Your Fantasy Football Championship is never secured during the draft; your draft just builds a foundation that you work on polishing throughout the season. One of the easiest ways to make an impact to your roster is the waiver wire. Every Tuesday during the season I’ll be giving you two players by playmaking position that are currently owned in less than 50% of ESPN leagues. Without further ado, here’s your Week 2 waiver wire pickups.
Quarterbacks:
Tyrod Taylor (37.9%)
Tyrod Taylor had a fantastic Week 1 despite the elements completing 15/39 passes for 197 yards and a TD, he also rushed for 77 yards and a TD. His value comes in his legs, it creates a high fantasy floor with Tyrod, he’s never going to absolutely light it up in the air, but going forward as long as he’s the starter you can bank on him to produce quality fantasy outings. He will go into New Orleans next week to play against a defense that just got absolutely shelled by Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Ryan Fitzpatrick (1.9%) 
This one upset me as a fantasy owner, I’m not going to lie. Going into Week 1 I was confident in my DST pickup in the Saints because they’d be playing a backup QB in Fitzpatrick. Oh, boy was I wrong. 21/28 passing, 417 yards a 4 TD’s later Fitzpatrick put up the QB1 score this week with a whopping 42.3 points. He might not ever do that again, especially against the Eagles in Week 2. However, he will get many opportunities to throw the ball and should be a good streaming option.
Running backs:
T.J Yeldon (8.3%)
With football, we get injuries. Leonard Fournette, unfortunately, went down with a hamstring injury in the Jaguars opener and in his absence, T.J Yeldon stepped up. Yeldon rushed 14 times for 51 yards and caught three of seven targets for 18 yards and a TD in replacement of Fournette. If Fournette is going to miss any extended time, Yeldon is a must have in every format.
Phillip Lindsay (2.4%)
The good thing about fantasy football is you don’t have to be a starter to make an impact, in fact, change of pace backs have a lot of value. It seems like we have a perfect power back/change of pace back combination in Denver with Freeman & Lindsay, thus making Lindsay a must pickup in PPR formats. It’s going to be interesting to see if this was just a one-week thing with Lindsay, but he looks like he could have the same impact Tarik Cohen had with the Bears last year.
Wide Receivers:
Brandon Marshall (5.9%)
Brandon Marshall is so under the radar we had to use a picture from him with the Jets. All joking aside, just like we talked about earlier with Leonard Fournette, waiver wires from week to week will include a lot of injury replacements because the NFL is truly a “next man up” league. Baldwin will likely miss some action with a sprained MCL and that opens up an opportunity for Brandon Marshall who had 3 catches for 46 yards and a TD last week against the Broncos. I truly believe he is Seattle’s best end zone threat and I was already harping on the fact he had value before this injury.
Phillip Dorsett (5.0%)
Phillip Dorsett brought in all 7 of his targets in Week 1 for 66 yards and a TD and has value for the next couple weeks due to Edelman’s suspension, clearly Tom Brady’s favorite wideout in Week 1, expect Dorsett to keep that rapport going with Brady and be a difference maker at least until Edelman is back from suspension.
Tight Ends:
Jared Cook (28.4%)
Easily the biggest no-brainer this week in the waiver wire column. Jared Cook lit up the Rams defense last night in a losing effort. 9 catches for 180 yards as he looks to have a prominent role in the Raiders offense. Cook is a matchup nightmare for defenses across the league and as long as he’s part of the gameplan, he’ll be a good fantasy option going forward in an offense that should find their footing.
Benjamin Watson (35.1%)
Benjamin Watson significantly out-snapped his competition in Week 1 for the Saints and looks to be the guy in New Orleans. Watson brought in 4 catches for 44 yards in Week 1 putting up a TE11 scoreline, going forward, especially with injuries already happening, securing a TE that has the potential to finish in the top 12 every week should be your goal.