Week 6 IDP Waiver Wire: Pickups & Targets
Some of you play in leagues where all of the listed players are already owned, while some of you play in IDP leagues where only a few IDP players are rostered, so the players listed below might not even be on your radar. If you need specific help, please don't be afraid to reach out. You can jump into our subscriber Discord, find the IDP channel, and tag me with any league-specific questions you may have.
Positionally, they're listed in order of priority based on the information I have at the time of writing, but all of that is subject to change between Monday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon when the week's first injury reports come out.
Bye weeks (and London games) continue this week, with the Chiefs, Rams, Dolphins, and Vikings all on a bye in Week 6.
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Week 6 IDP Waiver Wire
Linebackers
Last week's edition of this column had a lot of linebacker news, and while there's significantly less "new" news this week, I want to spend some time reviewing how those situations played out and what to do moving forward.
Denver Broncos
Cody Barton has played 100% of the snaps in back-to-back weeks since Alex Singleton's injury and should remain in that role, barring an injury himself. Justin Strnad continues to play well alongside Barton, playing roughly 75% of the snaps in the LB2 role that Barton previously held. Strnad has also been productive in his new expanded role, with nine more tackles in Sunday's win against the Raiders. He should be rostered in all but the shallowest of leagues.
DeMarvion Overshown
There were indications that it was coming, but DeMarvion Overshown was a full-time player in Week 5, playing every defensive snap for the Cowboys on Sunday night in Pittsburgh. His speed and athleticism jump off the screen, and he's been an efficient tackler on a per-snap basis all season. Overshown should be rostered in every league.
Carolina Panthers
We'll have to see what Josey Jewell's Week 6 status looks like, but rookie Trevin Wallace stepped into the lead linebacker role for the Panthers last week and posted a monster week, finishing with 15 combined tackles. He'll likely cede the every down role to a healthy Jewell, but there's still a path to Wallace being a viable option during this stretch of the season when byes come into play. It'll be matchup-specific, but there were times earlier this season when both Shaq Thompson and Jewell each played 100% of the snaps, so I think, minimally, we'll see Wallace top the 70% role weekly.
Claudin Cherelus was the LB2 last week, but he played just 65% of the snaps. There's a path to him being a bye-week plug-in this week in deeper leagues if Jewell is out again, but he's unlikely to maintain any value moving forward.
Jacksonville Jaguars
Devin Lloyd returned this week and played his largest share of snaps all season at 97%, which is encouraging for his status moving forward as long as Foye Oluokun is out. Ventrell Miller surprisingly out-snapped Chad Muma and continues to show a higher tackle ceiling, but this is a frustrating situation overall. Neither played topped 60% of the Week 5 snaps, which makes them impossible to trust heading into Week 6. Both players should be rostered in deeper tackle-heavy leagues, but it's a situation to monitor in the short term.
K.J. Britt
The Buccaneers let K.J. Britt cook, even on passing downs, and Britt finished with nine tackles in a tough matchup against the Falcons. The overall play volume helped here quite a bit, but it was encouraging to see Britt approach 94% of the snaps in Week 5. He and Lavonte David were targets for the Falcons passing game, which led to more tackling opportunities, but it's a balancing act. Poor coverage abilities are good for fantasy scoring in the short term because you can tackle the guy who you let catch the ball, but eventually, that gets you taken off the field, which is what Tampa Bay was trying to do with Britt on passing downs prior to SirVocea Dennis's shoulder injury. A spike in sub packages like dime and nickel is still possible with Antoine Winfield Jr.'s pending return, so I'm not penciling Britt in for 90+ % of the snaps every week moving forward.
Mack Wilson
The Cardinals used a single off-ball linebacker (Kyzir White) on the majority of their snaps last season, but we're now at three straight weeks with Mack Wilson hovering around 85% of the snaps. Wilson is producing useful numbers as well, with at least six tackles in each of the starts where he's topped 50% of the snaps. He'll still come out on a lot of clear passing downs, but he's playing over 90% of the early down snaps and is a viable weekly look when the Cardinals are significant underdogs.
Defensive Linemen
Laiatu Latu
The Colts' first-round pick continues to benefit from the cluster injuries along the defensive line in Indianapolis. Latu played around 40% of the snaps in each of the first three weeks, but with injuries to Tyquan Lewis and Kity Paye (along with Samson Ebukam in the preseason), Latu has been called on more frequently. Per Next Gen Stats, Latu leads the Colts in pressures this season (10) despite having logged the fourth-most pass rushes on the team (55). He's played 66% and 74% of the snaps the past two weeks and gets a nice Week 6 matchup against Will Levis and the Titans.
Derick Hall
Uchenna Nwosa returned in Week 5 to play his first snaps of the season, but he injured his thigh and found himself back on injured reserve. Boye Mafe is also struggling with a knee injury, opening the door to an increased role for Hall every week. He has five sacks this season and has shown a decent weekly tackle floor as well. Hall should continue to hover around 70-80% of the weekly snaps, which is borderline elite for an EDGE rusher.
Defensive Backs
Evan Williams
I'll be curious to see what comes of this, but Green Bay safety Evan Williams played every Week 5 snap at safety for the Packers. With Jaire Alexander out of the lineup, Keisean Nixon moved from a primary slot role to more snaps on the outside, while safety Javon Bullard manned the slot, a role he played in college while at the University of Georgia. How this all changes when Alexander returns is the question, but deeper leagues may want to give Evan Williams a look.
Montaric Brown
Montaric Brown continues to pile up elite tackle numbers for an outside cornerback. While I don't trust it'll continue all season long, he's getting targeted frequently enough in the passing game to show a stable floor. Brown has been targeted 35 times this season, tied for the seventh-most in the league, and he also has 12 tackles against the run as well. In deeper leagues that require cornerback-eligible players, Brown is worth a look.
Marte Mapu
I highlighted Jabrill Peppers and Jaylinn Hawkins here last week as beneficiaries of the Kyle Dugger injury, and with Jabrill Peppers's recent arrest, it looks like Marte Mapu might be a name to watch as well. Mapu was a third-round selection out of Sacramento State in 2023, and his unique skill set had folks clamoring for him to get on the field as a rookie. Injuries and the NFL learning curve slowed that down, but he took on the green dot role in place of Dugger last week against the Dolphins, playing every snap, including nearly 60% coming inside the box. I'll be interested to see how this shakes out over the coming weeks, but Mapu is worth a flier in deeper leagues.
