Week 5 Fantasy Football Waiver Wire: Players To Cut From Your Fantasy Team

One of the toughest decisions a fantasy owner has to make is to know when the time has come to cut an underperforming player. Heading into Week 5 of the fantasy football season, most of us have at least one player on our roster that was highly ranked during the preseason and who has failed to live up to expectations. 

Sometimes it a favorite sleeper that we refuse to give up on or a guy who delivered big time for us in the past and we hang on to the hope that he might do it again with a little more time. While it’s not easy to decide when to drop certain players, you have to make the hard decisions or you won’t give yourself the best chance to win.

With a quarter of the regular season behind us, we’ve looked at the numbers, the situations, and the to-date results.

The Bruno Boys are ready to help you make the difficult decisions.  Here are our recommendations for players that no longer deserve roster spots on your fantasy football team.

Alex Smith (San Francisco 49ers)

Smith stepped in for an ineffective Shaun Hill in Week 7 of the 2009 season and threw three touchdowns in the second half of the game.  He finished with 18 touchdowns over 11 games and played well enough to land on many a fantasy experts’ radar screens as a potential sleeper in 2010 or at the very least a solid QB2. 

Four games into the season and the Niners are off to their worst start since 2004. The offense is in shambles. Smith’s passer rating is 66.1, lower than his career rating of 68.9. He’s thrown three touchdowns and seven interceptions, including two interceptions that led to Atlanta Falcons’ field goals and was also charged with a costly intentional grounding penalty during Sunday’s 16-14 loss.  Aside from his solid performance against the New Orleans Saints, Smith has been inconsistent and erratic under center.

Sunday’s loss brought Smith’s career record as a starter to 16-28. Smith is playing for his job and he knows it that can spark desperation. Smith is one “situation” that you don’t need on your fantasy team.

Darren Sproles (San Diego Chargers)

When the San Diego Chargers drafted Ryan Mathews to succeed LaDainian Tomlinson as the team’s feature back, we expected that the diminutive situational back Sproles would play a big enough role on the offense to merit a roster spot or even a starter at the flex spot. That’s not happening.

The emergence of third-year back Mike Tolbert makes Sproles the odd man out in the Chargers’ backfield. Sproles carried the ball six times for 17 yards in Week 4’s win over the Arizona Cardinals, bringing his four-game total to 16 carries and 70 yards. He added another 70 yards on punt returns, but unless you’re in a league that counts return yardage, Sproles isn’t getting enough touches to be on your roster in standard leagues. 

If you’re in a PPR league, Sproles is barely doing enough as a receiver out of the backfield to justify hanging on to him a little longer. We wouldn’t blame you if you cut Sproles loose in all formats–the value just isn’t there.

To see who else you should cut from your team go here... Week 5 Cut Them Loose