Hello and welcome to the Week 8 edition of Hoppen to Conclusions! This is where I, Sam Hoppen, will share some of my favorite charts, which are designed to give you an overview of the NFL landscape. These charts, along with the commentary that I provide, aim to help you make start or sit, DFS lineup construction, betting picks, or any other fantasy football decisions. There can be a lot of noise in fantasy football analysis, but these charts have been carefully selected to give you some of the most relevant and useful decision points. Let’s dive into a few notable players this week.
- Waiver Wire Advice
- Weekly Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Fantasy Football Trends & Takeaways
Tight End Usage
- Though it was a gloomy day for the Buffalo Bills, it wasn’t for Dalton Kincaid, who had the best game of his career so far. Kincaid caught all eight of his targets for 75 yards but only ran a route on 63% of the Bills’ dropbacks. But, with Dawson Knox undergoing wrist surgery (his timetable to return is unknown), Kincaid’s route share should jump closer to the 80% range even though Buffalo already used 12 personnel at the fourth-highest rate. Though the Bills have struggled as a team lately, their 0.24 pass EPA per play on offense and 3.6% PROE are still great enough that I want to buy into someone who should be their primary tight end for the near term.
- Action: add and buy Dalton Kincaid
- Cole Kmet gave fantasy managers some solid performances with touchdowns in back-to-back weeks. Unfortunately, those same managers have been punished, believing that would continue, as he’s posted just 1.9 Half-PPR points in the past two weeks combined. Kmet has maintained a solid routes per run rate this season, floating in the 70% to 80% range for most games. The targets have been all over the place, though, ranging from a season-high nine targets in his two-touchdown performance in Week 4 to not recording a single target this past week against the Raiders. Kmet is still the TE9 in Half-PPR leagues and his 8.0 expected fantasy points per game is 10th among tight ends, but it’s going to be very feast or (more likely) famine for the Bears tight end.
- Action: sell the idea of Cole Kmet returning to his previous performances (consistently, at least)
Quick Hops
- Over the past two weeks, Chris Rodriguez Jr. has been given 32% of the backfield’s carries, putting Brian Robinson down to just a 53% share (he was at an 81% share the first five weeks). With how often Washington is passing the ball and how crowded the backfield now is, you should be downgrading the entire backfield to just flex options.
- D’Onta Foreman may be forcing the Bears to have a three-person backfield once Roschon Johnson and Khalil Herbert return from their injuries. On Sunday, Foreman was given 21 opportunities, following a 16-opportunity outing the previous week, while getting a season-high five HVTs.
- This past week, Rashee Rice ran a route on a season-high 67% of Kansas City’s dropbacks. He’s also scored a touchdown in two of his last three games along with 60+ receiving yards in back-to-back games. Kansas City’s true WR1 is Travis Kelce, but Rice has carved out a nice role for himself.
- There were no limitations for Diontae Johnson in his return from injured reserve. He ran a route on 86% of the team’s dropbacks and was targeted six times. This pushed Allen Robinson down to a backup role once again with a season-low 54% routes run rate and just one target. He can be safely dropped.
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