Fantasy Football Start/Sit Rankings & Advice: Defense (Week 8)

Here are rankings from our analysts for Week 8 of the fantasy football season. You can find our expert consensus fantasy football rankings for the week here. And you can also sync your fantasy football league for free using our My Playbook tool for custom advice, rankings, and analysis.

Check out all of our weekly fantasy football content

If you want to dive deeper into fantasy football, be sure to check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Football Tools as you navigate your season. From our Start/Sit Assistant – which provides your optimal lineup, based on accurate consensus projections – to our Waiver Wire Assistant – which allows you to quickly see which available players will improve your team and by how much – we’ve got you covered this fantasy football season.

Fantasy Football Week 8 Rankings & Start/Sit Advice

2022 Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyProsECR (TM) – Expert Consensus Rankings

Week 8 Player Notes & Start/Sit Advice

JAC vs DEN: Russell Wilson appears to be sitting out another week, meaning we’ll get another week of Brett Rypien in London. Rypien did a whole lot of nothing last week, leading the team to just one touchdown and one field goal. He also only had one turnover and one sack. That’s the kind of performance I expect from the Broncos with Rypien – not a lot of the kind of mistakes that can make a huge day for the opposing defense, but not a lot of points easier. The Jags are a good play this week, though perhaps one with limited upside.

ATL vs CAR: A few weeks ago, we were talking about a potential battle between Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold for the Panther’s starting QB job once both were healthy. As it turns out, PJ Walker has played well enough in their absence to keep the job. This probably says more about Mayfield than Walker, because it’s not like Walker has been amazing. In his three starts, the team has averaged just under 16 points per game. What he has done is avoid turnovers, and mostly avoid sacks (he hasn’t taken more than 2 in a game). For fantasy defenses, this is a mixed bag. On one hand, you’re not worried about him blowing up for 40 points like Baker Mayfield is liable to do on occasion, but you also can’t expect very much in the way of points from sacks and turnovers.

SEA vs NYG: Like the Jets, the Giants have been winning with an offense that’s merely OK. 21 points is a reasonable projection for them, but I’d be tempted to take the over. The real reason to start a defense against Daniel Jones is the sacks. He doesn’t do it every game, but 4 or 5 sacks is a common occurrence for Jones, and that can make up for a fair number of points from a fantasy DST perspective.