Fantasy Football 2021 Week 15 Waiver Wire Pickup Advice

Is your fantasy team in need of new blood? Each week I’ll bring to you the best pickups to make ahead of the waiver deadline. All the players I list will be owned in fewer than 50 percent of leagues, with the roster percentages coming from Yahoo.com

Quarterbacks

Jimmy Garoppolo, 49ers (30% Rostered): Garoppolo limited his turnovers on Sunday and delivered the kind of performance that fantasy managers need from a streaming QB. Jimmy G threw for 296 yards and two touchdowns, his second consecutive game with more than 290 passing yards and multiple TD passes. Expect that trend to continue vs. the Falcons, who entered Week 14 with the NFL’s fourth-worst Pass DVOA per Football Outsiders. If you stream QBs regularly, or need a possible replacement for Lamar Jackson, Garoppolo is my top choice.

Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins (33% Rostered): Tagovailoa is another option I like, although his low-risk approach lowers his ceiling. Tua hasn’t turned the ball over in his last two games, and has thrown multiple TD passes in two of his last three games. He has upcoming matchups vs. the Jets and Saints, and has a RB room racked with Covid, so Miami may actually lean on him to carry the offense.

Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers (22% Rostered): How risky are you willing to be? Roethlisberger has looked awful all season, but last week, despite looking like he was days away from being in a nursing home, he finished with 308 yards and three touchdowns. Big Ben has a ridiculous amount of skill talent surrounding him, an offensive line that makes running the ball efficiently impossible, and decent matchups vs. Tennessee, Kansas City and Cleveland the next three weeks. The floor is low, but he might have the highest ceiling of this group.

Justin Fields, Bears (19% Rostered): Fields is easily the riskiest play in this group, but he’s the only one for whom rushing output is a major factor. Fields had 224 passing yards and two passing touchdowns vs. the Packers, his most impressive display yet as a passer, but his nine rushes for 74 yards were more important. If Chicago makes that a featured part of this offense, Fields becomes a weekly start, especially with Minnesota, Seattle and the Giants on the docket. I’d prefer to have more safety, but if you need to take big swings, Fields can certainly be a home run play.

Running Backs

Rashaad Penny, Seahawks (21% Rostered): Penny finally made it through a game healthy, and showed why he was a first round pick in 2018. Penny took full advantage of Houston’s abysmal run defense and shredded them for 137 yards and two touchdowns. It won’t always be this easy, but he should see the bulk of the work the rest of the season, and he has a Week 17 date vs. Detroit that will loom large for leagues that go that long. It’s been awhile since there was a legit matchup-changing add available at RB, but Penny is a guy to blow all remaining FAAB on.

Justin Jackson, Chargers (2% Rostered): Jackson looks to be next in line if Austin Ekeler’s ankle keeps him out of action, but managers must be wary of Joshua Kelley and Larry Rountree. Jackson is the best playmaker of the bunch and best replicates Ekeler’s skillset, but he’s also proven brittle in the past, and won’t see the same workload Ekeler handles. Still, he can bust big plays, and benefits from Justin Herbert as well as Los Angeles’ loaded skill corps.

D’Ernest Johnson, Browns (13% Rostered): Johnson can be used in deep leagues as a desperation FLEX if Kareem Hunt is out, and he also makes a ton of sense for Nick Chubb managers as playoff insurance.

Wide Receivers

K.J. Osborn, Vikings (38% Rostered): Osborn saw nine targets in Adam Thielen’s absence, and that should continue as long as Thielen remains out. The Vikings are not a pass-happy team, so the floor is low for Osborn, but he also has shown major big play potential, and he’s an afterthought for defenses focused on stopping Dalvin Cook and Justin Jefferson.

Kendrick Bourne, Patriots (31% Rostered): Throw away Bourne’s Week 13 no-show vs. the Bills in a blizzard; he has been Mac Jones’ favorite target of late near the end zone, racking up three touchdowns in two games prior to the Bills debacle. New England doesn’t throw much, and he’ll contend with TE Hunter Henry in these red zone scenarios, but in deeper leagues Bourne is a pretty safe option to not goose you.

Amon-Ra St. Brown, Lions (12% Rostered): St. Brown is scary as hell because of Detroit’s unreliable offense, but he’s become a target hound lately, drawing 12 targets in each of the Lions’ last two games and turning them into 18 receptions, 159 yards and a touchdown. As a PPR option, he’s playable.

Gabriel Davis, Bills (3% Rostered): With Emmanuel Sanders injured, Davis has a chance to be a major addition in an offense that has pretty much abandoned hope of getting any production from its RBs. Stefon Diggs remains the target king, but Davis has scored in back-to-back games, and drew eight targets from Josh Allen vs. the Bucs. He has doughnut potential, but with Sanders out of the mix, that’s very, very unlikely to happen.

Tight Ends

Cole Kmet, Bears (27% Rostered): While Kmet has a tough matchup vs. the Vikings this week, and plays in an offense that doesn’t throw nearly as much as Fields stans would like, if you have an option to roll with in Week 15, Kmet can pay big dividends moving forward vs. the Seahawks and Giants to close the fantasy slate. Kmet is averaging close to eight targets a game across his last three tilts, which are valuable in the right matchups.