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Chip Bayless FEATURED Football Latest 

Top Waiver Wire Pickups: Week 8

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By Chip Bayless (click Howie for more Chip)

 

 

 

1) Brashard Smith

Smith easily profiles as the favorite for the waiver claim of the week, as the Chiefs offense is seemingly back and anyone who gets significant touches in it will be valuable, let alone potentially their starting running back which Smith has the potential to become.

Smith is already the clear favorite on passing downs for the Chiefs as they draw up screens for him seemingly every possession and he has a clear agility and receiving advantage over both Pacheco and Kareem Hunt (who might be injured).

Toss in the fact that Smith also just accrued double-digit carries and has caught three passes in each of his past three games, and it’s easy to see the potential upside in the Chiefs’ young RB.

Additionally, he’s got some sneaky advanced hopium analytics as he leads RBs in receiving success rate so far this year and ranks eighth in the NFL while also ranking fifth in YAC per reception, according to Pro Football Reference.

Smith notched a season-high 35% snap share in Week 7, but that was arguably in large part due to Kareem Hunt getting hurt and finishing with a season low 19% snap share.

Smith is definitely worth a roster spot in PPR leagues due to the offense he plays in and his clear role, but for now fantasy owners should wait at least another week before sending the Brashard bandwagon into full-throttle.

Pacheco is still the clear backfield leader and has led the Chiefs RB room in snap share every single week except for Week 4.

Rostered in less than 3% of leagues, Brashard Smith is merely a bench stash and an incredibly risky flex play at the moment, but one with potential RB2 upside in one of the best offenses in the league so he’s definitely worth a claim.

 

 

2) Oronde Gadsden II

We may have just witnessed Oronde Gadsden’s breakout game as the six-foot four-inch tall rookie sporting a 4.59 forty time went off for 164 yards and a touchdown on just seven catches.

This marked the second-straight week Oronde had garnered at least eight targets and scored at least 11 fantasy points.

He buoys his own fantasy stock with the value he’s desperate to create after the catch, and its worth mentioning he is averaging the 15th-highest YAC per reception in terms of this season’s tight ends.

While half of his receiving production has come in one game, so far among TEs Oronde does rank:

The freakish talent looks like he might be unlocked in this Chargers offense, and he doesn’t appear to have much competition in Los Angeles for TE snaps, and the likes of Tyler Conklin certainly can’t hold a candle to Oronde’s overall athleticism and game-breaking ability.

Catching passes from Justin Herbert in a potent, high-scoring offense, the sky is the limit for the young Chargers’ tight end as he’s put up back to back TE1 performances now.

Oronde’s acceleration and size make him a mismatch against virtually any defender. Those skills also enable him to outproduce his workload and be incredibly efficient, and through seven weeks Oronde’s 14.0 average yards per catch ranks fourth among TEs and 22nd in the NFL.

He also ranks 2nd in yards per target among TEs to only Kincaid, third among TEs in yards per touch, and sits at 11th among 2025 TEs in catch percentage (per Pro Football Reference).

In Week 8, Oronde profiles as a TE1 especially when you factor in all the bye weeks and general inconsistency at the position outside of say Trey McBride and the incomparable Jake Furgeson.

If you are searching for one final metric to satisfy your confirmation bias, look no further than the fact that Oronde leads TEs in average YAC above expectation (sixth across all position groups).

 

 

3) Xavier Legette

Widely drafted late as a potential sleeper but widely dropped by now (available in 3/4 of ESPN leagues), Legette is coming off a double-digit target performance where he caught nine balls for 92 yards and a TD, scoring 24 fantasy points.

As such, much like Brashard Smith, everyone will be trying to claim Legette harder than Republicans try voting against their own self interests.

The Panthers did invest a first round draft pick in Legette just a year ago so you have to figure there are still decision makers and coaches within the Panthers organization who want to see him succeed and accrue targets.

Since the Panthers did suck harder than Doofy’s vacuum cleaner in Scary Movie earlier in the year while Legette played hurt and missed a game, he doesn’t have any particularly impressive season totals.

Legette is a raw but explosive and massive playmaker with a tantalizing talent level (third in the NFL in forced missed or broken tackles per touch), Legette’s hindrances were he played in one of the worst offenses in the league, with one of the worst quarterbacks in the league, with one of the worst target shares in the league.

Now though, the Panthers offense seems at least average instead of woefully inefficient, Bryce Young looks like at least a top-64 NFL QB with potential to develop into the player he was drafted as instead of a draft bust that doesn’t deserve to be in the league, and if Legette gets even half of the targets the he got last game on a weekly basis then he should have weekly flex value in PPR leagues.

His size and his leaping ability makes him an obvious red zone target, and thus far 20% of all of the Panthers targets inside the 20 and inside the 10 have gone to Legette (per Pro Football Reference).

His volume should continue to improve as he has played at least 70% of snaps in every game and is second among Panthers WRs to only Tet McMillan in 2025 snap share.

In Week 8, Legette can be valued as a risky flex or WR3 with WR2 upside, and if his weekly target total is even close to his 11 targets in Week 7 he will have weekly WR2 value with boom/bust low-end WR1 upside.

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