Fantasy Football Week 4: 5 to waiver wire add, 5 to drop, 5 to buy low, 5 to sell high 2025

• Add Luther Burden III: Burden posted a 100-yard game, which could be a sign of an increased role going forward.
  
• Drop Kaleb Johnson: While a rookie wide receiver can be second or third on the depth chart and be fantasy-relevant, it’s much harder for a running back who is a clear third on their team’s depth chart.
  
• Unlock your edge with PFF+: Access Premium Stats, dominate fantasy with in-season tools and projections and make smarter bets with the new PFF Player Prop Tool.

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

This piece is a fantasy manager's one-stop shop for managing their fantasy roster early in the week. For more players to add, check out the weekly waiver wire, and for more on this past week's games in general, check out the fantasy football recap.

5 players to add

1. RB Chris Rodriguez Jr., Washington Commanders

Three Commanders running backs played between 15 and 23 offensive snaps in Week 3.

The team placed Austin Ekeler on injured reserve on Monday due to a season-ending torn Achilles tendon. Chris Rodriguez Jr. was a healthy inactive in each of the first two weeks but was active this week. The Commanders had used Ekeler as the third-down back and primary running back on their first two drives of games, while Jacory Croskey-Merritt took over as the primary running back the rest of the way..

Many expected a larger role out of Croskey-Merritt, but that wasn’t the case against the Las Vegas Raiders. Rodriguez took Ekeler’s role as the early-down back to start the game and was the primary backup over the rest of the game. Rodriguez handled every snap on the first two drives. For whatever reason, the Commanders haven’t used Croskey-Merritt on the first two drives of any game. Like every other week, Croskey-Merritt took the majority of early-down snaps for the rest of the contest. Rodriguez should be a waiver-wire target this week after running the ball 11 times. However, as long as Croskey-Merritt and Rodriguez are splitting the early-down role, it will be hard to trust either in fantasy starting lineups.

We can expect Croskey-Merritt to see more playing time as the season progresses, which means less playing time for Rodriguez. However, Rodriguez has some of the highest odds among the waiver-wire running backs to see double-digit carries in any given week in the short run.

2. WR Luther Burden III, Chicago Bears