The bye week crunch continues with six more teams off in Week 9. These teams are the Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Texans, New England Patriots, and Washington. That means fantasy football owners can’t use Tom Brady this week and will need to find a short-term replacement. Andy Dalton, Carson Palmer, and Kirk Cousins will also be off the table. On the bright side, we won’t have to watch Brock Osweiler for at least one week.
Fantasy football waiver wire: 5 quarterbacks to target for Week 9
With six more teams on bye this week, the waiver wire has some slim pickings at quarterback.
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With so many QBs on bye, the waiver wire doesn’t have a lot of high-upside options. Alex Smith suffered a concussion in last week’s game, but if he misses time, backup Nick Foles isn’t a serious fantasy option. You should look elsewhere in standard leagues. With that said, let’s take a look at the top five QB waiver options, owned in 50 percent or less of Yahoo! leagues.
Carson Wentz, Philadelphia Eagles (41 percent)
Wentz was efficient against the Dallas Cowboys, though he threw for just 202 yards on 43 attempts, a 4.7 YPA average. He’ll have more friendly matchups the next two weeks when he faces the New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons. The Giants’ defense is 22nd in the league in passing yards allowed per game. Wentz will stay on the streaming radar for the near future.
Ryan Tannehill, Miami Dolphins (22 percent)
Tannehill hasn’t been terribly useful in fantasy this season, but he’s been better in recent weeks with Jay Ajayi carrying the offense. Now coming off the bye week, the Dolphins take on a New York Jets team that’s dead last in pass defense and just struggled to stop Josh McCown. Tannehill has an incredibly low ceiling, but he’s in the QB2 discussion with so many teams on bye.
Sam Bradford, Minnesota Vikings (16 percent)
Bradford came back to earth hard in Week 7, throwing his first interception of the year and also losing two fumbles against the Eagles. However, his matchup gets easier in Week 9 when the Vikings host the Detroit Lions, who are a meager 19th in passing yards allowed per game and are prone to wild shootout games. Bradford still isn’t an every-week starter in standard 12-team leagues, but he’s worth a look in two-QB formats.
Tony Romo, Dallas Cowboys (12 percent)
Romo still needs to get cleared from his back injury, and the Cowboys are probably not going to say anything about his status for another week or so. However, Dak Prescott took his bad rookie bumps on Sunday night, completing just 19 of 39 passes and throwing a poor interception. We still don’t know if the Cowboys will actually switch to Romo, but if they do, he’ll go back on the fantasy map in a hurry. He’s only worth a speculative stash in deep 14- and 16-team leagues, though.
Trevor Siemian, Denver Broncos (12 percent)
Siemian has been pretty average the past few weeks and failed to throw a touchdown against the San Diego Chargers’ soft pass defense in Week 8. But he’ll have a chance to put up some nice fantasy numbers this Sunday night, when the Broncos face an Oakland Raiders team that’s 27th in passing yards allowed per game. Siemian is a low-cost investment who could be quite useful during the bye weeks (he also gets thew New Orleans Saints in Week 10).
