AI WAIVER WIRE: WEEK 2

The 49ers spent all summer saying they would lighten McCaffrey’s load, and everyone filed it next to "best shape of his life." Then Week 1 happened: Black 15 touches, McCaffrey 15 touches. That is not a handcuff, that is a timeshare with a lottery ticket stapled to it. He is startable in a pinch today, and if the 30-year-old in front of him misses a month, you are holding a top-ten back you paid a quarter of your budget for. This is the one to be aggressive on.

A rookie in his first NFL game drew a quarter of his team’s targets and more than a third of the quarterback’s first reads. That is not a hot hand, that is a depth chart. Miami wants to run the ball and the quarterback play will be an adventure, so the ceiling has a lid on it. But the waiver wire almost never hands you a team’s actual number one receiver, and this week it is.

With Jordyn Tyson on injured reserve, Vele played nine of every ten snaps and ran a route on nine of every ten dropbacks, for a quarterback who threw it 56 times. Nine targets, seven catches, a touchdown. The catch is in the word "inherit": this is Tyson’s job, and Tyson gets it back. I price it as a five-week rental in a pass-happy offense, which is still a very nice rental.

The role is real: he almost never left the field in Philadelphia. The attention is not, yet. Four targets, and half his Week 1 line was one long touchdown. Full-time receivers in good offenses tend to get found eventually, which is the entire bet. Bench him and wait; do not start him and pray.

Eight catches on nine targets and nearly a third of Chicago’s looks, on only 60% of the snaps. That combination usually means a game plan, not a promotion, and game plans change weekly. In full PPR he is worth a small bid on the chance it sticks. In standard leagues, scroll on. I am 40% sure about this one and the price says so.

361 yards, three passing touchdowns and a fourth on the ground. One game is one game, and I have watched this exact player make optimists look foolish before. But a quarterback who can do that even once should not be sitting free in two leagues out of three. If your starter is shaky, this is a cheap second opinion. In superflex, flip the toggle above and watch what happens to the price.

He played a third of Cincinnati’s snaps and still drew a fifth of the targets, because the Bengals do not ask him to block and everyone has agreed not to bring it up. Seven looks, 78 yards, a score. At a position where replacement level is a guy who catches two balls, part-time Gesicki beats most full-time options on your wire.

Eight targets, eight catches, 75 yards in Arizona. He has done this for a decade: a useful month, then a quiet one. Rostered in under 4% of leagues, which makes him this week’s answer for deep PPR leagues with a bye-week hole coming. Nobody has ever won a league because of Kendrick Bourne. Several people have avoided losing a week.

Skattebo is the Giants’ lead back and it is not close. The news is who came next: Singletary, not Tyrone Tracy, with a third of the backfield’s opportunities and four catches. He is a bench stash whose value is entirely somebody else’s hamstring. Those are worth a dollar and a roster spot if you have one. They are not worth two.

A fifth-round rookie who won the backup job by pass-blocking, which is how rookies win jobs on teams that protect a quarterback worth protecting. Ten touches on Monday night behind Kenneth Walker. No standalone value, real value the moment Walker misses time, in an offense that scores. Same price as Singletary, better offense.

A.J. Brown is on injured reserve for six weeks or so, and somebody has to stand where he stood. Hollins ran four routes in the first half of the opener and 22 in the second, after Brown went down. Inheriting a star’s snaps is not inheriting his targets, so keep the bid modest. But a starting receiver for a month costs almost nothing here.

Kyler Murray left Week 1 in the first quarter with a concussion, and Wentz came off the bench to throw three touchdowns on 19 attempts. If Murray does not clear the protocol, Wentz starts against Chicago in an offense built to make a quarterback look competent. That is the whole case. It is a one-week rental that may turn into a zero-week rental by Saturday, so the minimum bid is the correct bid.

Jordan Mason’s fractured thumb sends him to injured reserve for at least four games. Aaron Jones gets the work and Aaron Jones is already on somebody’s roster. Dallas was just promoted from the practice squad and his coach said out loud that his role grows. He played 9% of the snaps in Week 1, so "grows" is doing heavy lifting. Fourteen-team leagues, last bench spot, one dollar.