Welcome to week 9 of last-minute moves to make. This article is intended to give you late-week waiver and free-agent advice based on late-week news and gameday inactives. Injuries and other late-week developments can have a huge impact on lines and rosters, and being up-to-date on these, especially before waivers and free agency locks before kickoff, is a huge advantage.
Stash Tony Jones
Emari Demercado will miss week 9, leaving the Arizona Cardinals down to their third-string starter Keontay Ingram. This will elevate journeyman Tony Jones to the injury-away role. Starter James Conner is eligible to return in week 10, but his return is not guaranteed. Jones could find himself in a spot start or a continued injury-away role, depending on how the backfield unfolds in the coming weeks.
Scrub Your Roster
This is a critical time of the season to maximize every roster spot. With half the season gone and a bye week gauntlet upcoming before the fantasy playoffs, make sure your roster is optimized.
First, monitor bye weeks. Kansas City, Miami, Philadelphia, and the Rams all have week 10 byes. If you are looking for a roster spot, these are good teams to look for depth players to cut. If you are not starting them this week, you will also not play them in week 10, meaning you rostered them for 33% of the remaining regular season fantasy games. If the player is one injury away from relevance, you may need to wait another week post-bye, meaning the player is 50% of the regular season without lineup value. If you are competing for a playoff spot, you cannot afford this.
Second, evaluate your teams for roster fodder. Players are roster fodder if you do not see a scenario when you would feel comfortable putting them in your lineup and do not see a scenario where they are a valuable piece in a trade package. With this late time in the season, you should be extremely selective about your roster spots and make narrow definitions of these players. If you have a player you do not think can change your team’s trajectory, cut them for a player who could.
Stash a Quarterback
There are multiple quarterback changes this week. Jimmy Garoppolo was benched after the team fired head coach Josh McDaniels, and the team will move forward with Aidan O’Connell. With Mathew Stafford injured, the Rams are turning toward Brett Rypien, with Stafford’s return timeline a major question. Neither project as high-level fantasy options, but neither did Brock Purdy at this time last year. In premium formats, make sure you are taking a speculative addition with your freshly opened roster spot you created by cutting roster fodder.