Hey folks! We cannot understate the importance of being in on Week 3 waiver wire players early while the FAAB price is cheapest (or free!), so you can add them to your roster. This is not just for adding them to your roster so your league mates don’t get them first but also so you can build a strong roster that has depth and can provide some additional cover from the chaos of the NFL season.

As we know, nothing goes exactly to plan in the NFL, so we want you to be as prepared as possible to weather the uncertain storm of injuries, role changes, scheme changes, and any other general chaos that can happen in a given NFL season.

I’m Kevin Tompkins, and while I may not have drafted a running back ever, I have picked up quite a few in my day as a noted Zero-RB guy; luckily, it won’t just be the running back position I’ll be helping you all with this season.

Each week, I’ll provide five players as look-ahead players for the next week, who could be THE waiver wire claims for the following week. But they won’t be available in your league because you already have them. We may be just one week and a Thursday Night Football game into the 2024 NFL season, but we’re already looking ahead to Week 3’s players.

Note: If these players get hurt in Week 2, I cannot be held responsible, so please don’t tweet me @ktompkinsii if that happens.

Quarterback

Derek Carr (QB – NO)

ESPN Rostership (8.8%)

Last week was the best possible Week 1 matchup for the Saints as they got one of the worst teams in the NFL, the Carolina Panthers, at home. While Carr had just 23 pass attempts, he threw three touchdown passes and finished as fantasy football’s QB6 in Week 1. But sure, we’ve seen Carr be pretty good one week and miserable the next. Lather, rinse, repeat. There’s a hidden element for Carr and the Saints that could completely change the Saints’ outlook on the passing game this season.

Enter Klint Kubiak.

With the Saints now running their offense in the modern day, Carr has a new lease on life with some solid weapons that should boost the fantasy output of Carr and those weapons. Add in first-round pick Taliese Fuaga, the best offensive lineman in Week 1 that wasn’t named Joe Alt, and this offense could be a sneaky offense that jumps into being one of the top offenses in the NFL. We’ve only known the offenses of Sean Payton and Pete Carmichael with the Saints for almost two decades, but Kubiak’s approach has been a breath of fresh air in, admittedly, a small sample.

With Carr finishing first in completion percentage over expected (CPOE) and fifth in fantasy points per dropback, things are looking up for Carr and this offense. He has some solid matchups looming,  making Carr a solid quarterback option in an upgraded offense with a realistic ceiling each week. With some quarterback injuries rocking the NFL like Jordan Love and Tua Tagvailoa, Carr is a solid failsafe option that can get you through weeks, and if this scheme change continues bearing fruit, it will win you weeks.

Running Back

Marshawn Lloyd (RB – GB)

ESPN Rostership (18.6%)

While the fantasy future of the Packers has dwindled since Jordan Love‘s last Friday night in Brazil, Lloyd’s fantasy value has stayed pretty stagnant. Once the Packers cut their roster to 53, the team not putting Lloyd on injured reserve to start the season was incredibly bullish for his health. The Packers placed AJ Dillon on season-ending IR, and Lloyd had the inside track to the RB2 job in Green Bay. Unfortunately, a costly hamstring injury put Lloyd’s Week 1 in doubt, and the Packers brought up Emanuel Wilson to take the Packers’ RB2 job behind starter Josh Jacobs.

Rostering and stashing Lloyd is a bet against Jacobs, who hasn’t shown any kind of efficiency since his amazing 2022 season. There’s a reason the Packers drafted Lloyd in the third round this past April in the NFL Draft, and the Packers are not historically inclined to give Jacobs the workhorse role with other options available. No Packers running back has had over 240 carries since Eddie Lacy in 2014, well before the Matt LaFleur era, so adding a high-upside stash running back in Lloyd is a low-risk, high-reward bet on standalone role at worst and a massively contingent bet at best if something happens to Jacobs.

