Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Bucs') wide receiver Antonio Brown was performing admirably for both his team and for fantasy football managers everywhere during the first quarter of the NFL season. Especially considering he was drafted as a mid-to-late round pick, his WR2 status in fantasy football had him looking like a league winner. Since then, he has been out of his team's lineups for the past two months after he suffered a leg injury in Los Angeles.

Brown was set to return just in time for the fantasy football playoffs…until news broke on by Ian Rapoport on Thursday that Brown had been suspended for misrepresenting his vaccination status to the NFL. They are not flat-out saying that his COVID-19 vaccination card was fake, but they are saying that he will not be playing in any games until week 16 at the earliest.

With Brown set to miss the next three games, that means the last two weeks of the fantasy regular season and week one of the fantasy football playoffs. That is gut-wrenching for teams that were planning to get him back from injury and use him down the stretch to win a league and devastating for players who needed him just to get them into the playoffs.

First off, those owners should have already had a contingency plan as Brown has been very coy about his injury recovery and the Bucs could easily sit him out longer than they have to just to keep him fresh for the playoffs. Chris Godwin has picked up AB's slack in the regular season and will continue to do that for the Bucs so don't go looking for Tampa Bay skill players on the waiver wire. Instead, here are three players we feel will be able to help you pick up a little bit of the slack.

3. Van Jefferson

Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Van Jefferson has been targeted eight times per game since Robert Woods went down and still his playing time and target share has not dropped since the addition of Odell Beckham Jr. (OBJ.) If anyone dropped Jefferson in your league after the big game from OBJ, go scoop him up and play him as an every-week WR3 down the stretch.

2. T.Y. Hilton

As Indianapolis Colts stud wideout Michael Pittman has started to have a bit of a sophomore slump, T.Y. Hilton surprisingly played his best game of the season on Sunday in the close loss to the Buccaneers. He caught four of his five targets and had a touchdown as well. If Hilton can build off of that game and his 12.0 yards per catch average, he might just be a viable flex option until you can get Brown back into the fold.

1. Kenny Golladay 

New York Giants wide receiver Golladay was drafted this summer to be a fantasy football WR2 and has not lived up to that billing in any way possible. He has been injured, ineffective and his team has had very minimal chances to succeed. Well, all of that has started to change over the past few weeks as Golladay has gotten healthy, he has been targeted and the Giants even made a change in offensive coordinator by firing Jason Garrett and promoting Freddie Kitchens. Grab Golladay off of the wire and thank us later as he has immediate WR3 potential these next three games.