The Green Bay Packers will face the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 8. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Packers skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 8 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Jordan Love, QB
Jordan Love’s growth has been great to see and was present at the beginning of the Week 7 win. Through four drives, he threw 12 passes and targeted five different players multiple times.
Love has thrown multiple touchdown passes in 11 straight games (playoffs included), and he should continue to be effective against a Jaguars defense that allows 72.8% of opponent yards to come through the air, the fourth-highest rate in the NFL.
In a perfect world, Love gives us the rushing production that we saw early last season. That would allow him to level up, but even without that, he’s comfortably a top-10 signal-caller every week (QB4 for me in this specific spot).
Josh Jacobs, RB
Jacobs’ bizarre streak came to an end last week as he, on his 212th career reception, finally found pay dirt. The 211 scoreless catches are the most to start a career in NFL history and while the score was nice, I was more encouraged by the season-high reception count (five).
Emanuel Wilson has shown well for himself in limited opportunities and is an interesting stash in the deepest of leagues as a handcuff option in a potent offense, but he’s no threat to Jacobs’ weekly role.
Six times this season a running back scored 15 fantasy points against the Jags, and I like Jacobs to make it seven on Sunday.
Christian Watson, WR
I was optimistic about the short-term outlook for Watson this time last week when we got word that a shoulder injury had Dontayvion Wicks labeled as “week-to-week,” but apparently time works differently in Green Bay.
Not only did Wicks suit up, he was second in targets and receiving yards during the win over Houston, earning three times as many looks as Watson. I don’t think that’s sticky, but that’s the problem in this offense — nothing is sticky.
That’s great for the long-term outlook of the Packers, but it’s prohibitive in our circles, as no one on this explosive offense is a sure thing (WR1 Jayden Reed finished fifth on the team in receiving yards last week). The sheer presence of Wicks makes Watson nothing more than a DFS punt play, and even then, I’m not going to have exposure this weekend.
Jacksonville has allowed 12 receivers to reach double-digit PPR points, but only two of them had an aDOT north of 12 yards. Watson has yet to prove capable of winning with volume, making you reliant on a big play that is less likely to come in this spot than others. I don’t want to say it, but is he any different than Gabe Davis?
Dontayvion Wicks, WR
This time last week, Wicks was labeled as “week-to-week” with a shoulder injury, but come Sunday, he was producing against the Texans (3-48-1). The 30-yard touchdown was the result of Jordan Love’s savvy, as he quick-snapped Houston as they were trying to decide if they were going to challenge the play prior. That is exactly why we preach getting exposure to these productive NFL offenses.
If we are to believe that he is fully healthy, Wicks’ sleeper profile could pay off in a major way during the second half of the season. Jayden Reed is the WR1 on this offense, but the WR2 role is up for grabs. Wicks might be the favorite given that he has been targeted on over 28% of his routes in four consecutive games.
He’s something of a one-trick pony (14.7 aDOT for the season with a weekly aDOT over 14.0 yards in five straight), something that will limit his projectable consistency. That said, he could well be the perfect pony for this matchup with the Jaguars allowing a league-high 17.4 yards per deep pass this season.
He’s a viable Flex play this weekend (I have him ranked in the same tier as Jauan Jennings, Jalen McMillan, and Tank Dell) and likely has the best moments of his 2024 season yet to come.
Jayden Reed, WR
Reed is coming off his worst performance of the 2024 season (two catches for 10 yards on four targets against the Texans), but he gets as good of a bounce-back spot as fantasy managers could possibly ask for.
The Jaguars own the lowest interception rate (0.4%) in the NFL this season, and that has allowed opponents to feel comfortable in being aggressive against their secondary (8.0 yards per attempt, fourth most).
I’ve said it before and I’ll double down: the Packers are trending toward using Reed’s ability to create in space much like the 49ers have molded an offense around Deebo Samuel Sr. That role comes with some risk but more upside than downside when in advantageous spots like this. Reed has a carry in every game this season and a reception of 30+ yards in the majority of contests.
Don’t let last week impact your decision-making for this week — Reed should be treated as a lineup lock in all formats, this week and for the foreseeable future.
