Hey folks! We cannot understate the importance of being in on Week 9 waiver wire players early while the free agency acquisition budget (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; this will help you 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’re already looking ahead to Week 9’s players, so you can be ahead of the game now that we’re back into this full slate with zero teams on bye.

Note: I cannot be held responsible if these players get hurt in Week 8, so please don’t tweet me @ktompkinsii if that happens.

~ Check out our Week 8 Fantasy Football Rankings ~

Week 9 Waiver Wire QB

Drake Maye (QB – NE)

ESPN Rostership (13.9%)

In Drake Maye’s two starts, fantasy managers have gotten two 20+ fantasy performances for those intrepid fantasy managers brave enough to start him. Granted, most did not start him, given his rostership percentages, but we’ve seen the immense upside from Maye when the counting stats haven’t been overly impressive. Maye has 56 rushing yards and five touchdown passes in his two starts and has been a top-10 fantasy QB in both weeks.

I’ve put Maye in this column in the last two weeks, and this probably will be the final time because outside of the streaming options, there are not many quarterbacks out there that have the tools to become fantasy mainstays from now until the end of the season. Maye 100 percent has this skillset to matter in fantasy football, and not enough people realize it.

The Patriots face the Jets, Titans and Bears, which are tough defenses. After that, New England gets three exploitable matchups in the Rams, Dolphins and Colts, where two of those matchups are against teams in the bottom quarter of defensive EPA per play against the pass. The rushing plays in every matchup to build a fantasy floor, but the passing is going to put him over the top. We’ve seen him lift the boats of this New England offense and make it something we can be optimistic about going forward.

If you need a fantasy quarterback with massive upside, Maye is the guy for you if you’re streaming the position or in need of a stopgap that can become your go-to fantasy quarterback.

 

Week 9 Waiver Wire RB

Sean Tucker (RB – TB)

ESPN Rostership (8%)

While Sean Tucker’s welcome could have been worn out a little bit with a somewhat lackluster Week 7, at least compared to his backfield mates, there’s a glimmer of hope for Tucker going into Week 8.

As Rachaad White scored two receiving touchdowns and put up 101 total yards, and Bucky Irving hit paydirt with a rushing score and 71 total yards, Tucker only saw five carries and two targets while taking just 20 percent of snaps compared to White’s 48 percent and Irving’s 35 percent. Let’s not put Tucker out to pasture quite yet, though.

With Irving nursing a toe injury and not practicing on Wednesday or Thursday, Tucker has a good shot to be the running mate to White in their Week 8 NFC South showdown with the Atlanta Falcons. We know the upside Tucker can put forth, and the only reason he is in this spot, to begin with, is due to a heart issue that was out of his hands.

Tucker was taken off some teams’ draft boards entirely because of a heart issue, where some doctors were concerned that Tucker couldn’t play professional football because of it. Eventually, Tucker was cleared and landed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he redshirted his rookie season as White and Chase Edmonds took most of the opportunity in the backfield.

At Syracuse, Tucker was an electric runner, with two 1,000-yard seasons and double-digit touchdowns as a redshirt freshman and a third-year sophomore, averaging 6.1 and 5.1 yards per carry in each season, respectively. College production was there for Tucker, and we’ve seen glimpses of that in the pros just a couple of weeks ago. Tucker should have been drafted as high as a Day 2 pick if not for that heart condition, and we’ve seen excellent collegiate talent slip into the later rounds or not even be drafted at all based on issues like arrests, character concerns, etc. Tucker’s case is not either of those.

Even if Irving is active and playing, the contingent value in this Tampa Bay backfield is immense, so don’t go dropping Tucker yet. Do the opposite and stash him away if you’ve got the room on your roster.

 

Week 9 Waiver Wire WR

Cedric Tillman (WR – CLE)

ESPN Rostership (13.4%)

Cedric Tillman is a very interesting name, as he was around Cleveland as a rookie last year who got a handful of starts at the end of last season and then, with the addition of Jerry Jeudy, found himself as a background player in the pecking order for the Browns. However, with the trade of Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills, Tillman finds himself back in a starting position as their “X” receiver.

