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Know Your Opposition

If you want to finish at the top of the standings in a mid-to-large field GPP, your roster has to stand out from the crowd. Studying a list of projected roster percentages is a helpful first step, but it lacks the context of how the most popular players fit together under the salary cap.

To gain some insight into how the majority of entrants will allocate their cap space, so you can spend yours differently, let’s think about how the public is most likely to attack roster construction at each position.

Key Injuries for Week 8

This is a weird week, several quarterbacks are out, which is likely going to just cause a consolidation of roster percentage as people will avoid certain teams altogether. If you can find a team that may be under the radar and outperform their expectation with a backup quarterback like we saw last week with Gardner Minshew, it could be an opportunity to do very well in a GPP this week.

• Ryan Tannehill is out this week with an ankle injury. It’s expected that Will Levis will start for the Titans, while Malik Willis will likely see time in this game. With Tannehill out last season, Henry topped 100 yards in each of his three games with Malik Willis as the starter, but the matchup is a tough one this week against Atlanta.
• Brock Purdy was cleared with a concussion. This is disappointing as Sam Darnold would have been a big topic of discussion for GPPs as he was so incredibly cheap. Purdy is coming off of two straight losses which were his only two losses in the regular season in his career. So, it could be an opportunity for him to bounce back strong as at $5,600 he possesses an upside that could exceed the price.
• Tyrod Taylor will start once again this week for the Giants. The only player that likely is playable this week on this offense is Darren Waller as he has seen an uptick in targets since Taylor has taken over.
• Deshaun Watson is still out, and Jerome Ford who was expected to miss is now questionable with an ankle injury. If Ford is unable to go, Kareem Hunt becomes intriguing, but the Browns are facing a very strong Seattle run defense this week. This is likely just an avoid spot as well.
• Zack Moss is questionable this week with multiple injuries. If he is out, the upside of Jonathan Taylor is tremendous, but even if he does play, we likely will not see a 50/50 split between Taylor and Moss this week if Moss is unable to practice on Friday, it would seem that he wouldn’t be able to take a full workload this week.
• Zach Ertz was placed on Injured Reserve. Let’s not overreact here, as while Ertz has been a fantasy favorite for some, this does not immediately vault Trey McBride into a must-play category. While McBride is interesting this week, mostly due to his upside of being the first tight end taken in the 2022 draft, the matchup is a difficult one against Baltimore. We could see an increased workload for Rondale Moore and a possession receiver.
• Kareem Jackson is out for the Broncos at safety. This makes an already vulnerable secondary even more so as they take on Patrick Mahomes II II and the Chiefs.

Slate Overview- Week 8 Thoughts- Be Different

Week 8 is very interesting. This is a week that is going to be a week where roster percentage is only going to continue to consolidate as the week progresses. The reason for this is that there are simply not a lot of dirt-cheap value plays. While several mid-value plays are wide receivers in the 5k range, try finding a single-player sub-4.5k that you would get excited about playing this week.

Complicating matters is that at the quarterback position, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes II, and Tua Tagovailoa are likely going to make up a combined 50% of the rosters when lineups lock. The reason for this is simple, there just are not players down at the bottom tier of quarterbacks who have the upside needed to compete with those players who are all in good matchups except Tagovailoa as the New England matchup is somewhat difficult.

What this is ultimately going to do, is open up a lot of opportunities. Someone like Travis Kelce is currently projected to only be about 5% rostered while Ja’Marr Chase, A.J. Brown, Tyreek Hill, and Christian McCaffrey are also going to be less rostered than normal simply because if you’re taking a top-end quarterback, it’s incredibly difficult to take another high-end player this week.

So, ultimately one strategy could be to try to find a cheap quarterback which is risky and difficult as there is not always one that emerges every single week, but we will do our best to identify one of those players to help you build more of an inverse roster compared to the rest of the field. We will also address the high-end stacks and how to approach that if you do want to take a high-end quarterback as we are not recommending a complete fade of this group.

Stacks

Top Stacks

Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, Terry McLaurin

The Eagles offense is surging right now. A.J. Brown has tied the record for the most consecutive games with 125 passing yards or more, and the team is seemingly well aware of it. Last week, the Eagles could have taken a four-minute offense and simply ran the clock out, but they intentionally threw the ball four times on the drive, all went to A.J. Brown to ensure that he went over the 125-yard mark. Expect to potentially see this again this week as they should be able to move the ball at ease against the Commanders who are allowing the second-most fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks and have allowed 275 yards passing or more in five of their last six games. Hurts has also run for a touchdown in five of his last six games. To get Hurts at a much lower roster percentage than Lamar Jackson is a massive win this week as Jackson has scored fewer fantasy points than Hurts, and we have to worry about the blowout potential of that game.

On the other side, the Eagles matchup is a favorable one for McLaurin. The Eagles are allowing the second-most fantasy points to opposing wide receivers this season as in the past five weeks we’ve seen Tyreek Hills, Garrett Wilson, Cooper Kupp, Puka Nacua, Terry McLaurin, Curtis Samuel, and Mike Evans all have 17 or more DraftKings points against this defense. McLaurin has established himself as the number one guy in Washington after a slow start to the season as he has 85 yards or more in 3 of his last 4 games.