10 Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Targets Heading Into Week 8

Alfred Blue

ESPN Ownership: 19%
Yahoo Ownership: 15%

Another day, another awful injury to one of my favorite players in the league in Arian Foster. Foster has gone down a number of times for short stretches in his career, and the last two seasons he's been spelled by Alfred Blue. Blue was decidedly non-electric last season when given the opportunity, compiling a pretty awful -0.13 Rushing NEP per rush, good for 38th out of the 43 running backs who toted the rock more than 100 times last season.

But sometimes good football and good fantasy football are incongruent. And Bill O'Brien hasn't shown any hesitation to get Blue the rock when Foster's been out in the past, having actually fed him more than 30 carries twice in his career while spelling Foster.

Blue's -0.05 Rushing NEP per rush, while still not good, is decidedly better than the mark he put up last season. And his primary competition in the backfield in Chris Polk has the same Rushing NEP per rush as he does. And even though their work has been limited this season, Blue's not-very-good 0.30 Reception NEP per target also bests Polk's 0.10 Reception NEP per target this season, suggesting that Blue could end up on the field for passing down plays as well if that performance gap continues.

Blue is likely to get the first shot at leading the team in carries, but if you add him and have even more dead weight on your bench, consider adding Polk, owned in 1% of ESPN leagues, as a hedge as well.