Five Stats to Know: 2024 Week 8

Week 8 is (mostly) in the books! In case you aren’t an insane person like me who likes to spend his Sunday night digging through usage data, I’ve curated five stats that will help you make better decisions in all fantasy football formats for the coming weeks.

Based on my findings, I’ll also do my best to provide buy, sell, and waiver recommendations for managed leagues where applicable. For a broader (if slightly less detailed) overview of usage across the league, I recommend this Twitter thread.

Stat #1: The Browns Are Alive

Jameis Winston gave us everything we hoped for on Sunday. Winston’s first start in Week 8 was the first time this season a Browns QB has thrown for over 200 yards in a game, the first time one has cleared a passer rating of 100.0, and the first time the Browns have beaten a non-Jaguars team.

Three separate Browns WRs/TEs cleared 15.0 fantasy points in Week 8. That didn’t happen in any of Joe Flacco’s five games last season.

When valuing the above receivers moving forward, I’d keep in mind that this was close to a best-possible matchup for the Browns’ entire passing offense, which we knew going into the week. David Njoku is pretty clearly a top-6 TE for me rest-of-season, but aside from that, I’m going to need more than one game of Elijah Moore commanding a team-high 29.3% target share to buy in. The same goes for Cedric Tillman (nine targets) and Jerry Jeudy (eight targets). Tillman’s youth and 23.5 FPG since Amari Cooper left means he has the most rest-of-season upside of the trio, but the median outcome is that all three of these players become volatile FLEX plays.

The easiest recommendation I can make is to buy low on Nick Chubb. He’s seen 71.9% of the backfield’s weighted opportunities through his first two games, but due to the pass-heavy game scripts they’ve found themselves in, that’s translated to just 7.7 FPG so far. Chubb has averaged only 2.7 YPC and could well be a shell of his former self the entire season, but we now know this offense can provide scoring opportunities. If Chubb can ramp up to even 90% of his previous effectiveness, he could be a useful fantasy asset down the stretch.

Stat #2: The Backfields That Will Drive Us Insane, Week 8 (AFC East Edition)

After Breece Hall played an 84.2% snap share (RB2) and received 83.3% of backfield opportunities over the past two weeks, Braelon Allen inexplicably received a 42.9% backfield carry share and one of two carries inside the 10-yard line today, including his 4th-quarter touchdown.

This appears to have been an effort by the Jets to get Allen involved in short-yardage situations; six of Allen’s 12 carries came with 4 or fewer yards to go, and he out-touched Hall six to three on those plays. This is a team and coaching staff that appears to be desperately throwing things at the wall as their season circles the drain, so any prediction of what either Hall’s or Allen’s usage will look like next week should be considered low-confidence, but if this sticks, it will be tough to project Hall as much more than a mid-to-low-end RB1 from week to week. Touchdown equity is absolutely massive in fantasy football, and Hall’s is very much in doubt once again.

On the other side of this game, Rhamondre Stevenson had an 82.1% backfield opportunity share, crucially receiving six of eight red zone opportunities. His 80% carry share was his highest of the season, and he hadn’t hit 70% since Week 1.

It already feels like an eternity ago, but it’s worth remembering Stevenson was deployed as an every-down bell cow averaging 23.2 XFP/G over the first two weeks of the season, before his playing time started to decrease due to fumbles. Backfield mate Antonio Gibson actually fumbled in the middle of the 3rd quarter, though that didn’t seem to affect the two backs’ usage; Gibson had just 3 touches before that point. If Stevenson is finally out of the dog house, he’s at worst an RB2 rest-of-season on an offense that’s had life breathed back into it by Drake Maye (though he left this game with a concussion).

Finally, James Cook received 76.9% of the backfield opportunities and 2 of 3 carries inside the 10 today. Last week (in the first game post-Ray Davis breakout), it was 66.6%. Cook seems to have fended off any fears of Davis taking on a significantly larger role in the backfield.

