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Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Pickups, Week 4: Who To Add, Who To Drop

by Scott Engel | 5:15 pm, September 25th, 2012

We’ve enlisted the help of a man who knows his fantasy, RotoExperts.com’s managing director Scott Engel, an inaugural member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association’s Hall of Fame, to identify the players you should add — and the ones you should drop — each week. Follow his advice, and you should be golden.

It never seems to get any easier in any week. Now there are more injuries, and the beginning of the bye weeks, and more reason than ever to shore up on waiver wire pickups. Here’s this week’s moves to make.

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1.Add Bilal Powell, RB, New York Jets

You have to trust us. Last week we recommended Ryan Williams and Golden Tate as adds. We keep you ahead of the competition. If you come here every week, you get guys on your roster ahead of time before they become obvious pickups and everyone scrambles for them. Now it’s time to add Powell. Shonn Greene can’t get into the end zone and a retired Mo Vaughn may be more elusive. Powell is the Jets’ starting RB.

2.Add Jackie Battle, RB, Chargers

You can never have too much RB depth, and Battle could be ready to help your team at any time. Battle is emerging as the prime handcuff to Ryan Mathews. That’s like being next on a waiting list for Jacksonville Jaguars tickets. You know you are going to get the call. Mathews is brittle and unreliable, and while we never like to see anyone get hurt, Mathews has a better chance than most. When he goes down again, Battle is going to be the guy who steps forward, not that pathetic retread Ronnie Brown or the mediocre Curtis Brinkley.

3.Cut Peyton Hillis, RB, Chiefs

It looks like the Browns wore him out in his career season of 2010. Hillis was a major bust in 2011 and while we were hoping for a rebound to part-time respectability this year, Hillis has been invisible early on and now is dealing with yet another injury, this one to his ankle. Jamaal Charles still needs a partner to give him some breathers, but Shaun Draughn is now heavily threatening to move into that role while Charles has also showed he can dominate the workload.

4.Cut Isaac Redman and Jonathan Dwyer, Steelers RBs

These guys have turned out to be wasted draft picks unless they surprise us all with a late-season surge. We were right about Redman, who showed us he cannot handle an expanded workload. But we were wrong about Dwyer, who we thought would seize the opportunity. Rashard Mendenhall may actually be able to return after Pittsburgh’s Week 4 bye. The Steelers also started giving carries to some dude named Baron Batch in Week 4. That’s a heck of a cool name, but not one you expected to be hearing when the Steelers ran the ball last week.

5.Add Brandon Myers, TE, Raiders

The Oakland WR crew is getting besieged by injuries. Carson Palmer is going to keep throwing the ball anyway. Myers is quickly becoming a very dependable target for the veteran passer. Myers catches just about everything thrown to him. Soon, he is going to start drawing a lot more Fantasy attention, grab him now before he starts looking sexier to your league mates.

6.Add Ramses Barden, WR, Giants

You may have already planned to do this. But if you are a Hakeem Nicks owner, we implore you to push even harder. Trade for the No. 1 waiver pick or bid aggressively in free agency. Barden is a clear handcuff, and he’s not a running back. If Nicks goes down again, Barden has proven he can step in and start effectively. In the meantime, he may emerge as the next viable No. 3 WR for the Giants. And we all thought he was a slow, big guy until last week. He’s not Kendrick Perkins in a football helmet, as we suspected.

7.Add T.Y. Hilton, WR, Colts

He signaled his NFL arrival with 113 yards and a TD in Week 3. The Week 4 bye should make him an easier add, as there may be less competition for his services. Some Fantasy owners prefer the immediate help and may not believe in Hilton yet. Andrew Luck took an instant liking to Hilton in the preseason and he has rediscovered his fellow rookie now, after Hilton returned from a shoulder injury.

8.Cut Kendall Wright, WR, Titans

Wright has a future as with the Titans, but is just not going to help your Fantasy team any time soon. The Tennessee passing game is going to go through some rough periods with young Jake Locker at QB, and even when they are going well, Wright will be far from reliable. He is behind Nate Washington, Kenny Britt and Jared cook in the WR pecking order in Tennessee.

9.Cut Robert Meachem, WR, Chargers

We wanted to hold onto him, because Philip Rivers needed receiving targets, and he was acquired to plug a hole when Vincent Jackson left. You may revisit Meachem later, but for now, he is wasting roster space. The Chargers need a No. 2 WR to step forward and Meachem has shrunk instead of taking advantage of a prime chance to play a significant role for a quality QB. Come to think of it, he rarely stood up to be counted when injuries became an issue in New Orleans in his past tenure there.

10.Add Christian Ponder, QB, Vikings

Lots of Fantasy owners are dealing with QB issues, but we have the solution, a young man playing in Minnesota. Ponder signaled his arrival as a respectable NFL passer by throwing for two TDs and rushing for another against the mighty 49ers defense. If you are rolling with guys named Cutler or Schaub (big week, but he will be unreliable overall) you should bolster your QB position with Ponder. He at least may be better than your current backup, that’s for sure.

11.Add Nick Foles, QB, Eagles

Michael Vick is getting absolutely pounded by opposing defenders. He is getting heavily exposed as an erratic pocket passer, and the Eagles drafted Foles because he is what Vick is not – no rap sheet, a quality pocket passer, and a solid game manager. Vick is going to either get hurt or lose his job soon. Foles could be more impressive than your average rookie QB, so stash him now if you can.

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