Fantasy Football: Week 12's second-wave of pickups might be better than the first

On Tuesday morning, when you launched your league homepage to scope out this week’s lineup decisions, you probably recognized the terrible predicament NFL schedule-makers created for us.‌

Six different teams are on bye this week, none of which are irrelevant in fantasy. We will be without our Falcons, Bills, Bengals, Saints, Jets and Jaguars.

Put another way: We are missing the overall QB2, QB4, RB3, RB4, RB6, RB8, RB14, WR1, WR4, WR5, WR9, WR10, WR21, TE6 and TE7, among other useful pieces. Just an absolute fantasy nightmare.

It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. But who are we to tell the NFL how to handle its business? Our role is simply to help you manage around the chaos.

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Whenever one of these mega-byes arrives — and another is ahead of us in Week 14, just so you know — it’s important to remember that amid the messiness, we can also find opportunity. Every active manager in your league placed multiple waiver claims this week, which of course means everyone in your league was dropping players. We happen to be in one of those weeks in which the second-wave of pickups might actually be better than the first.

Here’s a partial list of players who took a significant roster-percentage hit in Yahoo leagues when waivers ran overnight on Tuesday, each of them dropped by over 3,000 managers:

Kirk Cousins

Aaron Rodgers

Russell Wilson (ahead of a beatable matchup on TNF)

Sam Darnold

Keenan Allen

Jaylen Waddle 👀

Cedric Tillman (the week’s most obviously bad drop decision)

Darnell Mooney

Rico Dowdle

Travis Etienne Jr. (OK, this one brought sweet relief to the dropper)

Tank Bigsby

Jonathon Brooks (ahead of his regular-season debut!)

Tyler Allgeier

Jordan Mason

Raheem Mostert

Ray Davis

T.J. Hockenson (no idea what this is about)

Dalton Kincaid

Jake Ferguson

Kyle Pitts

Evan Engram

Tucker Kraft

Detroit Lions D/ST (they get Indy this week and still have both Bears games remaining)

So, yeah, it’s a pretty great week to dumpster dive. Every name above is either playable or stashable, depending on your league’s specific format. We just mass-dropped most of the premium backup running backs and almost 50% of the preseason top-12 tight ends.‌

If you haven’t made a regular habit of reviewing the mid-week drops … well, it’s certainly not too late to start. There’s never been a better time, in fact. When trade deadlines are behind us, often the best way to fill a roster need is by sifting through other people’s fantasy trash.