Eight weeks into the NFL season and we have just three teams with 1 loss or less, two teams with only 1 win, and a whole lot of parity in between. It certainly feels like Any Given Sunday has never been truer. Let’s dig in.
Week 9 Select Game Notes
Rumble Wrinkle: Eagles @ Texans: Did the Amazon promos pushing this game show a single Texan? It didn’t feel like it. For some that might spell T-R-A-P. The good news is we’ll know long before we set our lineups.
Chargers @ Falcons: Sneaky potential for some major Rumble impact with Austin Ekeler likely to be the most owned RB, and an opportunity for Kyle Pitts to build on his better-late-than-never performance last week.
Rams @ Bucs: Schedule-makers were licking their lips last spring for the rematch of last year’s NFL Divisional Round. What a difference half a year makes. We’ll be on the lookout for the Rams RB pecking order and the Tom Brady FU game that we’ve stopped predicting in the column, plus feeling happy Cooper Kupp is a-okay, back in his spot as a Rumble anchor and ready to fight for WR1 status.
Seahawks @ Cardinals: Huge shootout potential here. More below in Stacks and Sleepers.
Titans @ Chiefs: Two 5-2 teams and a bunch of Rumble stars. Feels like a game that will show us if this year’s Chiefs are for real or if Buffalo is in a class of their own in the AFC. We’re betting the bye week came at the perfect time and KC comes out firing.
Ravens @ Saints: We’ve had epic come-from-behind Rumble wins secured via Monday Night Football in two of the last three weeks. With Lamar Jackson always highly owned, there’s a surefire chance for another one, though Mark Andrews’ ambiguous injury status may hamper the sweat that could have been.
Week 9 Stacks and Sleepers
As always, we are avoiding highlighting the obvious chalk:
Geno Smith and Tyler Lockett: Potential for a shootout in Arizona, where the Cardinals have allowed the 3rd most points per game in the NFL.
Kyler Murray and Rondale Moore: Still no DeAndre Hopkins or Zach Ertz moment, but we like this angle as another way into the aforementioned potential shootout.
Amon-Ra St. Brown: T.J. Hockenson has left the building, the game is tied for the highest o/u of the week, and St. Brown appears finally healthy.
Chris Olave: Baltimore’s WR defense has been suspect and a down week in Week 8 could throw some off the scent.
Josh Palmer: The Chargers receiving corps are severely depleted, the Falcons give up a ton of points and Palmer is due to find the end zone.
Week 8 Recap
Our first high-profile serial tiebreaker!! Jay_Deezy and wildermofang had EXACTLY the same lineup, all the way down to their McCaffrey hero selections. That pushed it to serial count and Jay_Deezy took home the $1500 first place prize by a difference of less than 8,000 in aggregate serial. Serials matter!!
Other Week 8 tidbits:
At QB, Tua Tagovailoa returned to early season form and claimed the QB1 spot for the week, followed by Jalen Hurts, Kyler Murray, Dak Prescott and a resurgent Justin Fields, who had another big rushing day to finish as QB5 for the second straight week.
At less than 1% ownership, D’Onta Foreman was the only surprise RB to crack the Top 5, finishing as RB5.
Saquon Barkley was the biggest RB disappointment, finishing as RB14, while being the second highest owned RB (34%) and most Hero-ed RB (5%).
We highlighted the potential for an explosive performance from the Miami offense and they did not disappoint, with Tyreek Hill (31% owned) and Jaylen Waddle (6% owned) finishing as WR2 and WR3, respectively.
The only WR to top the Miami duo? A.J. Brown, who’s HUGE 3 TD day netted him just shy of 40 points and WR1. More on the Hurts / Brown stack below.
Kyle Pitts returned from the grave to finish at TE1 with a very respectable 19 points. Pitts was just 5% owned, a number you have to expect will grow this week, even with Travis Kelce back from his bye week.
Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown: Gotta start with the wins, because it goes downhill fast from here. As detailed above, this stack was an absolute smash, anchoring the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place lineups at relatively low ownership (Hurts QB2 at 11% and Brown WR1 at 5%). GRADE: A+
Rhamondre Stevenson: At just 4% ownership, Stevenson was a very respectable RB9. GRADE: B+
Davis Mills and Brandin Cooks: On the other hand, these two. Only 4 starting QBs scored less points than Mills (Hello, Derek Carr) while Cooks was a pedestrian WR33. GRADE: F
Jonathan Taylor: We were right to think the field might be skittish (only 11% owned), but wrong to think it would provide an edge as JT left the game briefly, didn’t catch a pass, and scored just 6.6 points. GRADE: D
Taysom Hill: In a clustered week of TE scoring, you certainly could have done worse than Hill’s 8.28 point TE10 finish, but it wasn’t the spike week we were hoping for. GRADE: B-
That’s a wrap for this week. Enjoy the games and put those NFL ALL DAY Moments to work!
