Good morning, friends and enemies. Welcome into the week 16 waiver wire, the semifinals of your

fantasy playoffs. Kind of an interesting one. Not going to lie, there's some moving parts around.

There's some injuries that we need to make clear before we know who the hits, who the bangers are.

But for right now, you know, I think there's some gold on the waiver wire if you play your cards right.

And we're going to go through each of the positions, all the trending players, talk through my thoughts on these thoughts and then go through the trending down players, guys that I think you can officially drop for the season. All right. Let's start with the running back position because I think that is the most interesting position of the week for the waiver wire. You have Michael

Carter atop there, who I would say is probably my number one waiver wire pickup of the week

at the running back position, given the fact that Zonovan Knight has sprained his ankle. Troy

Benson is out for the year. James Connor's out for the year. Zonovan Knight got hurt very

early on in Sunday's game against Houston, and it led to Michael Carter playing on nearly

80% of the snaps in this one, took all the early down work, got a lot of pass catching work as

well, and Michael Carter is going to end up feeling that role. The one wrench kind of thrown in here

is that Amari DiMarcato did come back from a high ankle sprain for the first time in week 15,

and I do think he will likely take that like pure pass catching role when he's a little bit healthier, which obviously as the weeks progress, he will become healthier and healthier. They've got a great schedule at Lannon, Cincinnati. And I think Michael Carter, as the lead back for those two games, can be someone who scores, you know, one or two touchdowns over the next two

weeks. He's also just a good versatile back. If you all remember watching him at UNC, he was a really,

a really good runner and pass catcher along with Jvante Williams there when they were both there together.

So I think he's versatile. I think he could be used in all facets of the game. And I think he will

likely be their lead runner in the way that Zonovan Knight

had kind of been for the last few weeks. So in the same vein, where now it's all condensed to Michael

Carter and Amarro DiMarcato, and this is assuming Zonovan Knight is out for the remainder of the season, because I think he probably will be based on reports that we've heard. I think Michael Carter will be like a top, you know, 25 to 30 running back where he's not a must start, but I think you

could definitely do worse if you're in a pinch, especially in PPR league. So I like Michael

Carter a lot this week. Jacori Croskey Morrette, only owned in 42% of leagues. He had a big game because Chris Rodriguez kind of randomly got ruled out, ended up going 18 for 96 on the ground, a touchdown. A lot of that had to do with the fact they were playing against the New York Giants.

Obviously split work with Jeremy McNichols. One thing I will say about Chris Rodriguez, he missed the game of the groin. He was a D&P on Wednesday, but did get limited practices in on both Thursday and Friday. And as far as I'm concerned, he didn't suffer like a setback over the weekend or pregame warmups or anything like that. So it does feel like he's probably trending to get back for the game against Philadelphia, who have been kind of a subpar defensive team against the run when Jalen Carter is not playing, which I don't think I expect him to play in Week 16, but we'll have to keep an eye on that. When Chris Rodriguez is back, this is just going to be a very, very muddled backfield again. I just don't think they are planning on giving anyone just all the work here. You know, even when Chris Rodriguez kind of like was the starter, it was still like 12 carries to five for him, five for McNacle. So it's messy. I'd pick up JCM just in case. He should be owned just in case Chris Rodriguez misses another game. He'll be a flex option for you, but not overly optimistic about it. Mlake Davis, just a high in handcuff to Javante Williams. The New Orleans backfield is a little bit interesting here as well because Devin Neal leaves the game with a hamstring injury and that likely means he's going to miss at least one game, if not the remainder of the fantasy season. They get the Jets at home next week, which is a juicy matchup.

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