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Wide Receiver

Adonai Mitchell (WR – IND)

ESPN Rostership (28.6%)

Somebody who should no doubt make Josh Hermsmeyer’s Air Yards Buy-Low Model for Week 2 is Adonai Mitchell. The fantasy community would be falling all over themselves to pick up Mitchell if he even caught just ONE of the missed touchdowns from Anthony Richardson in the Colts’ game against the Texans. Mitchell had two chances for a deep touchdown, which is not reflected in typical box scores in fantasy football. This represents a rare buying opportunity for a second-round rookie in an offense that will air it out and produce explosive plays.

While your league mates may gloss over Mitchell because he doesn’t have the immediate production, Mitchell is certainly a better add at this point than Alec Pierce, who went for 125 yards and a touchdown last week. Ashton Dulin even scored a touchdown, but before last week, he hadn’t played in an NFL game since the 2022 season. While the Colts may not have a ton of pass attempts per game, they make the ones they do have count. Mitchell finished second on the team in Week 1 with five first-read targets, so there’s no doubt he will be counted on far more than Pierce or Dulin.

If your league mates are sleeping at the wheel or only want to see guaranteed production and Mitchell is still available, go get him and reap the benefits in the coming weeks with what looks like one of the more explosive offenses in the NFL.

Wan’Dale Robinson (WR – NYG)

ESPN Rostership (15.4%)

When you see the Giants’ fantasy options, you immediately think of Malik Nabers. He’s going to be a superstar in the NFL, whether it’s with Daniel Jones at quarterback or anybody else who comes in after him. But somebody has to be the next option when things get tough for Jones, and Robinson has been just that. With a solid rookie season that saw Robinson post a 1.76 yards per route run (YPRR) and a 24% targets per route run (TPRR), he’s been a mostly unheralded option for the Giants over the last couple of seasons.

When Robinson is on the field, he just earns targets. In Week 1, with just 74% routes per dropback, Robinson earned 11 targets and put up a six-catch, 44-yard effort. 30% TPRR is incredible, even though the average depth of target of 5.3 yards was pretty short. Still, for PPR leagues, targets are targets, so who are we to complain?

There aren’t a lot of target earners on the Giants besides Nabers, so Robinson has a solid chance of PPR scamming his way to 100-plus targets. Those players should be snapped up because they will have an amazing floor while chipping in some upside for fantasy managers. If the 11 targets weren’t good enough for a manager to pick them up on waivers this week, grab him before he goes back to waivers right away.

Tight End

Greg Dulcich (TE – DEN)

ESPN Rostership (3.8%)

As a tight end with some of the most beautiful hair you’ll ever find, Dulcich has had a weird career. His first career NFL game was Week 6 in 2022 on Monday Night Football, where Dulcich caught the first touchdown pass of his career. He would begin his career with three straight fantasy finishes in the top 12, and we were ready to strap the rocket and ride this supernova to fantasy stardom.

(What, was it just me?)

Well after 2022, Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett was fired, and Sean Payton came in, installing his cadre of former New Orleans Saints players, including Adam Trautman and Lucas Krull. Dulcich would only play two games in 2023, but hope would be a bit renewed in 2024.

While Dulcich only scored 3.2 fantasy points on two targets for 12 yards, Dulcich’s snaps expanded well past Trautman’s, last season’s starter at the position. Earning 71% of snaps, that’s a great launching point for Dulcich, who in 2022 had a massive 12.7-yard aDOT. Those high-aDOT tight ends are the ones that break games in fantasy football, like Darren Waller, Mark Andrews, Kyle Pitts and a host of others. He also routinely sees over half of his positioning in the slot, with percentages of 58% and 54% utilization in the last two seasons.

He’s essentially free right now and not very in demand, so grabbing a talent like Dulcich with a young quarterback like Bo Nix, who is getting his feet wet with the speed of the NFL, is a savvy move that could pay dividends at a thin position if you don’t have an elite tight end. This profile jumps up into the first few rounds of fantasy drafts, and you can get in on the ground floor right now before waivers. Go grab him if you have the room on your bench.

Kevin Tompkins is a contributor to Optimus Fantasy Football. Find more from Kevin on X (formerly Twitter) @ktompkinsii and right here on Optimus Fantasy.