Week 3 Waiver Pick-ups

This week's pick ups had a little bit of everything. There were some players dropped due to injury, some for poor performance, and then one kicker swap which I have no way of evaluating. Anyway, here are the ten waiver wire pick-ups from today:

Smokin Blounts N Drinkin Fortes: add James Jones, drop Carson Palmer

This was a move that had to be made by Tom to assure that he would have two healthy receivers to start this week. Smokin Blounts N Drinkin Fortes were taking a big risk by only having two receivers on the team when they dropped Micheal Crabtree last Friday. The risk backfired with AJ Green getting hurt and possibly being out for this week as well. James Jones has put up solid fantasy stats on a horrible Oakland team who just might go 0-16 this year. I used to watch Jones play every Sunday being that I am a Packers fan and I hated that he always used to drop the ball. However, this year he has taken on the new talent of fumbling not just once, but twice on the same play. If that doesn't describe the Oakland Raiders in one play, I don't know what does. Carson Palmer is a good quarterback to have on the bench when healthy, but he has been dealing with a shoulder injury. For now Tom will roll the dice with Cam Newton and no back-up, we'll see how long that lasts.

Team Mustangs: add Travis Kelce, drop Ladarius Green

This is an interesting swap because Green was looked at as a good up and coming tight end after last year, however Kelce is looking like he may take over that role this year. The problem for Green is with the resurgence of Antonio Gates in San Diego, he doesn't get many targets which leads to him only scoring 2 points total so far this year. Kelce put up a decent 8 points last Sunday after a 6 point game week one. This is a case where Kelce isn't going to put up a ton of points (especially since Anthony Fasano takes away targets in the red zone) but at least Alex Smith will target him multiple times during the game. As long as Antonio Gates is around, Phillip Rivers will look his way before he looks at Green. In fact, the Rivers to Gates connection has the most touchdown passes from a certain quarterback to a tight end in NFL history, so there a reason why he is more comfortable throwing his way. The important thing here is that T has Vernon Davis so as long as he plays this week and stay healthy, the back-u[p tight end on the Mustangs will only get a shot to play once this year.

MeAndJulioDown ByTheSchoolYard: add Knile Davis, drop Knowshon Moreno

You make Knowshon sad

First of all I'm glad to see that Louie changed his team name, secondly this player swap has everything to do with injuries. Knile Davis was the back-up for first round selection Jamaal Charles, however Charles hasn't been able to stay on the field in the first couple weeks. It looks like Davis may get the start this week against the middle of the pack run defense of Miami. More importantly it gives Louie a healthy/ not suspended running back to put in the starting lineup with....Rashaad Jennings or Joique Bell, Yuck! The back field options for Louie are not exactly top of the line but its the best he can do after losing 3 backs (Peterson, Tate, Moreno). Moreno had a good week 1 against the Pats after coming off a career year last year with the Broncos. I have no doubts that as soon as Moreno is healthy again, which looks like at least a month away, someone will pick him up.

Rolling Meadows Mustangs: add Bills D/ST, drop Titans D/ST

Defense Swap number 1. The Bills D/ST scored 20 points last week against a Dolphins team that looked dominate against the Patriots in week 1. The 20 point effort was helped in large part by the 102 yard kickoff return by CJ Spiller. This week the Bills play the San Diego Chargers who just took apart the best defense in the league. The Bills also go up against Detroit and New England in the next few weeks as well. I really hope that Zach doesn't use them this week because he may end up highly disappointing. He does have the Rams defense who looked good coming into the year but lost Chris Long for a while and got destroyed by the Vikings. I'm not really sure which defense is better less bad. He dropped the Titans D/ST  who had a big week 1 but didn't do so hot against the Cowboys last week (who, lucky for Zach, the Rams play this weekend) and are heading into Cinncy this week. I'm not really sure if this match-up is any worse than the previous two but what the heck Zach's Mustangs are the defending champs, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

I'm Ball Murray: add Ravens D/ST, drop Redskins D/ST

Defense Swap number 2. Both of these two defenses had huge games last weekend, both putting up at least 15 points. Since John only carries one defense on his team he will obviously be starting the Ravens this week. So looking at the upcoming game for each of these teams, the Ravens have a much more favorable match-up against the Browns. Though the Browns had a solid offensive day last Sunday, it's hard to believe they can sustain it. The Ravens looked sharp last week against division rival Pittsburgh so i think they should be able to shut down the Browns for the most part this Sunday. I'm Ball Murray dropped the Redskins D/ST solely on the fact that they play the Eagles I would imagine. Anytime you see that your defense is going up against either Denver or Philadelphia you should probably make your best effort to find someone else to start. Both those teams are going to put up a ton of points, so picking up a defense whose playing the Browns over the Eagles is always a good idea.

