2024 Week 8 DFS Coverage Shells

We are now in Week 8 of the 2024 NFL Season. There are no teams on a bye, which means that we have 15 games (excluding Thursday Night Football) between now and Monday Night Football.

Team Defenses

Quarterback Values

GB @ JAX

The Green Bay Packers (5-2) will face the Jacksonville Jaguars (2-5) this Sunday, their second-straight AFC South opponent.

The Packers are currently 4-point road favorites and hold the 3rd-highest implied team total of the week at 26.5 points. The game total of 49 is currently one of the highest on this Week 8 game slate.

There are plenty of pass catchers on either sideline that have the capability to produce high-end fantasy output on a week-by-week basis.

I’m going to try to identify a few players who have advantageous coverage matchups and aren’t the most expensive players on either offense.

Defensively, JAX deploys the most man coverage in the NFL (43.4%).

More specifically, they rank 2nd in the league in usage of Cover 1 (36.0%) as well as in Cover 2 Man (6.3%).

JAX also deploys standard Cover 2 at a 28.3% clip, the highest in the NFL:

JAX has dwindled their Cover 3 usage throughout the duration of the season, and they’ve primarily been a Cover 1/Cover 2 unit.

If these trends were to continue, then WR Christian Watson ($5,200) would become an interesting play and has a favorable matchup vs Cover 1:

As for GB defensively, they don’t lean heavily lean towards man, zone, single-high, two-high, so here are their most used coverages this season:

And here are JAX pass catchers vs that specific array of coverages this season:

I find TE Evan Engram ($5,000) to be the relative value of the bunch here. Even without considering his favorable coverage matchup, he’s seen plenty of targets since returning from injury in Week 6:

PHI @ CIN

The Philadelphia Eagles (4-2) will take on the Cincinnati Bengals (3-4) for the first time since the 2020 NFL season. The Bengals are currently 2.5-point home favorites, and the game total is hovering around 48 points, the second-highest on the slate as of Tuesday/Wednesday.

Defensively, CIN ranks 9th in single-high coverage rate (58.0%). More specifically, they deploy a higher rate of Cover 3 relative to anything else:

PHI WR A.J. Brown ($8,200) is a monster vs single-high looks. Dating back to the start of last season, Brown ranks 1st in target share and 3rd in YPRR vs single-high out of 125+ qualifiers:

Dating back to the start of last season vs Cover 3 specifically, Brown ranks 2nd in YPRR and 3rd in target share out of 125+ qualifiers:

PHI defensively ranks in the top 10 in terms of usage of both Cover 4 (17.7%) and Cover 6 (14.4%).

The weekly dilemma with CIN pass catchers is who to choose between WRs Ja’Marr Chase ($8,500) and Tee Higgins ($8,200) when they’re both healthy.

Isolating for aggregated numbers vs Cover 4 and Cover 6 this season, Chase owns a superior YPRR, but Higgins is targeted at a higher rate and owns a bigger share of the team’s targets:

BUF @ SEA

The Buffalo Bills (5-2) hit the West Coast and are set to take on the Seattle Seahawks (4-3) as road favorites in a game with a projected 47-point total.

BUF QB Josh Allen ($7,800) has spread the ball around to various pass catchers leading up to the team’s trade for veteran WR Amari Cooper ($6,000). BUF pass catchers have also been a little banged up as of late:

SEA WR DK Metcalf ($6,500) is questionable with a leg injury but appears to be working hard to be ready to go:

Defensively, BUF ranks 4th in two-high usage (54.8%) and 7th in zone usage (73.5%).

If Metcalf is healthy/available, he leads SEA in target share and yards per route run vs two-high looks:

IND @ HOU

The Indianapolis Colts (4-3) travel to Houston to face the Texans (5-2) in this AFC South showdown. The Texans are currently 4.5-point favorites, and the game total is 46.

The Texans are coming off a tough 24-22 road loss against the Packers, while the Colts are riding a 2-game win streak and beat the Dolphins 16-10 last week.

Defensively, the Colts rank 6th in zone coverage usage (75.1%). More specifically, they deploy a high amount of Cover 3, followed by Cover 2:

HOU QB C.J. Stroud ($6,900) is priced as the QB6, while Anthony Richardson ($5,800) is priced as the QB19.

I think this has the potential to be a bounce-back week for C.J. Stroud. As I mentioned in last week’s article, Stroud has some aggressive home/road fantasy production splits and we faded him in part because of them. He ended up with just 86 passing yards and 5.3 total points.

As you can see, his boom weeks in scoring have overwhelmingly occurred in Houston:

HOU has played in two straight road games, and they’re a run-heavier offense, as they’ve posted a bottom-10 neutral pass rate throughout the last month of the season, per rbsdm.com/stats (48.9%). WR Nico Collins is obviously a tough loss, but some of that passing volume (or lack thereof) is in their own control, and after an 86-yard performance, it’s hard to find a better time for a bounceback week.

ARI @ MIA

The Arizona Cardinals (3-4) travel east to Miami Gardens to battle the Dolphins (2-4) on Sunday. The Dolphins are currently 3.5-point home favorites and the game total is at 46.

MIA has been without QB Tua Tagovailoa ($6,100) since Week 2, and their offense has suffered immensely without him. It does appear that he plans to play this Sunday:

MIA WR Tyreek Hill ($7,000) is priced as the WR10, and this week might be the cheapest he’ll be moving forward, assuming he/Tua is healthy for the remainder of the season:

Fun fact: During Tagovailoa’s absence, TE Jonnu Smith ($3,600) has led the team in receiving yards (176) and has been the only player to catch a touchdown pass. Pretty wild.

Defensively, ARI ranks 30th in EPA per dropback (0.22) and dead last in dropback success rate (55.8%) allowed to opposing offenses this season. They’re also tied for allowing the 5th-most fantasy PPG to opposing QBs (19.5) and are giving up the 6th-most PPG to opposing WRs (36.0).

ARI deploys Cover 3 at the 8th-highest rate this season (37.3%) but are otherwise pretty diverse in particular usage:

Since the start of last season, Tyreek Hill has owned the highest target per route run, compared to Cover 3 out of 125+ qualifiers (0.37).