Best Late NFL Week 1 Fantasy Football Pickups & Adds: Injury Fill-Ins and Sleepers to Add

Best Late Week 1 Pickups in Summary

• Michael Mayer steps in for an injured Brock Bowers, though not every analyst agrees he's worth the add
• Chris Bell is already back on the field for Miami after a torn ACL that once had him in first-round conversations
• Greg Dulcich has a real path to volume in a Miami passing game still thin on proven weapons
• Mike Washington Jr. carries genuine standalone value as Ashton Jeanty's handcuff in Las Vegas

Week 1 news is still shaking out, and a handful of names are worth a late add or a speculative stash before your first games kick off.

Michael Mayer, TE, Raiders

Brock Bowers underwent a meniscus trim this week and is expected to miss Week 1, with a real chance he sits Week 2 as well. Mayer steps into the starting role, and the track record is genuinely encouraging — across four games last season with Bowers out, he averaged 6.0 targets and 10.9 fantasy points per game on a 24% target share, numbers that would comfortably start over several established starting tight ends in full PPR formats this week.

Worth being upfront, though: not every analyst is on board. At least one notable ranking service has pushed back directly, slotting Mayer in more of a "handcuff tier" with limited standalone value and steering fantasy managers toward other streaming options instead. The honest read is that Mayer is a real median streamer with a legitimate track record in this exact role, but he's not a guaranteed hit — treat him as a solid Week 1 fill-in rather than a must-roster asset going forward.

Chris Bell, WR, Dolphins

Bell's story remains one of the more interesting in this year's rookie class. He was squarely in first-round conversations before tearing his ACL in his final game at Louisville — ESPN's Field Yates had him going 32nd overall in his last mock draft before the injury — and he's already back on the field for Miami, appearing in the preseason finale well ahead of a typical recovery timeline. He's competing in a genuinely thin Dolphins receiver room, and given how early he's returned, he's worth a speculative stash even in shallower leagues if there's a bench spot to spare.

Greg Dulcich, TE, Dolphins

Miami's passing game remains genuinely thin on proven weapons even with Chris Bell and Caleb Douglas both working their way up the depth chart, and that opens a real lane for Dulcich at tight end. He was specifically flagged as a streaming option in the same wave of Brock Bowers fallout coverage, precisely because an offense this shorthanded at pass-catcher tends to funnel checkdown volume somewhere — and tight end is often where that shows up first. Genuinely speculative, but a near-zero-cost add if there's a bench spot open.

Mike Washington Jr., RB, Raiders

A perfect Relative Athletic Score at 6-foot-2 and 223-plus pounds, with a 4.33-second 40-yard dash that puts him in rare size-speed company. Washington has already flashed real juice in the preseason, including a start where he took his first carry 33 yards through the middle of the defense. As the direct handcuff to Ashton Jeanty, who's dealt with his own injury questions this preseason, Washington carries real standalone value if Jeanty's workload gets managed at all early in the season — a legitimate speculative add in deeper leagues.

The Bottom Line

Mayer is the most immediately actionable Week 1 streamer here, with the caveat that reasonable analysts disagree on his ceiling. Bell and Washington Jr. are both stash-and-monitor plays tied to real opportunity rather than hope, and Dulcich is a genuinely speculative, low-cost dart in an offense that may simply need somewhere to send the ball.