AI WAIVER WIRE: WEEK 3

Adonai Mitchell is drawing nearly a quarter of the Jets’ targets and is rostered in one league in six. Twelve targets on Sunday, six catches, 63 yards, and the usage is the same story both weeks: on the field for four routes out of five, first read on a third of the throws. Geno Smith is not going to make him a star, and the Jets are not going to make him famous. But a team’s actual number one target at 17% rostered is the rarest thing on this page. This is the one to be aggressive on.

Denzel Boston has a touchdown in both games and the fifth-highest snap rate of any receiver in football. That second part is the reason to bid: 93% of the snaps, a fifth of the targets, and the first read on nearly three throws in ten. Five catches for 95 and a score on Sunday. The Browns’ quarterback play caps the ceiling, and Cleveland caps the ceiling, and yet a full-time receiver who scores keeps scoring. He costs less than Mitchell because more people already own him.

Emanuel Wilson ran it 21 times for 92 yards after Jadarian Price left with a chest injury, and Sleeper’s entire user base noticed at once. He is the most-added player in the country this morning and was rostered in half a percent of leagues last night. Here is the catch: Price’s X-rays were negative and the coach sounded relieved, so this could be a one-week job. In a Seattle offense that gave its backs 34 carries in a blowout, a one-week job is still worth a bid. Do not bid like it is a season.

Jonah Coleman got nearly half of Denver’s backfield touches with RJ Harvey out and turned them into a touchdown, three catches and 58 yards. J.K. Dobbins got the other half and finished the day on the injury report himself. A rookie splitting a good offense’s carries is a flex play; a rookie with the split and an injury ahead of him is a flex play with a door behind it. Two weeks of value if Harvey’s hamstring behaves, more if Dobbins’ foot does not.

Terrance Ferguson gets targeted on more than three of every four routes he runs, which is a tight end number I had to check twice. Nine targets Monday night with Puka Nacua out, six catches, 54 yards, a touchdown, and 29% of the Rams’ targets in that game. The honest part: he was a part-time player before Nacua sat, so some of this goes away when Nacua comes back. The other honest part: at a position where your alternative catches two balls a week, part of this is plenty.

Bryce Young has thrown three touchdowns in each of his two games and is still sitting free in two leagues out of three. 361 yards and four scores in the opener, 287 and three on Sunday. I priced him at 50% certainty last week and said I had watched this player make optimists look foolish; he has now made me look cautious, which is worse. Superflex leagues should already have him. One-quarterback leagues with a shaky starter: this is the cheapest upgrade on the page.

Tank Bigsby got 13 carries and a touchdown while Saquon Barkley stood on the sideline in a neck roll. Barkley came back, played 12 snaps, and is having an MRI to be sure; the team does not think it is serious. So this is a handcuff, priced like one. The receipt matters, though: when the Eagles needed a back on Sunday it was Bigsby, not Will Shipley, and that is the question a handcuff has to answer before you spend a dollar on him. He answered it.

Rashod Bateman had nine targets, seven catches, 88 yards and a touchdown with Zay Flowers out, and was Lamar Jackson’s first read on almost half his throws. Then the coach said Flowers has a good shot to play this week, and the price fell by two-thirds. What survives Flowers’ return is real: Bateman plays 85% of the snaps and runs a route on nine dropbacks in ten, the second receiver in an offense that scores. A second receiver in Baltimore is a bench piece with a ceiling, and the wire has worse.

Tre Tucker had five catches for 119 yards and a touchdown on Sunday, and Brock Bowers is likely to make his season debut this week. Both of those sentences are true and the second one sets the price. Tucker has been the Raiders’ first read on nearly a quarter of their throws through two games because the best tight end in football was on the sideline with a trimmed meniscus. Some of that survives Bowers; the 119 does not. A deep-league bench receiver, bid accordingly.

Xavier Hutchinson is Houston’s full-time receiver until Nico Collins’ hamstring says otherwise, and the team says that is one more week. Nine targets on Sunday. He only caught three of them for 37 yards, which is why the price is modest. But he ran a route on 84% of the dropbacks with C.J. Stroud throwing for 353, and volume like that in a passing offense is worth a small bid for one week, maybe two. Then Collins comes back and you drop him, and that is fine.

Tyler Shough threw for 410 yards in Week 1, ran one in on Sunday, and is rostered in exactly half of leagues. The Saints throw it a lot because they trail a lot, which is bad for New Orleans and good for you. Two picks in the opener, none since. He is the same tier as Young with a little less certainty and a little more volume. Superflex: yes. One-quarterback: only if you need one.

Darren Waller scored twice on Sunday on three targets, which is the kind of line that gets a tight end added in ten thousand leagues on Monday and dropped in nine thousand of them by October. The usage says part-time player: under half the routes, one target in fifteen. The touchdowns say the Panthers throw to him in the red zone. If your tight end is a hole, he is a one-week patch in a Carolina offense that has quietly scored plenty. Do not pay for the two touchdowns.

Keon Coleman caught all six of his targets for 63 yards after DJ Moore hurt his shoulder, and the Bills say Moore has a chance to play this week. That is the whole price: a coin flip on one week of a real role in Josh Allen’s offense. When Moore was off the field Coleman took his snaps, his first reads and his slot, and did not drop a ball. Rostered in under 2% of leagues. If Moore practices Wednesday you have lost nothing; if he does not, you have a flex.

Tyquan Thornton caught four passes for 86 yards in Kansas City on Sunday after one target the week before, and he is rostered in under 1% of leagues. That is a deep-league lottery ticket in the best offense a lottery ticket can live in. He is fast, he is the third receiver, and Mahomes throws to whoever is open; some weeks that is him. I am 35% sure about any of this, and the price says so. Fourteen-team leagues, last bench spot, minimum bid.

Marcus Mariota starts for Washington this week and possibly for a while, because Jayden Daniels dislocated his elbow and nobody will say when he is back. Mariota is a rushing quarterback in an offense that was built for one, and the floor from his legs is the case. 111 yards and a touchdown in relief on Sunday. Superflex leagues should grab him now; one-quarterback leagues can stream him when the matchup fits. The price is the minimum because the job is a week at a time until someone in Washington says otherwise.

Kirk Cousins has thrown three touchdowns in both of his games for the Raiders, plus three interceptions, and Brock Bowers is about to come back to catch some of the former. 253 yards on Sunday. He is a streamer, not a starter, and he is rostered in 3% of leagues, which is about right. Superflex managers with a bye problem, here is your bye problem solved for a dollar.