Week 7 Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Waiver Adds: Tez Johnson, Kendrick Bourne and More

In what seems to be one of the themes of the season, Week 6 saw another crop of top fantasy receivers go down with injury.

Puka Nacua, Emeka Egbuka, and Garrett Wilson are all looking highly questionable for at least Week 7. If your team relied on one of those wideouts or you just need wide receiver help in general, look no further. Here are the top fantasy football wide receiver pickups heading into Week 7. 

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Wan'Dale Robinson, New York Giants (47.3% Rostered)

At this point, Robinson might have featured in more than half of these weekly waiver articles. And yet, the half-PPR WR22 is still available in over half of leagues. Hopefully, his big performance in primetime as the Giants upset their division rivals will finally change that.

Robinson caught six of seven targets for 84 yards and a touchdown on Thursday night, good for 17.4 fantasy points. His 6.1-yard ADOT was still relatively low, but he showed once again that simply consistently earning targets comes with more of a ceiling than you might think. 

For the season, Robinson has a 21% target share on an 83% route participation rate in the Giants' offense. Over the last three weeks (with Malik Nabers either mostly or entirely absent), those numbers are 22% and 91%. Especially with Jaxson Dart bringing new life to New York's offense, Robinson should be rostered in all leagues.

Kayshon Boutte, New England Patriots (6.1% Rostered)

Boutte exploded for 23.8 points on Sunday, catching all five of his targets for 93 yards and two touchdowns. However, this was just his second time above 10 half-PPR points for the season, as well as his first time above six points since Week 2. 

The third-year WR does lead all Patriots receivers in route participation rate for the season, but he is still at just 68%. His 12% target share is nothing inspiring, either. His 27% air yards share is better, but it points to the fact that he is playing a traditional X role; this kind of usage lends itself to boom/bust fantasy production.

With this in mind, what makes Boutte intriguing as a deep-league option doesn't actually have much to do with him. Instead, it has everything to do with the fact that Drake Maye seems to be ascending as a potentially elite quarterback. If you have to play a classic boom/bust deep threat, you want it to be the one attached to a quarterback like Maye suddenly appears to be. On his current usage, Boutte will never be a consistent weekly option, but this shouldn't be his last big game of the season.  

Kendrick Bourne, San Francisco 49ers (24% Rostered)

Here is the list of players with over 140 receiving yards in more than one game this season: Bourne. That's it. Not even fantasy demigod Nacua has matched this feat, and Bourne had both of his huge outings in back-to-back games. After his massive performance last Thursday, he followed up with five catches on nine targets for 142 yards against the Buccaneers on Sunday.

It's not quite clear where Bourne's sudden dominance has come from. Has he taken a step forward as a player, does he have a secretly excellent connection with Mac Jones dating back to their New England days, or is this just a classic case of Kyle Shanahan magic? While I still lean toward Bourne's production being mostly the result of Shanahan's schematic brilliance and seemingly every other San Francisco receiver being injured, Bourne simply has to be added at this point.

In the worst case, Bourne will return to being the team's WR3 and fifth target as George Kittle, Jauan Jennings, and Ricky Pearsall return to full health (let's not even mention Brandon Aiyuk). But if that does happen, it won't be subtle, making him an easy candidate to return to the waiver wire. At the risk of a bench slot for a couple of weeks, it's absolutely worth adding him just in case he can keep this — or anything close to it — up.

Tez Johnson, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1.6% Rostered)

The 49ers lead the league in wide receiver injuries, but their Week 6 opponents are trying to make it a competition. The Buccaneers were already down both Mike Evans and Chris Godwin when emerging star Egbuka exited early with a hamstring injury. With all those injuries, seventh-round rookie Johnson stepped up as the team's WR1, leading all Tampa Bay receivers with an 84% route participation rate.

Aside from routes, Johnson's usage wasn't great. He saw only three targets or a 13% target share and only actually caught one pass. However, a 24.3-yard ADOT meant he led the team with a 33% air yards share, and that one pass he caught was a 45-yard TD. 

At this point, we simply have to accept that Baker Mayfield is absolutely cooking, and anyone running routes for him should be expected to overperform their underlying numbers. Egbuka was clearly doing so, and 2024 UDFA Kameron Johnson also did so on Sunday, turning 12 routes and four targets into 14.4 half-PPR points. 

With this in mind, Johnson (Tez) is absolutely worth adding and is a potential starting option while the team's top-three receivers are out. For that matter, the other Johnson and veteran Sterling Shepard are also worth considering in deeper formats. But the rookie is definitely the most likely candidate to lead the team in routes in Week 7, so he should be your top priority.

Josh Reynolds, New York Jets (1.5% Rostered)

I can't believe I'm recommending adding a Jets' receiver after the offensive atrocity they provided to the poor people of London on Sunday. Justin Fields went 9-of-17 for just 45 yards and lost 55 yards on nine sacks, literally finishing with negative net passing yards. 

But, despite his clear inadequacies, Fields has shown that he can rack up stats in garbage time (and I have a feeling the Jets are going to be in a lot of garbage time). There's also a chance he gets replaced with the moderately more competent Tyrod Taylor. And, with Garrett Wilson expected to miss a couple of weeks with a knee injury, Josh Reynolds is now the team's de facto WR1. 

Really, that's what this comes down to. In shallow formats, Reynolds isn't worth adding. His floor, like anyone else in this offense, is literally zero, and his ceiling isn't very high either. But in deeper formats, every NFL WR1 should be rostered. As of yesterday, that list includes Reynolds.

Romeo Doubs, Green Bay Packers (47% Rostered)

Speaking of the idea that every NFL WR1 should be rostered, Doubs continues to operate as the Packers' WR1. Along with doing what he has for each of the last three years by leading the team in routes (77%), he also leads in target share (19%) and air yards share (33%). On Sunday, he easily led the team with nine targets, catching five for 55 yards. 

Of course, Doubs' ceiling is capped. The Packers' offense is crowded, and will get even more so if Christian Watson returns, which suddenly looks inevitable. Green Bay also has the third-lowest pass rate in the league, meaning all those weapons are splitting a relatively small pie. But the Packers' offense is also efficient, and Doubs' slice of pie is the largest (for now) — he should be rostered.