Staying active on the waiver wire is an important way for season-long fantasy owners to improve their teams and get an edge on the competition. Shifts in opportunities for players due to injuries or performance cause value spikes that owners can take advantage of to fill in roster holes to build a championship lineup.
Each week, we will discuss waiver wire targets at each position to consider for both the week ahead and the rest of the fantasy season.
Week 9 Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Adds
* Current roster % in home leagues is noted in parentheses (from Sleeper)
Bo Nix, QB (Denver Broncos) (35%)
The Broncos rookie quarterback has quietly put together strong last month of the season. Bo Nix has three top-10 fantasy quarterback finishes in the last four weeks and currently sits 10th at the position for the season.
He has seven touchdown passes and two rushing scores over his last four games, even with zero of those touchdowns coming in a 33-10 win over the Saints in Week 7, where he was not needed to produce in a rout. After throwing the ball to the other team twice in each of his first two games, Nix has just one interception in his last 184 pass attempts.
The Broncos are choosing to throw the ball in the red zone, with Nix completing eight of his 10 red zone pass attempts against the Panthers last Sunday for three touchdowns. Normally, a date with the Ravens in Baltimore would spell trouble for opposing quarterbacks, but the Ravens have allowed the second-most fantasy points to passers on the season.
Looking for more fantasy football content? Make sure to check out Sean Koerner’s and Chris Raybon’s weekly fantasy football rankings by subscribing to FantasyLabs’ 2024 fantasy football kit to see how other waiver wire candidates look this week.
Isaac Guerendo, RB (San Francisco 49ers) (9%)
Without a lot of obvious running back waiver wire adds this week, fantasy owners may want to consider grabbing Isaac Guerendo and stashing him to see how the backfield shakes out in San Francisco after their bye week. It’s possible that Christian McCaffrey could return for their Week 10 game at Tampa Bay, but that is not a certainty and Jordan Mason has been sidelined off and on the last few weeks with a shoulder injury.
Guerendo saw 18 touches last week after Mason exited the game and tallied 85 rushing yards on 14 carries with a touchdown. He is averaging 6.1 yards per carry on the season and has caught four of his five targets.
The creativity of Kyle Shanahan’s offense creates intriguing fantasy opportunities for whoever is the lead back. Tampa Bay and Seattle, San Francisco’s next two opponents after the bye week, are in the bottom-10 in fantasy points allowed to running backs. Guerendo may be dropped quickly if McCaffrey comes back, but this could also be the last chance to pick up a valuable fantasy piece.
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Cedric Tillman, WR (Cleveland Browns) (24%)
After the shake-up in the Cleveland offense following the Deshaun Watson injury and Amari Cooper trade, second-year wideout Cedric Tillman earned the largest uptick in targets from Jameis Winston. He broke out with a career-high 99 yards on seven catches last week, adding two touchdowns.
Tillman set a career-high with eight catches on 12 targets for 81 yards in Week 7 to give him more receptions (15) in the last two weeks than the amount of receiving yards (9) he amassed in the first six weeks of the season. His two scoring catches against Baltimore were the first touchdowns of his young career.
With a 25% target share in Week 7 and a 22% mark in Week 8, Tillman should see enough work to stay fantasy-viable as long as Winston is at the helm. The former Buccaneers and Saints quarterback threw 41 times against the Ravens and tallied 334 passing yards. Watson failed to top 200 passing yards in any game in 2024 prior to his injury.
Zach Ertz, TE (Washington Commanders) (40%)
Look, adding Zach Ertz to a fantasy lineup is nowhere near as sexy in 2024 as it may have been in 2016, but he’s still getting it done in a high-scoring Commanders offense with rookie phenom Jayden Daniels. He set a season-high with 11 targets and seven catches against Chicago and turned that into 77 receiving yards.
Ertz is no longer a flashy play and comes with limited upside, but his consistency makes him a decent bye-week replacement or low-end starting option. He has at least four catches in each of the last three games and has turned those catches into decent yardage totals with at least 10 yards per catch in each game.
The Commanders had scored at least 20 points in every game this season until the Bears game last Sunday, but Ertz has only found the end zone once. If he can notch a few more red zone targets, his opportunities could move him up toward the mid-end of starters at the position.
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Washington Commanders, D/ST (21%)
Washington hired Dan Quinn as head coach to improve a defense that finished dead last in fantasy points scored last season. Through eight weeks, the Commanders’ defense is 18th in fantasy points scored and has two top-5 fantasy results in the last four weeks.
The Commanders have a juicy matchup against Daniel Jones and the New York Giants. New York is 31st in running back fantasy points and dead last at tight end. Malik Nabers has landed them in the top half of the NFL for wide receiver fantasy scoring, but the rest of the offense is severely lacking playmaking ability. Add in an awful offensive line, and the Commanders are in a great spot for fantasy scoring in Week 9.
