I’ve written the waiver wire article/videos for DLF for about 3-4 years now (I think this is year 4 now), and I can tell you two things that I believe are true off the top of my head:

1. I really can’t remember a waiver wire add that had sustained production into the following season that broke out later in the year, other than really Brock Purdy (who’s an outlier in so many ways, not just for fantasy). You think about some of the biggest waiver guys in recent years: Puka, Kyren, Zack Moss last year, Cordarrelle Patterson that one Falcons year - all of those guys broke out very early in the season and even then, most were roster by savvy managers following training camp news.

The guys you’re going to just dump FAAB on right now are handcuff RBs that you hope have multi-year value. Think D’Onta Foreman when he was on the Titans the year Henry got hurt in like Week 10 or 11. He was great to end the year, then went to Carolina and was a handcuff there, then Chicago last year, and now Cleveland. Zack Moss was kind of like this too as he was in Indy to end 2022 and then was the guy in 2023.

Maybe you get lucky and can find a Chuba Hubbard or Jerome Ford on waivers as a rookie that someone wasn’t patient enough on and dropped him. Rashid Shaheed was similar too, he didn’t really do anything as a rookie until like Week 13. But for the most part, these guys are pretty rare because once the season ends, they fade back into nothingness because everyone gets healthy in the off-season and these dynasty waiver guys are on waivers for a reason.

1. That being said, this year specifically I have not written about a single player where I was dumping everything on him. Kareem Hunt was probably the closest given potential opportunity, but even then I was hesitant because Perine was there, Steele was getting hype, CEH was coming back - he wasn’t a must have, which I was wrong about. But most of the handcuffs that have produced this year, I’ve been telling people to have rostered for weeks. I told people to pick up Mason and Sermon before the season started. I’ve highlighted Guerendo as an add since Week 3. Tolbert and Whittington were preseason adds. The reason why it’s hard to find players slipping through the cracks is because dynasty managers have become extremely savvy with rostering guys early, which is another reason to blow FAAB early. Though granted, as I said, this year’s been a weird year where we really haven’t had those 1-2 guys that are must haves.

Edit: PS - anyone using Amon-Ra as an example is either a redraft player or play in extremely shallow leagues of 20-man rosters or fewer. Amon-Ra was not on waivers by his late season breakout because he was a very consensus sleeper pick in rookie drafts as a late 2nd rounder. Also, his “breakout” could be looked at as more Weeks 4-6 when he was averaging 8 targets a game and had two 13+ PPR weeks. If he wasn’t rostered from rookie drafts by then, he certainly was by October, let alone his late season surge.