Rolling Meadows Mustangs: add Micheal Crabtree, drop Jermaine Gresham 

The fact that Micheal Crabtree was on the open market is surprising. Tom dropped him last Friday to pick up Matt Asiata now that Adrain Peterson is done for a while. I believe Crabtree is a solid WR2 and definitely a guy Zach could use in the flex spot . Oh wait I forgot, Zach's team is stacked, and it just got even more stacked (seriously look at that team). Well he would be a good back up to have for bye weeks or if somebody gets hurt. Jermaine Gresham was the backup tight end on this team and Zach obviously didn't feel the need to carry one, which is a little surprising since Jordan Cameron's health is in question. Stats wise Gresham has had a bad first two weeks of the season, scoring a total of 3 points. However, AJ Green may be out another week and Tyler Eifert  will be out as well which means Gresham may get more targets this week against the Titans. I would not be surprised to see Zach pick Gresham back up late in the week if Jordan Cameron is ruled out.

Wisconsin ArtcicCats: add Bernard Pierce, drop nobody

Gunnar finally has a full team again, Hurray! Gunnar dropped two players last week and only picked one up leaving a empty spot on his bench, leaving a bench spot empty till now. Picking up Bernard Pierce is interesting because nobody is really sure who is going to get the starting job in Baltimore after the Ray Rice debacle. Last week, it looked like Justin Forsett would be the starter going forward, but in the Thursday night game Pierce end up getting 22 of 30 carries. If Pierce has his job back it will really suck for Tom who dropped Pierce for Forsett thinking that he Forsett would have the starting job. Either way, Gunnar now has another decent running back to in the flex spot of his starting lineup with Marshawn Lynch  and Ahmad Bradshaw, who he picked up last week, manning the running back spots.

Smokin Blounts N Drinkin Fortes: add Khiry Robinson, drop LaGarrette Blount

Thug Life Robinson

Well first of all, Tom is dropping a player who is half of his team name which is a shame. However, the move makes a lot of sense. Robinson looks to get a considerable amount of carries with Mark Ingram out for at least the next month. I'm guessing Tom won't actually start Robinson based on the fact that he has Pierre Thomas, but its not a bad idea to have him on the bench in case something happens to Thomas. The Saints also use a lot of different running backs so Robinson may end up being a better option than Thomas in a couple weeks (ESPN is projecting Robinson to score 4 more points than Thomas this week).  Blount, on the other hand, simply doesn't get any carries. He put up a phenomenal 0 points last week and is projected to get 0 again this week. It looked like Blount would share some of the load with LeVeon Bell but that has not been the case at all. The Doobie Brothers (I did it again) has been a one man dictator ship with LeVeon Bell getting all the carries so far this year.

Smokin Blounts N Drinkin Fortes: add Shayne Graham, drop Ryan Succop

Kicker Swap! I still haven't came up with a great name for this yet but rest assured I'm thinking about it, kind of. Ryan Succop was picked up by Tom for last week and now gets kicked to the curb for Graham. It's easy to see why this move was made. Graham plays for the Saints The Saints play at home against the Vikings. The Saints will put up many points. Therefore, Graham will most likely put up many points too. Succop plays the Dolphins so he may put up decent points too. In all honesty, there is no real scientific process to figuring out what kicker will do better in a certain week, so this move really doesn't help or hurt Tom team right now.

MeAndJulioDown ByTheSchoolYard: add Chiefs D/ST, drop Buccaneers D/ST

Defense swap number 3. The third and final defensive swap is one that comes as a bit of a surprise this early in the season. Coming into the year the Buccaneers were thought have an improved defense with Lovie Smith now taking over as head coach. Instead the defense has been fairly poor the first 2 weeks, against two back-ups quarterbacks I should add, racking up a total of only 5 points. The Chiefs defense, which was awesome last year because of the amount of turnovers they forced, has lost a few key members to injury and has struggled this year too. In fact, the Chiefs D/ST has scored less than the Bucs D/ST through the first two weeks. Since this is Louie's only defense, I'm guessing he switched to the Chiefs based on their match-up this week. The Chiefs have a match-up with the Dolphins which could go either way, but the Bucs have to travel to the Georgia Dome where they will almost certainly be lit up by Matt Ryan and the Falcons. After this week we may be seeing another defensive switch from Louie as the Chiefs play that Patriots in week 4.