Fantasy football waiver wire: Best quarterbacks available in Week 5

In some ways, Week 4 felt like the turning point of the fantasy football season. A handful of major injuries could have season-altering ramifications, and it’s also the last week every team played before the bye weeks start. The challenges are just starting for fantasy owners, and the waiver wire will be more important than ever during this middle stretch of the year.

The quarterback position was hit hard on Sunday, when Marcus Mariota and Derek Carr went down with injuries. Carr had back spasms and is tentatively hoping to return in Week 5, but Mariota’s status is uncertain until he has an MRI on his hamstring injury. There are also the bye teams (Denver Broncos, Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints, Washington) to account for. Matt Ryan, Drew Brees, and Kirk Cousins won’t be available this week, so fantasy owners have to find a short-term replacement for their QB1s.

With so much turnover at the position, here are the top quarterbacks on the wire, owned in 50 percent or less of Yahoo! standard leagues.

After a miserable two games to start the season, Dalton has settled down to become the high-floor QB2 he normally is. He had his best game yet in Week 4, throwing for 286 yards and four touchdowns on 25-of-30 passing. He hasn’t thrown an interception since the four-pick outing in Week 1. Dalton is still hard to trust week-to-week, but he’ll be a passable streamer throughout the bye weeks.

Against all odds, the Bills are 3-1 and first place in the AFC East. Their defense is a big part of that, but Taylor has done his part by avoiding turnovers, with only one interception this season. However, his passing volume is still as low as ever — he only threw for 182 yards in Sunday’s win over the Atlanta Falcons. Taylor has yet to reach 225 yards in a game this year and will continue being a low-ceiling streamer against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Watson followed up his near-winning effort against the New England Patriots by beating down the Tennessee Titans, scoring five total touchdowns (four passing, one rushing) in a massive rout. Getting better every week and more comfortable in the offense, Watson has taken the reigns and looks like the franchise QB the Texans have spent over a decade looking for. He won’t have that kind of blowup performance every week, but Watson is on the QB2 radar from here on out. He’ll have his biggest challenge yet when he faces the Kansas City Chiefs this week.

Brissett wasn’t great on Sunday night, committing both a pick-six and fumble-six while throwing for just 154 yards in a blowout loss to the Seattle Seahawks. But he did have to play the Legion of Boom on the road, so Brissett probably deserves a mulligan for that. He’ll have a much easier matchup with the San Francisco 49ers this week, and with all the byes and injured quarterbacks, Brissett deserves some streaming consideration.