Stat #3: Wide Receivers Died So That Tight Ends Could Live

By approximately 1:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, I was sick of hearing about “National Tight Ends Week.” The rest of the afternoon would be rough viewing.

There were countless examples of TEs benefitting from injuries to their WR teammates this week — Cade Otton turned in his second straight game above a 20% target share with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin out. Travis Kelce has now commanded a 25% target share and at least 15 fantasy points in three of four games since Rashee Rice was injured. Sam LaPorta had his first game of the season above a 25% target share the moment Jameson Williams got suspended. George Kittle is going to break fantasy football. This post kept entering my head on Sunday.

With the slew of injuries at the WR position, we’re left to navigate a fantasy football landscape unlike any we’ve seen over the past handful of years. It could just be variance within a few-week sample, but I think it’s real — the weakness of the WR position was apparent in projections around the industry entering Week 8, and it felt clear to me when producing content for the slate as well. And it’s showing in the fantasy results.

I wish there were a more actionable takeaway from this for the reader than “the few healthy elite WRs we have left should be even more rare and valuable,” because that boils down to “go trade for Ja’Marr Chase, A.J. Brown, or Tyreek Hill” — which is easier said than done. More concretely, you should likely be playing RBs in the FLEX in DraftKings and Underdog Battle Royale contests more than you’ve been doing previously.

Stat #4: My Shifting Tank Bigsby Take

I’ve used this space to push back against industry optimism around Tank Bigsby this season. However, the facts of this backfield have changed, so my opinion is also shifting.

Even with Travis Etienne in the lineup, Bigsby had taken about half of the work on the ground and was clearly becoming the preferred option at the goal line. What never seemed to change whether Etienne was in or out was Bigsby’s lack of a passing down role; D’Ernest Johnson had stepped in to take on a 46.9% route share in Etienne’s absence from Weeks 6-7.

However, that finally shifted in Week 8. Not only did Bigsby earn 18 of 19 backfield carries; he out-targeted Johnson 3 to 2 (after having earned just 2 targets over the first seven weeks of the season), and appeared to remain on the field even in some obvious passing situations. Our full charted snap data is pending at the time of publishing, but assuming it shows what I think it will, we can now envision a scenario where Bigsby projects as a top-24 RB in a negative game script (so long as Etienne is not in the lineup) — or, if you really want to dream, a scenario where he meaningfully cuts into Etienne’s passing down role even when healthy (I still view this as unlikely).

Whatever the case, I’m now a much firmer believer in Bigsby’s contingent upside. He could end up a solid post-hype dynasty buy if his role goes back to what it was in the first month of the season after Etienne returns, and the excitement dies down. (Or maybe it never will, regardless of how many touches Etienne gets in the second half of the season — in which case, I’m fine having missed this train).

Stat #5: I’m Only A Little Worried About Kenneth Walker

Scott Barrett and I suggested patience after Kenneth Walker’s volume took a dip in Week 7; yes, his snap and route shares took a hit, but he’d entered the game incredibly sick, which he made clear via his Instagram story after the game.

Everything we said about his workload in The Everything Report remains mostly true — he’s catching more passes than ever. The touch split has slightly pinched between him and Zach Charbonnet over the past two weeks, but not enough to cause real alarm.

However, for the first time all season, we saw Charbonnet get work at the goal line in a game Walker was active. In fact, all three of Charbonnet’s carries in Week 8 came inside the five-yard line. One was sandwiched between two Walker goal-line attempts, and the other two came in the fourth quarter with the game very out of hand. And that’s an important point; Charbonnet had just one carry and one target through the first three quarters.

I’m ultimately willing to shrug this off and continue valuing Walker as a top-5 RB — because really, we’re talking about one single goal-line carry while the game was competitive that failed anyway — but I will remember this and react swiftly if Charbonnet’s usage in the red zone spikes again.