FANTASY FOOTBALL ADD/DROPS

Week 14 working the waiver wire: Playoff time

Week 14 working the waiver wire: Playoff time
The Texans defense has a nice matchup against the Broncos. Photo by Getty Images.

For many leagues the playoffs have already arrived. This means that it might be easier to add free agents with many teams already done for the season. Keep in mind the owner % mentioned is for 10-team standard ESPN PPR leagues. Some of these players below are good for the short-term, while others have more long-term value. You have to make the call on what your team needs. Immediate help to start this week, or a player to stash on your bench and hope he breaks out soon. Let's get started!

QB

Mike Nowak/Chargers team site

Ryan Tannehill: He plays the Raiders this week, so the matchup doesn't get much better. I like him a lot better than the other options this week. Owned in 23% of leagues.

Jared Goff is coming off a great game, but his matchup against the Seahawks concerns me. Only two teams have been tougher against QBs over the last 4 weeks. Owned in 58% of leagues.

Sam Darnold: Darnold was running for his life last week, and even a great matchup against Miami is a little scary. Owned in 33% of leagues.

Philip Rivers: Proceed with caution! Rivers could get benched during his game against the Jags, and that's the last thing you want this time of year. Owned in 43% of leagues.

RB

Photo by Getty Images.

Rahaad Penny: He's owned in just 41% of 10-team leagues and scored twice this week. He's in a time-share so it's hard to know when he'll have a big game. He plays the Rams this week, which is a below-average matchup. Owned in 41% of leagues.

Bo Scarbrough: He's had at least 14 rushing attempts for 3 straight weeks and had 21 rushing attempts against the Bears on Thanksgiving. You have to love his workload. He gets the Vikings this week who are the 8th best matchup for RBs over the last 4 weeks. Rostered in 46% of leagues.

Derius Guice: He looked great this week, but you still have to deal with Adrian Peterson getting touches. He's out there in about 50% of leagues.

Alexander Mattison: If Dalvin Cook is out with the shoulder injury, Mattison could be a league winner. Cook says he intends to play this week though.

Duke Johnson: He had a great game against the Patriots, but his usage is so inconsistent. 2 weeks ago against Indy he had only 6 touches. Owned in 58% of leagues and get the Broncos this week.

WR

Robbie Anderson: He's had 2 great games in a row and gets the Dolphins this week. Pick him up. He's rostered in 48% of leagues.

James Washington: He's been awesome in 3 of his last 4 games. He's only rostered in 23% of leagues and has a great matchup against the Cardinals.

Darius Slayton and Sterling Shepard: It's hard to know which guy to start but if you're desperate, you can give one of them a shot. Shepard has the better pedigree.

TE

Kyle Rudolph: I've been saying it for weeks, add him! He has 6 TDs over his last 6 games.

Jack Doyle: He just had a huge week, so pick him up if you need a TE. He's available in 50% of leagues and plays the lowly Bucs this week.

Ryan Griffin: He gets the Dolphins this week and has been pretty decent if you're desperate. He's available in 75% of leagues.


DEF

If you need some help on defense, the Texans and Vikings have decent matchups.

Be sure to check out my show MoneyLine with Jerry Bo on ESPN 97.5FM. We're on every Sunday morning from 10-noon, and we'll talk a lot of fantasy football and NFL gambling getting you ready for kickoff every Sunday.

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Gerrit Cole and Hunter Brown share the same agent now. Composite Getty Image.

There's no denying that this year's World Series champs (LA Dodgers) have some serious firepower on their roster. And one of the ways they were able to assemble such a talented team involved players like Shohei Ohtani being willing to differ their money.

Just this week, there was some speculation that the Yankees could do something similar when restructuring Gerrit Cole's contract, that would allow them more flexibility in the present.

The Yankees ended up calling Cole's bluff about opting out, and no adjustment was made to the contract.

But this situation got us thinking, would the Astros consider a tactic like this to maximize the roster? At this point, it doesn't seem all that likely. Just last year, the team handed out a $95 million contract to Josh Hader, without any differed money.

The other factor that also has to come into play is the tax threshold. The organization would have to give the okay to go over it again in order to make a splash signing this offseason. Which unfortunately does not sound like the plan right now when listening to GM Dana Brown at the Winter Meetings.

Astros pitcher hires a new agent

Now that MLB free agency is in full swing, most of the attention moving forward will be focused on players like Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, and Juan Soto.

But for Astros fans, there might be someone else to keep an eye on this offseason and next. Starting pitcher Hunter Brown quietly hired super agent Scott Boras recently.

With Brown still another season away from his first year of arbitration, he should be with the Astros for the foreseeable future.

However, the hiring of Boras does raise some interesting questions. Why make the move now? Certainly, Brown could use some more cash, as he's set to make less than a million in 2025.

Perhaps Brown wants to land some HEB commercials to fatten his wallet. And if Bregman does leave the team in free agency, a spot will open up for another player, in theory. And three of the players in the HEB ads are represented by Boras (Jose Altuve, Lance McCullers Jr. and Bregman).

Jeremy Pena has been stacking cash from Taquerias Arandas for several years now, maybe Brown would like an opportunity to do an endorsement similar to that.

I say all this half kidding, but Brown does look like the future ace of this staff, and I'm sure there are plenty of advertisers that would have interest in Hunter.

There is another element that could have initiated the hiring of Boras. Would Brown be willing to sign an extension early with the Astros similar to the deal the team made with Cristian Javier?

Their situations are actually pretty comparable, except Javier was one year further into his career (3 years of MLB service time) and eligible for arbitration before agreeing to the extension.

If Brown was heading into arbitration this offseason, it wouldn't be surprising at all for the Astros to be considering a long-term deal with him that buys up all his arbitration years. The 'Stros love these types of contract extensions. We've seen them do it with Bregman, the aforementioned Javier, and others.

One of the main differences though between Brown and Javier is their rookie year numbers. Brown only pitched 20.1 innings in his first season (2022). While Javier pitched 54.1 innings his rookie year. However, his rookie season was in 2020, so Javier completed a full year of service time despite the shortened season. Whereas Brown didn't get called up until September 2022.

Another difference is performance. Javier never posted an ERA over 3.55 in his first three seasons. As opposed to Brown, who had a disastrous year in 2023. He made 29 starts, recording an ERA over 5.

It wasn't until May of 2024 that Brown started using his two-seam fastball with great success and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League.

The Astros had a bigger sample size to judge Javier. However, if Brown has another quality season in 2025, Houston and Brown should definitely be having conversations about an extension. Especially with Framber Valdez being in the final year of his contract in 2025. Hunter could be the unquestioned ace one year from now.

Still, though, there are some concerns with handing out these early extensions. For example, if the Astros had it to do over again, would they still extend Javier?

After receiving his extension before the 2023 season, he went on to post the highest ERA of his career (4.56), and then blew out his elbow in May 2024.

And if we're going by Luis Garcia's recovery timeline from Tommy John surgery, we may not see Javier pitch at all in 2025.

So even with a sample size of three terrific seasons, the Javier extension looks like a miss with the benefit of hindsight. It will be interesting to see if that deal impacts Dana Brown's decision-making going forward.

Especially since Javier was Dana's first big contract extension as the Astros GM.

Be sure to watch the video as we discuss how the Astros can get the most out of their roster, the pros and cons of signing Hunter Brown early, and much more!

*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo discuss varied Astros topics. The post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon. Find all via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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