Waiver Wire Watch

The Week of the Defenses

         This was the slowest week of our new season as far as waiver wire additions go with only 6 pickups.  Of those pickups, half were defenses.  Not much to go on here, but as with last week we will take a look at what the pickups were and how they impacted this last weekends games.

Mike Kelly: Added James Starks – Dropped Lance Dunbar

         This pickup looked like it would be golden with the injury to Eddie Lacy and the fact that James Starks picked up 22 points in his role replacing Lacy.  Mike didn’t play Starks this week, could have used the points, but didn’t need them as he won by 5 with a starting player getting him 0 points.

Dane Barton: Added Marlon Brown – Dropped Vick Ballard

         This was a move by necessity as Vick Ballard got injured and will miss extended time this year.  Marlon Brown dropped off greatly in production from his double digit scoring first two weeks, but Dane didn’t play him and it didn’t matter.

Nick Rose: Added Sam Bradford – Dropped Chris Ivory

         Not sure what the thoughts were here.  As far as dropping Chris Ivory goes it is understandable, but when you play one RB and the two left on your bench are not suitable starters, you need another RB to replace Chris Ivory.  Maybe he is stockpiling assets to make a trade with someone for a legitimate RB.  But we may never know.  Sam Bradford followed up his fast start with a slow week being outscored by Nick’s old starter Russell Wilson.  If Nick had started Wilson he would have beaten the proclaimed Draft Champion sending Jared to a 1-2 start.

And now on to the defenses: 

Dane Looks like he’s stockpiling defenses as he already had the number two defense and picked up the number one defense.  This would be a great move if they were the number one and number two running backs, or wide receivers.  But you can only play one defense.  This will lead to lots of second guessing on which defense to play.  Good luck with your defense selection each Sunday Dane.

Austin continued his defense for defense swap. But this one bit him in the butt as he dropped the Lions Defense and started a defense that scored -2 points.  Not a huge deal considering he lost by 60 points (what I am calling the worst loss in League history, Where’s the ELIAS sports bureau for our league?).  But still, intriguing play by Austin.

Taylor’s dropping Brandon Jacob’s makes sense, he has 6 yards on 10 carries for the season.  But not sure picking up another defense makes sense.  His starters looked stack to be able to play with anyone, but his bench leaves much to be desired.  This could have been a move to bolster his bench with some depth, or to store a potential breakout star.