He delivered in his first start of the season in Week 7, with 11 targets and eight receptions for 81 yards. Tillman was sixth in the NFL last week in air yards (120) and had a robust 23.9 percent target share, with three quarterbacks throwing him the ball. Deshaun Watson (Achilles’ tear) and Dorian Thompson-Robinson (finger) were injured during the game, and Jameis Winston came in to relieve both.

Winston will get the start here in Week 8 and possibly indefinitely, as that should open some passing volume and aggressiveness that we haven’t seen from the Browns since Joe Flacco took the reins last season. While we can’t expect Winston to have the kind of immediate success that Flacco had, the offensive environment is now potentially pretty fruitful with David Njoku back in full swing, plus Nick Chubb returning last week. A passing game with Njoku at tight end, plus Jeudy, Tillman, and Elijah Moore, could be, at worst, threatening to an opposing defense.

At the end of the day, volume is the name of the game, so if we’re talking about Winston supercharging this offense with passing volume and Tillman being on the field to run 83 percent of routes per dropback that he did last week, that’s something we need to be paying attention to.

For Week 8, Tillman is a volume-based flex option, but you should take a flier on him to see if this trend can continue.

Jalen Tolbert (WR – DAL)

ESPN Rostership (26.6%)

With the Cowboys on a Week 7 bye, there’s a chance Jalen Tolbert may have fallen through the cracks in a number of fantasy leagues. Make no mistake about it: Tolbert is the clear-cut WR2 for the Cowboys, and Brandin Cooks will still be on injured reserve for the next couple of weeks.

Tolbert has run routes on 91 percent of Dak Prescott’s dropbacks with 15 targets, 11 receptions, 130 yards and a touchdown in Weeks 5-6. The role is there, the production is getting there, and in a condensed Cowboys’ target tree, Tolbert has a chance to return a ton of value in a relatively barren passing attack outside of CeeDee Lamb and Jake Ferguson.

What is great about targeting the Cowboys’ passing game is that the targets are pretty condensed in terms of volume to Lamb, Ferguson and Tolbert. Between depth pieces like Jalen Brooks, Kavontae Turpin, Luke Schoonmaker and others, they’ll filter in and out with schemed touches and sporadic targets, but the meat and potatoes of the target tree land with the top-three targets. That trio comprises over half (53.4 percent) of the team’s targets this season, with Tolbert at a healthy 14.7 percent target share.

I’m happy putting Tolbert into my flex spot in most weeks and let’s face it: the game script is not always going to be lopsided like it was against Detroit before their bye.

Week 9 Waiver Wire TE

Jonnu Smith (TE – MIA)

ESPN Rostership (6.4%)

Jonnu Smith has been a difficult name to trust over the last month or so because of the quarterback issues that have plagued the Miami Dolphins and crushed their offensive potential. I mean, if we can’t even trust Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, how can we trust Smith?

Well, even with Snoop Huntley, the Dolphins used Smith in a way we haven’t seen before this season, and he reeled off 96 receiving yards after catching 7-of-7 targets. What was so different in Week 7 versus the previous five weeks?

While Smith had been lacking in snaps as he’s rotated in with blocking tight ends Julian Hill and Durham Smythe, he’s always been the top route runner at the positions. In Week 7, Smith ran a season-high in snaps (49 percent) and was blown by his season-high routes percentage with 81 percent routes per dropback. If this kind of utilization continues now that Tua Tagovailoa is back under center for the Dolphins, we have something here.

The efficiency numbers for Smith are excellent as well, with a 1.92 yards per route run (YPRR) and 22 percent targets per route run (TPRR); both are awesome marks for a tight end, and both mean he’s incredibly efficient with the opportunity he’s been afforded. That falls completely in line with his career spanning back to Tennessee, as he’s always been a very efficient tight end on a per-route basis who can break off a long-yardage reception with YAC ability.

In a quagmire of tight end options that are gross or other names that we’ve gone back to the well with several times, Smith could be an option that can rise through the low-end streamers to become, at worst, a high-end streamer at the position or, at best, a low-end starting option with upside.

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