 41% of the defensive snaps as he battles a knee injury. With Aldon Smith leading the league in sacks and the team having veteran Everson Griffen, expect the coaching staff to ease Lawrence back into the lineup and likely even limit his snaps for the foreseeable future to keep him fresh/healthy. He’s more of a back-end boom/bust DL3 option moving forward.
Mack Wilson returned to the active roster and played 6 snaps. His playing time should ramp up closer to full-time over the next few weeks, so he’s a player to stash in deep IDP leagues or at least keep a close eye on in standard leagues as he will likely be the top tackle producer on the team once back in a full-time role.
Cory Littleton continued to struggle (4-2) last week despite seeing a healthy amount of rush attempts from the Patriots. Littleton is adjusting to a new team/scheme with little to no offseason prep and, more concerningly, there has been a trend of former Rams linebackers seeing a big dip in fantasy production when moving to new teams (e.g. Alec Ogletree, Mark Barron). This said, at this juncture, we need to assume this isn’t a fluke and I’ve downgraded Littleton into the LB3-/LB4+ range.
As many of us eventually expected, the Lions moved Jarrad Davis into a reserve role last week in which he only saw 15 snaps. Jahlani Tavai may receive a slight bump in playing time, but I’m still not overly excited about any Detroit linebacker at this point (outside of perhaps Jamie Collins in big play leagues).
After seeing seeing 83% and 53% of the snaps in Weeks 1 and 2 as the team’s third safety, the Lions seemed to recognize their mistake and put Tracy Walker back into the starting safety position where he was on the field for every snap in Week 3. This translated to great fantasy production (11 total tackles) and puts him firmly back into DB1 consideration. There’s always a chance the Lions change their minds again, but for now, we need to assume he will remain an every down DB1.
Now onto The Guru’s IDP waiver wire selections for Week 4!
Defensive Linemen
DE Jonathan Allen (WAS) – With the abundance of talent along the Washington defensive line, Jonathan Allen had become a bit of a forgotten man despite being a starter for us in fantasy leagues the past couple seasons. However, he’s had a real nice start to the year with stat lines of 1-2-0.5, 4-0-0, and 7-2-1 over the first three weeks and should see a nice uptick in playing time with Matt Ioannidis heading to season-ending IR with a torn bicep. Consider him a DL3+ moving forward.
NOTE: If Montez Sweat is available, I would prioritize him over Allen.
DE Kerry Hyder (SF) – With the season-ending injury to Nick Bosa and Dee Ford struggling with to stay healthy, the team has had to rely on undrafted Kerry Hyder to eat up relatively significant snaps and he’s produced in each of the first three weeks (3-0-1, 3-6-0, 1-1-1). He gets the porous and banged up Eagles offensive line this week which makes him a start in most IDP leagues in Week 4.
DT Jeffery Simmons (TEN) – Simmons is seeing a ton of playing time (top 10 in snaps played among all DLs) and is starting to establish himself as a major disruptive force on the interior of the defensive line. He didn’t do much statistically over his first two weeks, but is coming off his best game of the year last week in which he had 5 total tackles, a sack, and 1 tackle for loss. Simmons is only going to get better as the season wears on, so now is the time to snap him up in DT-required/deeper IDP leagues before the word fully gets out on him.
DE Carl Lawson (CIN) – Although Lawson is technically a backup behind Carlos Dunlap and Sam Hubbard, he’s still seeing a respectable 55% of the defensive snaps and is coming off a 4-4-2, 1 FF game. He’s not someone I’m likely going to start in most standard leagues, but he’s a great option for deeper/dynasty leagues as he could start carving out a bigger role for himself if his strong play continues.
Linebackers
(Previously recommended LBs: Germaine Pratt, Nate Gerry, Jon Bostic, B.J. Goodson, Micah Kiser, Kevin Pierre-Louis, Foyesade Oluokun, Eric Wilson, Kevin Pierre-Louis, Joe Thomas)
ILB Ty Summers (GB) – Heading into Week 3, Summers hadn’t seen any defensive game action. However, that all changed after starting linebacker Christian Kirksey left the game in the first half with a shoulder injury. Summers came in and played every snap as his replacement and was even calling the defensive plays. He managed 9 total tackles (6 solos) on 44 snaps. With Kirksey expected to miss at least one week (if not more), Summers becomes a great short-term waiver wire pickup as he should be able to put up strong LB2 numbers for as long as he remains the starter.
