Week 5 Waiver Wire, Redone: We Listed Players Who Were Already Rostered

This column has been rewritten. The first version recommended players without checking whether anybody could actually add them. Jeremiyah Love, our priority claim last week, is rostered in 98.7 percent of ESPN leagues. Tetairoa McMillan, listed this morning, is at 98.0 percent. That is not waiver advice, it is a list of players having good weeks, and the two are not the same column. Every name below now carries its rostership number.

A waiver column has exactly one job: name players you can actually get. We spent two weeks writing about rising workloads, which is useful analysis, and filing it under a heading that promised something different.

Here is the rebuilt list. Percentages are ESPN rostership. Anything above roughly 50 percent is not a waiver add in a competitive league, however good the player looks.

The priority claim

Brian Robinson Jr., RB, Atlanta. Rostered in 27 percent.

Fifteen combined carries and targets in Week 4 for 25.7 PPR, with a workload line of 9, 13, 10, 15 that has climbed without an injury behind it.

The honest limit: Bijan Robinson is healthy. This is not a takeover, it is the biggest share of a committee that already belonged to someone else, and Bijan is one of the best backs in football. What you are buying is a back who scores in the red zone on a good offense, with a hard ceiling while the starter plays. At 27 percent rostership that is still the best combination of availability and production on the board.

Running back

Keaton Mitchell, Los Angeles Chargers. Rostered in 18 percent. Opportunities by week: 4, 6, 11, 16. The cleanest four week climb available anywhere, and the only one on this list that owes nothing to an injury. 11.3 PPR in Week 4 is unremarkable, which is precisely why he is still free.

Kimani Vidal, Los Angeles Chargers. Rostered in 1 percent. Eight opportunities and 11.6 PPR. Worth naming only to say this: he and Mitchell are in the same backfield. Claiming both is paying twice for one job.

Tight end, where 10 percent rostership buys a starter

Michael Mayer, Las Vegas. Rostered in 12 percent. Ten targets in Week 4 for 16.2 PPR, against 7, 4 and 3 in the first three weeks. Tight end scoring is thin enough that one genuine double digit target game is worth a claim.

Brenton Strange, Jacksonville. Rostered in 17 percent. Eight targets, 16.5 PPR, trend of 3, 2, 5, 8. Same argument as Mayer with a slightly steadier climb.

Oronde Gadsden, Los Angeles Chargers. Rostered in 7 percent. 2, 2, 3, 9. The deepest of the three and the cheapest.

Deep league receiver

Keon Coleman, Buffalo. Rostered in 4 percent. 23.6 PPR on seven opportunities in Week 4. Seven opportunities is not a role, so this is a bet on efficiency continuing, which usually does not. Free, so the bet costs nothing.

Two we nearly recommended and should not have

Checking health as well as rostership caught both of these before they went out in the rebuilt list.

Tank Bigsby showed up as a 15 opportunity back rostered in only 15 percent, which looks like exactly the profile this column wants. He is on injured reserve.

Tyquan Thornton posted 28.1 PPR in Week 4 at 1 percent rostership, the loudest number in the entire dataset. He is listed out.

A workload number with no health check behind it is how you recommend an unavailable player, which is the same category of error as recommending an unavailable-because-rostered one.

What changed in how we do this

Every waiver recommendation from now on carries three things: the workload trend, the rostership percentage, and the injury designation. Missing any one of them produces advice that cannot be acted on.

The analysis in the earlier version was not wrong about the football. Kyle Monangai really did take 31 touches while D'Andre Swift was healthy, and that really is the signature of a role change rather than a fill-in. He is also rostered in 77 percent of leagues, so for most readers that was interesting rather than useful. Those are different things and this column should have known which one it was selling.

Workload figures come from the Week 1 through Week 4 box scores at ESPN. The available-player board is on our waiver wire page, and the method change behind this week's calls is in Tuesday's scorecard.