Romeo Doubs, WR
The wheel of Green Bay goodness landed on Romeo Doubs against the Texans last week, as he had his most catches, targets, and receiving yards in a regular-season game since last September. Doubs’ eight catches were more than any two pass catchers on Green Bay’s offense combined, and his 94 receiving yards were more than Dontayvion Wicks, Jayden Reed, and Tucker Kraft combined.
Be careful. You could elect to read this as Doubs establishing himself as a consistent piece of this offense, but are you really willing to buy in at that level and trust him as your Flex?
In every game this season, he’s had under five targets or over six, and part of what has impressed me about Jordan Love’s development is his willingness to spread the ball around.
Week 6 Packers target shares:
- Jayden Reed: 19.4%
- Tucker Kraft: 12.9%
- Christian Watson: 12.9%
- Romeo Doubs: 12.9%
- Dontayvion Wicks: 9.7%
Week 7 Packers target shares:
- Doubs: 30.3%
- Wicks: 18.2%
- Reed: 12.1%
- Kraft: 12.1%
- Watson: 6.1%
Doubs is a fine player to stash and roll the dice on in case of an emergency. However, with zero teams on a bye this week, hopefully, you don’t need to absorb this sort of risk — even if the matchup is favorable.
Tucker Kraft, TE
They say that we don’t know if a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if no one is around to hear it. The fantasy equivalent is as follows:
“If a tight end fails to pick up yardage but manages to score, does anyone notice?”
The answer is no. Kraft has now scored four times in four games and is firmly on the low-end TE1 radar as a result — not bad for a player who has yet to reach 40 air yards in a single game. His touchdown on Sunday was the result of his first end-zone target this season.
While the sheer number of viable pass catchers in Green Bay these days makes a reasonable target or yardage share difficult to project, this offense (sixth-most red-zone trips per game since the start of 2023) threatens paydirt enough to justify going in this direction.
Kraft is my TE8 for this week and will find himself in that 8-12 range more often than not — he’s part of the “I’ll play him every week and take my chances” tier that now includes David Njoku, Cole Kmet, Dalton Kincaid, and the emerging Hunter Henry.
Green Bay Packers at Jacksonville Jaguars Game Insights
Green Bay Packers
Team: The Packers have won three straight games and are seeking their first four-game win streak since December 2022.
QB: Jordan Love has thrown multiple TD in eight straight games. That’s the fourth-longest streak by a QB age 25 or younger, behind Patrick Mahomes (14), Brett Favre (12), and Dan Marino (10).
Offense: The Packers are explosive, but since 2022, they have ranked 23rd in red zone offense (54.2% this season, ranking 18th behind the Panthers, Titans, and Jets).
Defense: Green Bay is allowing the fourth-lowest third-down completion percentage (46.7%) and has yet to allow a third-down touchdown pass.
Fantasy: Josh Jacobs caught the first touchdown of his career on Sunday and now has at least four catches or 18 carries in all four games since Jordan Love returned.
Betting: The Packers beat the Rams 24-19 (closing total: 49.5) in Week 5, snapping a streak of six straight overs in Jordan Love road starts.
Jacksonville Jaguars
Team: This team returns from London to begin, without much question, their most difficult four-game straight of the season (vs. Packers, at Eagles, vs. Vikings, and at Lions).
QB: Trevor Lawrence has posted three straight passer ratings north of 90 on the heels of three straight under 90 (Jacksonville is 2-1 after an 0-4 start).
Offense: By EPA per game, this is the worst offense in the league (7.6% worse than the Panthers).
Defense: The Jaguars own the league’s worst red zone defense, allowing a touchdown on 78.3% of such drives.
Fantasy: Tank Bigsby has multiple rushing scores in two of his past three and at least 90 rushing yards in three of four. His role is trending toward that of a bellcow (Travis Etienne – hamstring), but with just one catch against his 67 carries this season is a ceiling capper.
Betting: In their three games before the London trip last season, the Jags were 1-2 ATS (average cover margin: -8.5 points). In their first three games back in the States, they went 3-0 ATS (average cover margin: +10.0 points).