5 deep waiver wire adds who’ll win you a fantasy championship

First off, if you’re playing a meaningful game this week, congrats. It takes a lot of hard work, patience and focus—and just a smiddiging of luck—to make it through an entire fantasy season and manage to come out with a chance to win it all. Especially in an injury-riddled season like the one we’re currently trudging through. Cheers to whoever dealt with zero injuries this year. Man, what a beautiful season that would’ve been.

Being that it’s Wednesday, it’s likely your waiver wires are already picked pretty clean, leaving those in need of a last minute add with not much to choose from. Never fear, it is for this exact purpose that I am here.

I come bearing the gift of five players who are owned in under 20% of ESPN leagues and all of whom have the potential to give you a standout performance in Week 16.

Good luck.

RB Mike Gillislee (20.5 percent owned)

Ok, so slightly cheating here with my first guy, but 0.5 of a percent is totally within the self established rules. Plus, Gillislee’s matchup is impossible to ignore.

With Rex Burkhead set to miss Week 16 with a knee injury, I would not be surprised to see the red zone duties turned over to Gillislee. Don’t forget, he had that gig back in Week 1 and scored three touchdowns off of it. To add a cherry atop this already delicious sunday, no defense has given up more touchdowns on the ground than the Bills (19).

Gillislee also used to play for Buffalo soooo, revenge game? (Though I’m not entirely sure if I’d consider leaving a bad team for one of the best teams in the NFL cause for a revenge game. Those I traditionally reserve for players who were more actively pushed out of their organization. Like if Brock Lobster were to play the Texans or Eli Manning when he plays the Giants next year as the starting quarterback for the Jaguars. Now that’ll be a revenge game.)

RB Wayne Gallman (8.4 percent owned)

For the second straight week, Gallman led the Giants’ backfield in touches and it seems New York is starting to trust the rookie back with more of the workload. It makes sense given that Gallman is a part of the Giants’ future while Orleans Darkwa is a free agent at the end of this year. You know what you got in Darkwa, let’s see what you got in Gallman.

Gallman doesn’t draw the best matchup here as the Cardinals’ run defense has been pretty stout this season and is seventh in ESPN against running backs. However, Gallman has been very productive in the passing game and that could be a strategy New York looks to implement to get him his touches against a tough Cardinals’ front.

WR Keelan Cole (19 percent owned)

Really Keelan Cole should have been on everyone’s rosters after his Week 14 breakout game against the Seahawks so that we all could have benefited from his Week 15 game. But clearly, given that he’s still under 20% owned, not a lot of people jumped on the Cole train after one game of solid production.

Welp, it’s now been two weeks in a row and that is what we like to call a trend people. In the last two weeks, Cole has caught 10 balls on 12 targets for a whopping 285 yards and two touchdowns. This week he and the Jaguars are facing a 49ers’ defense who have given up a wide receiver touchdown every game but two this season. My spidey senses are telling me the Cole train will keep moving this weekend.

WR Damiere Byrd (0.4 percent owned)

Remember when Cole had a big game and no one added him so no one could take advantage of his second big game? Byrd just had his big game. Don’t miss out on his second one.

While Byrd might be more famous right now for his butt cheeks than his actual receiving ability, you can’t argue against a receiver coming off a two touchdown performance. Especially when he’s about to face the Buccaneers and their 32nd ranked defense against opposing wide receivers. With both Devin Funchess and Russell Shepard banged up, I’d expect Byrd to build upon his strong Week 15 performance and continue to be a big play threat for the Panthers this week.

TE Garrett Celek (5.2 percent owned)

Celek has gone over 60 yards receiving and caught a touchdown in back-to-back games now. Celek and the surging 49ers face their toughest test as they take on the Jaguars and their vaunted defense. However, Jimmy Garoppolo has to throw somewhere and you can bet he’ll only want to target Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye so much this game. I could see a fair number of targets going Celek’s way especially as the Jaguars are average at covering tight ends.