Early Fantasy Football Waiver Wire For Week 4: Spend Up On Ollie Gordon

Week 3 was an absolute bruiser. Some great high-scoring games, but they came at a price with the worst week for injuries so far this season. While it never feels good to see these guys leave games early and potentially miss time over the coming weeks, it definitely makes for the most critical waiver week thus far.

FYI—the following players are ordered by position, NOT the order in which I would attack them on the waiver wire. For detailed breakdowns on priority and pricing for each of these players, make sure to check out the premium version of this article, which drops weekly late Monday evenings. I dive deep into FAAB recommendations in multiple league sizes and formats, including Guillotine Leagues™️.

Without further ado, let’s get right into it:

Early Week 4 Fantasy Football Waiver Wire

Quarterback

Sam Darnold | SEA

Roster: 56%

Sam Darnold made his return to the lineup in Week 3 after leaving early in Week 1 with a hip injury, and he returned with an absolute force. Sure, this was a softer matchup for Darnold - prior to Week 3, Washington ranked 31st in DvP against the QB position—but there’s no denying he looked extremely solid.

In Darnold’s first extended action of 2026:

379 passing yards (2nd among all QBs in Week 3, pending MNF)
3 passing TDs (T-2nd)
0.16 EPA / dropback (10th)
29.7 fantasy points (2nd)

If you’re looking to switch things up at QB, I like Darnold as a weekly streaming option in that high-end QB2 range.

Marcus Mariota | WAS

Roster: 20%

While Darnold will probably be the popular QB add off waivers after Week 3, I think I straight-up just like Marcus Mariota more (and that’s not even considering the fact that he’ll be cheaper).

Mariota has done basically nothing but be rock-solid from a fantasy perspective in any games without Jayden Daniels. In Mariota’s 8 starts in 2025, he averaged 17.4 points per game—putting him squarely in the back-end QB1 conversation, around guys like Joe Burrow and Jaxson Dart.

Washington’s extremely poor defense is setting Mariota up perfectly to be this season’s Jacoby Brissett for as long as Daniels remains sidelined. I don’t think it’s crazy to think about benching a guy like Drake Maye/Justin Herbert for Mariota going forward.

Running Back

Ollie Gordon III | MIA

Roster: 13%

Ollie Gordon is my No. 1 waiver wire pickup in Week 3—full stop. De'Von Achane was ruled out early in this game with what was shaping up to be a serious knee injury with “not a lot of optimism” from the coaching staff. Monday morning, it was announced that he’ll miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL. A moment of silence for one of the league’s most exciting young playmakers, please.

The guy I want to prioritize behind Achane is Ollie Gordon. After Achane left the game, Gordon was the only RB to receive a carry. The counting stats weren’t great. Gordon took 17 carries for 41 yards (2.4 YPC), but he found his way into the end zone, and showed some involvement in the receiving game with 3 catches for 14 yards. He finished with 14.6 expected fantasy points, good for RB18 on the week (pending MNF).

It’s worth noting that Jaylen Wright was inactive this week while dealing with a foot injury, so we didn’t get the full picture of what a potential split could look like going forward. Wright could definitely be involved, but we have a pretty solid sample of him being largely ineffective at the NFL level at this point. On the flip side, Gordon is a second-year back with a super interesting collegiate production profile:

Gordon was an early declare prospect out of OSU, and he showed true bell cow potential with a 2,000-scrimmage-yard sophomore season where he averaged nearly 27 fantasy points per game.

The simple truth is, there are only 1-2 times a season where there’s a bell cow handcuff RB available on the waivers after a season-long injury pops up in front of them. And it’s especially uncommon for the handcuff to have the type of profile we see out of Gordon.

Even though the offense isn’t the best, I want to bet on Gordon to continue consolidating the work in this backfield going forward. I’d plan on unloading a large portion of your FAAB on him this week.

Braelon Allen | NYJ

Roster: 52%

Another fantasy star leaving Week 3 early with an injury was Breece Hall. He left late in the fourth quarter after being tackled oddly out of bounds, and it’s reportedly sounding like a thigh/quad injury. While severity is currently unknown, it sounds like the expectation is he’ll miss some time. This means it’s time to learn Braelon Allen in the NYJ backfield.

Allen was the only RB outside of Hall to receive a carry in Week 3. I don’t expect that to be the case over a full game without Hall - Isaiah Davis will definitely work in on passing downs - but Allen will definitely receive a majority of the carries including the redzone usage. He’s a strong pickup in week 3, with potential to become even stronger if we hear negative news on Breece’s timeline.

