Here are my fantasy football rankings and tiers for Week 9. As always, feel free to use these tiered rankings as a tiebreaker for your difficult lineup decisions. Beneath the tiers, I’ll offer a few brief thoughts on some of the borderline start/sit guys and some other interesting cases.
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Fitz’s Fantasy Football Week 9 Tiers & Rankings
Since Week 2, Dak Prescott has averaged 249 passing yards per game, with at least one TD pass in each of those contests. He’s completed 73.1% of his passes over that stretch, averaging 7.6 yards per attempt. There were concerns that with Brian Schottenheimer replacing Kellen Moore as the Cowboys’ offensive coordinator, the Dallas offense might become overly conservative. The good news for Prescott investors is that the Cowboys haven’t been especially good at running the ball, with Tony Pollard averaging 3.9 yards per carry and posting a 48.1% success rate. Prescott has an enticing Week 9 matchup against the Eagles, whose pass defense has gone to seed. Philadelphia can still rush the passer effectively, but their defensive backs have struggled in coverage. The Eagles have allowed the sixth-fewest fantasy points per game to quarterbacks in 2022. So far this year, the Eagles are allowing the fourth-most fantasy points to QBs and have the league’s eighth-worst opponent passer rating.
In a week with so many grim choices at quarterback, Gardner Minshew becomes an appealing fallback option. In four starts this season, Minshew is averaging 40.8 pass attempts, 268.5 passing yards and 1.5 touchdowns. Those starts were against the Ravens, Jaguars, Browns and Saints, teams that rank first, fifth, second and eighth in DVOA against the pass. Minshew has also run for two touchdowns. The Colts rank first in offensive pace, taking an average of 25.79 seconds between plays, according to FTN. More plays = more opportunities to score fantasy points. Minshew gets a solid Week 9 matchup against the Panthers, who rank 14th in DVOA against the pass and 23rd in opponent passer rating. Carolina will be without its best cornerback, Jaycee Horn (hamstring).
If you’re a Sam Howell investor who regularly reads this article, you’ve probably noticed that I’m below consensus on Howell in the rankings most weeks. Look, I’m a Howell investor, too. I have him on a redraft team and a dynasty team. I’m just not convinced he’s good — or even average, honestly. Howell’s appeal is mostly volume-based. He’s averaging 38.5 pass attempts per game, ranking No. 2 in that category behind only Kirk Cousins. Maybe Howell will keep chucking it at an obscene rate. Washington’s defense is poor and will get worse without edge rushers Montez Sweat and Chase Young, so Washington might see a lot of pass-heavy game scripts. The Commanders aren’t very good at running the ball either. But Howell himself has just been OK. Yards per attempt is a decent back-of-the-envelope measure of a quarterback’s passing ability. Howell is averaging 7.0 yards per attempts, which puts him 19th in the league. He leads the league with 41 sacks, and his eight interceptions are one off the league lead. Howell has been responsible for a lot of negative plays. I’m ranking him QB12 this week in sort of a neutral matchup against the Patriots. He’s a reasonable option in a week where viable QB options are few, but I’m never excited about starting Sam Howell.
If you’re really scrounging at quarterback this week, can I interest you in Mac Jones? The oft-maligned Jones is averaging only 12.1 fantasy points per game and just lost overachieving WR Kendrick Bourne to a torn ACL. But Jones gets a Week 9 home date against the Commanders, who have given up the second-most fantasy points per game to QBs and just traded away their two best pass rushers, Montez Sweat and Chase Young. Jones offers little value as a runner and is an inconsistent passer at best, but this looks like a pretty good spot for him.
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