#fantasy-football

#fantasy-football

Throughout the season, we hit on the last-minute pickups in this space every Friday. Deeper-league targets, flex plays, WR3s and more. The late-week adds to give you a potential bump or positive streaming option in the lineup. But with the playoffs already rolling in ESPN standard leagues and plenty of formats kicking off their tournaments this week, I want to focus on the players currently being started in under 50% of ESPN leagues who can provide some upside.

With his 259.16 fantasy points so far this season, fifth most among quarterbacks and a larger total than he had in any of the previous three years, Matthew Stafford has leapfrogged Larry Fitzgerald, Matt Ryan and Philip Rivers to assume the eighth overall spot. Rivers' return could shake up the leaderboard: Stafford's entry into the top 10 pushed Rivers back to 11th in scoring. With Rivers signing with the Indianapolis Colts' practice squad on Tuesday, giving him a good chance at playing for the quarterback-starved team during the season's final four weeks, he has a chance to vault back into the top 10 in place of Matt Ryan.

This was projected to be the perfect running mate for second-team All-Pro wideout Terry McLaurin, giving quarterback Jayden Daniels a legitimate 1-2 punch to depend upon deep into the playoffs. That hasn't happened. McLaurin has been seldom seen due to injury. Daniels has played only six games and could be out for even longer with a dislocated elbow. Samuel, who was criticized for his conditioning and injury issues after the trade, has been the constant, missing just one game.

The Washington Commanders claim the earliest we could see electric-but-brittle starter Jayden Daniels back on the field is Week 13, though it is important to note that the organization did not place him on the injured list after he dislocated his non-throwing elbow in Week 9. That was a tad surprising. The Commanders have lost five consecutive games and are 3-7 entering this week against the Miami Dolphins.

The eighth Sunday of the NFL season featured the New York Jets mercifully earning their first win, while the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers suffered demoralizing blowout losses as part of the AFC dominating the NFC. Four star running backs and one tight end surpassed 30 PPR points, perhaps the most noteworthy option being struggling Philadelphia Eagles star Saquon Barkley, who enjoyed his season-best performance.

We're going to start with an ascending rookie tight end who is being schemed up in a versatile role -- and producing. There are multiple backfield rotations also worthy of your attention, and I also see an emerging wide receiver worth adding to rosters. Fannin is averaging 13.1 PPG over his past four games, but I still see more upside here for the rookie tight end because of his versatility in coach Kevin Stefanski's offense for the Cleveland Browns.

Each week in the NFL is its own story -- full of surprises, both positive and negative -- and fantasy football managers must decide what to believe and what not to believe moving forward. Perhaps we can help. If any of these thoughts come true ... don't be surprised! NOTE: All mention of fantasy points is for PPR formats, unless otherwise mentioned.

Every week, we generate fantasy football projections for every game on the slate, and that includes the probability that a player will take the ball into the end zone. Here are my top 25 predicted scorers for Week 8, ordered by their implied odds,* as well as the anytime touchdown money line offered by ESPN BET at time of publication. These implied odds are what my projections consider the fair odds of that player to score on an anytime touchdown bet.

Throughout this fantasy football season, we've touched on many areas in this weekly space, including potential trades to consider, players to cut, scheme trends, under-the-radar targets for deeper leagues and more. We mix it up here. Now that we're at the halfway point of the season, let's focus on the positives, the situations where the arrow is pointing up. We'll start with a rushing attack that flipped the switch coming out of the bye week.

Here's what we have: First, analytics writer Seth Walder breaks down three stat trends that could be pivotal this weekend. Then fantasy football writer Eric Moody runs through five players who are rostered in under 50% of ESPN fantasy football leagues as of Saturday and could be started in a jam. That's followed by NFL analyst Matt Bowen predicting three potentially big surprises and sports betting analyst Pamela Maldonado giving her favorite bet for Week 6.