ILB Avery Williamson (NYJ) – IDP managers have been waiting for Williamson to fully recover from his knee injury and get back into the starting lineup in a significant way. Well, that finally happened last week as Williamson saw 95% of the defensive snaps and racked up 9 total tackles. The Jets defense could be on the field more than any other team this year which makes Williamson an appealing fantasy option. He should have a nice tackle floor and bring a little bit of sack upside as well. Of this group, he probably has the most rest of season value and I’d feel comfortable rolling with him as my LB3 in most 10-12 team leagues.
OLB Kyzir White (LAC) – Chargers linebackers have largely been a fantasy wasteland over the last couple years as the team has continually rotated players in the unit, giving little opportunity for any one player to establish himself. However, it seems like the team may be setting more clearly defined roles here this year with White playing every down in back-to-back weeks and rookie Kenneth Murray consistently seeing 80-85% of the defensive snaps. White has averaged 9 total tackles a game over his last two weeks and has done enough for us to trust him as a LB3 moving forward.
OLB K.J. Wright (SEA) – Through the first two weeks of the season, it seemed like Wright’s long run of fantasy relevance may have come to end as he was relegated to a two-down role. However, Bruce Irvin’s season-ending injury has opened the door for Wright to become an every down player again. As we saw against the Cowboys, that led to a big uptick in production (7-3 tackle line). There’s a chance rookie Jordyn Brooks unseats him for subpackage snaps at some point in the season, but he’s dealing with an injury of his own. So for now, I’m approaching Wright as a low-end LB3/high-end LB4 in balanced and tackle-heavy scoring formats.
LB Mykal Walker (ATL) – With Foye Oluokun sidelined with a groin injury, Walker assumed more of an every down role next to Deion Jones. He played well and paced the team with 8 total tackles. He will likely recede back down into a two-down role once Oluokun returns, but dynasty owners should take note that Walker could emerge as the team’s top fantasy linebacker as early as next year and is worth a start this year for as long as Foye is inactive.
(Previously recommended DBs: Marcus Maye, Jeremy Chinn, Adrian Phillips, Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, Josh Jones, Brandon Jones, Logan Ryan, Kenny Vaccaro, Troy Hill, Holton Hill)
DB Logan Ryan/Julian Love (NYG) – The recently-signed Logan Ryan ramped up his playing time to 100% last week and was slotting in as the team’s starting free safety. I would expect the team to still move him around a bit depending on who they are playing, however. Although his 7 total tackles aren’t eye popping, Ryan was a highly productive player for us last year (top 5 fantasy DB across virtually all fantasy formats) and should be able to rack up fantasy points at a DB3+ pace on a team fairly bare with competition. On a related note, Julian Love filled in at strong safety for the injured Jabrill Peppers who left after just 9 snaps with an ankle injury. Love compiled an impressive 10 solo tackles and an assist in that role and should be looked at as a streaming DB3 option for as long as Peppers is out.
S Taylor Rapp (LAR) – Rapp was one of my IDP targets heading into the year. Unfortunately, the Rams threw us all a curveball and started rookie Jordan Fuller at safety over Rapp the first two weeks. However, Fuller suffered a shoulder injury early in Sunday’s game and did not return. This opened the door for Rapp to re-assume the starting safety role and he produced an above average 6-1 tackle line. If Fuller misses any time, Rapp will be a top 30 DB.
CB Mike Hilton (PIT) – I’m admittedly probably a week late in calling out Hilton as a pickup, but if he’s still available, he should be picked up. He’s in a contract year and the team is using him in an aggressive manner (e.g. playing close to LOS, blitzing) and it’s translating to great box score production (19 solos, 2 assists, 1 FR, 1 INT, 3 PDs, 2 sacks). Although he won’t keep his torrid pace, we need to start him until we start seeing a drop off in production.
Last Updated: September 29, 2020