Tyler Goodson | DAL

Roster: <1%

If you’ve been reading my articles or watching my content from the last couple weeks of the offseason, you’ll remember how hard I was pushing you to draft/pick up Malik Davis in your leagues. He was looking like the true handcuff to Javonte Williams—that is, until he had a serious hip injury that put him on season-ending IR.

Tyler Goodson is essentially just Malik Davis 2.0. Over the first couple weeks, we’d seen a bit of an ugly mix of Emari Demercado and Hunter Luebke behind Javonte, but in Week 3 it was firmly Goodson’s role. Demercado was a healthy scratch, and Goodson was the only RB outside of Javonte to see a carry out of the backfield (6 carries for Goodson, 19 for Javonte).

Goodson needs to be rostered as one of the stronger handcuff options in fantasy going forward. You shouldn’t need to bid much here, just make sure you prioritize him as a stash on your rosters.

Wide Receiver

Malik Washington | MIA

Roster: 51%

I am once again writing to inform you that you need to prioritize Malik Washington off the waiver wire. I wrote up Washington as a WR I was higher on than consensus going into Week 3, and he did not disappoint:

86% of routes
10 tgt (31.2% tgt%) (WR9)
5 receptions, 52 yards, 0 TDs

Washington’s boxscore was good but not great, putting up 11.1 PPR points—good for WR33. Maybe that doesn’t sound that great. But there’s more …

Washington put up 20.1 expected fantasy points, which puts him as the WR7 in Week 3. He is clearly Willis’ favorite target, and if he’s still on waivers in your league, he needs to be picked up. I’d feel comfortable getting Washington into my lineups in that low-end WR3 range on a weekly basis (especially in PPR leagues).

Ted Hurst | TB

Roster: 26%

Full transparency: there really isn’t another WR past Malik Washington that I’m getting super excited to add off the waiver wire after Week 3—this week feels much stronger at other positions.

That being said, I do think Ted Hurst is an intriguing stash. Jalen McMillan, who dealt with knee injuries all offseason and was ruled out of this game with a reaggravation, is Hurst’s main competition for deep targets in this Tampa Bay offense. Hurst had a fun prospect profile coming into the league as a rookie this season, and the opportunity is enticing.

That being said, we did see Baker Mayfield leave this game early with a dislocated thumb injury to his throwing hand—I’d expect him to miss some time, meaning we’ll be seeing UDFA QB out of Kansas Jalon Daniels get extensive reps over the coming weeks.

It’s hard to get super excited about what we can expect in this TB offense in the near-term, so I wouldn’t break the bank on Hurst, but I do think he could be a sharp low-cost pickup.

Tight End

Kenyon Sadiq | NYJ

Roster: 52%

If I were going to make the case for anyone to be prioritized over Ollie Gordon on the waiver wire in week 3, it would absolutely be rookie first-round TE Kenyon Sadiq. With Adonai Mitchell sidelined due to a hand injury in week 3, we saw Sadiq’s breakout in full effect:

26 routes (59.1%)
4.04 YPRR (1st among all TEs pending MNF)
0.308 TPRR (3rd)
23.5 fantasy points (5th)

Sadiq entered the league in 2026 as a 95th percentile TE in my model’s history (going back to 2014), which put him in awesome company from a fantasy perspective.

After seeing what Sadiq was able to do when faced with increased opportunity in Week 3, he’ll firmly enter the TE1 conversation on a weekly basis going forward. I’ve mentioned in prior articles that early rookie breakouts are some of my favorite waiver wire additions to bid aggressively on, and Kenyon Sadiq fits that mold 100%.

AJ Barner | SEA

Roster: 35%

Not quite as exciting as Sadiq, but AJ Barner sneakily put up an awesome Week 3 performance with Darnold back at the helm. He was second on the team in targets with 9 (behind only Jaxon Smith-Njigba with 13), and finished with 5 receptions for 69 yards.

Barner was also tied for the second-most routes run on the team with 36, and had some pretty solid per-route metrics:

0.25 TPRR (TE9)
1.92 YPRR (TE9)

While he finished with only 11.9 PPR points—good for TE13 pending MNF—he had a whopping 20.7 expected fantasy points, putting him as the TE2 on the week behind only Brock Bowers.

I’m not going out of my way to blow the bankroll on Barner, but I think he’s nearing that back-end TE1 conversation given the usage we’ve seen so far this season.