Week 8 is here, and there are no bye weeks, so there will be plenty of questions about who to start and who to sit in your fantasy football lineups. Below, we’ve provided analysis for every fantasy-relevant quarterback in every game this weekend.
If you’re looking for all positions, head to our Week 8 Fantasy Football Start-Sit Cheat Sheet for every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Aaron Rodgers, QB | NYJ (at NE)
We got it. We finally got it. Ever since Rodgers joined the Jets, there was speculation about him reuniting with Davante Adams and we finally got it in Week 7. The results were revolutionary:
Weeks 1-6:
- 61.8% completion rate (4.1% TD rate)
- 72.8% quick-pass rate
- 10.4 yards per completion
- 7.1 air yards per throw
Week 7:
- 61.5% completion rate (2.6% TD rate)
- 74.4% quick-pass rate
- 11.5 yards per completion
- 5.2 air yards per throw
What’s that? Those numbers are essentially identical? And the Jets actually averaged 7.4% fewer yards per drive on Sunday than they did through six weeks?
I still think the Jets are going to make a push at some point and Rodgers will be a part of that. But at this point, savvy fantasy managers will be reactionary as opposed to aggressive. We all have Lambeau leaps in our mind when thinking of Rodgers/Adams-led offenses, but that was years ago and things (the two players, the offensive environment, and the rules of the NFL) are different now.
Rodgers has the potential to move inside of my top 15 once we get some breadcrumbs, but last week, even against an elite defense, didn’t provide enough for me to trust him right now.
Aidan O’Connell, QB | LV (vs. KC)
O’Connell injured his throwing hand on his 10th pass of the afternoon against the Rams, jamming it on a defender as he finished the throwing process. The team elected to start him over Gardner Minshew II, but testing on Monday revealed a broken thumb, landing him on IR, a designation that requires four missed games (with their bye in Week 10, this makes Week 13 his earliest possible return).
If you have an IR slot in a Superflex setting, I’d use it on him as any starting signal-caller holds value in a league like that. Given he’s 2.5 years younger than Minshew, not to mention that he is under contract for another two seasons), he could well get this job back in December. The Raiders close the fantasy season with the Jaguars and Saints, a favorable two-game run that will carry no weather risks. You have to keep an open mind in deep leagues like that, but outside of such a setting, you’re not waiting for him to return.
Andy Dalton, QB | CAR (at DEN)
Dalton’s lone pass in Week 1 against the Saints fell incomplete and that resulted in a 39.6 passer rating — he was hardly better than that on Sunday in Washington against one of the worst defenses in the NFL (44.0).
The win over the Raiders in Week 3 was fun, but we are well past his usable window in fantasy football ‘24. Dalton has failed to average even six yards per pass attempt in all four games since that shocking performance, throwing an interception in each of those contests (held without a touchdown toss in two of them).
This team could/should turn back to Bryce Young, and if you forced me to pick a quarterback to score the most points from Weeks 8-18, the second-year QB would get my vote.
Anthony Richardson, QB | IND (at HOU)
The idea of investing in a player like this makes all the sense in the world. Richardson has every tool, and given that we had very little in terms of NFL reps entering this season, why would we not be excited about his potential?
Is his profile not similar to Jayden Daniels, but sacrificing a little bit of speed for 30 pounds of muscle?
That’s why we aim high. If you’re right, you put yourself in a position to win your league (I’m guessing the team with Daniels is sitting pretty in your league). If you’re wrong, players like Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold could have been had late or picked up off the wire to give you a chance. In essence, you have the chance to win your league without the risk of losing it.
The process I stand by, but the results are clearly a problem. Through three drives on Sunday, Richardson had as many fumbles lost as completions. Over his past three starts, he has two more rushing attempts than completions.
Simply put, this offense doesn’t match what their starting quarterback does well, and I don’t see that changing. The Texans have been challenged downfield as often as anyone with the highest opponent average depth of throw, but they allow the fewest yards per deep pass attempt and that tanks Richardson’s ceiling.
Could he run for multiple scores in an effort to keep this game close? Anything is possible, and he certainly wasn’t shying away from contact. But without any confidence in his passing numbers, Richardson ranks outside of my top 15 at the position this week.
For what it’s worth, I’m already intrigued about next week’s matchup against the aggressive Vikings. Can he punish them for single coverage downfield? Can he break off a few chunk runs? If the breakout is coming, that is a spot I view as more interesting than this one.
Baker Mayfield, QB | TB (vs. ATL)
Here’s a fun note to stick in your pocket for the week — Mayfield has more top-two finishes at the position this season (four) than Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen combined (three).
As much as I like what Mayfield has done with Tampa Bay’s offense this season, dialing back his average depth per throw by 27.9% in the name of efficiency and trusting his supporting cast to make plays simply isn’t the offense that will take the field this week against the eighth-best per-pass defense in the NFL.
These two teams played in an instant classic in Week 5, a 36-30 comeback win for the Falcons in overtime. In that game, Kirk Cousins’ 509 passing yards was the standout stat line, but Mayfield completed 19 of 24 passes with three scores and no interceptions.
I expect this game to look nothing like that, given that the Bucs will be without both of their star receivers. If Tampa Bay is going to remain competitive in this one, they’ll have to play a very Chargers brand of football. And if you keep reading or have common sense, you’ll realize that can work for NFL teams but not fantasy investors in the passing game.
Chris Godwin and Mike Evans have accounted for 45.9% of the Buccaneers’ targets, 49% of their receiving yards, and 61.1% of their receiving scores. Mayfield and this coaching staff will have a game plan to play to the strengths of their healthy options, but the fantasy risk far outweighs the reward in a short week as this team tries to build this plane while they fly it.
Bo Nix, QB | DEN (vs. CAR)
Nix represents the area between on-field assets and fantasy difference-makers. In essence, he is the embodiment of how we all treated Jayden Daniels this offseason. We thought there would be a significant learning curve but that the role would be fantasy-friendly.
Turns out, we far underestimated Daniels, so let’s not make the same mistake and sleep on Nix. He’s the fourth rookie over the past 15 seasons to post consecutive games with 25 passing attempts and 60 rushing yards, joining Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, and Robert Griffin III on that list.
Not bad company, right?
Nix is far from a finished product as a passer, but there are some signs of development. And with his rushing profile, that’s all it takes to put him in the top-15 conversation; on DFS radars in a plus matchup like this, even without the benefit of having teams on a bye.
Over the past three weeks, Nix’s passer rating is 49.6%, and his completion percentage on passes thrown 5+ yards downfield is up 19 percentage points over that stretch. Again, not perfect, but against the lowest pressure team in the league, at home, and coming off of an encouraging performance that carries the mini bye with it?
I’m in.
Brock Purdy, QB | SF (vs. DAL)
I highlighted Purdy’s rushing production last week (current pace: 374 yards) as the type of bonus that can make him a weekly fantasy stalwart, but that assumes the passing numbers are stable.
They weren’t last week in a tough matchup against the Chiefs (17/31 for 212 yards with zero touchdowns and three interceptions), and while this matchup is softer, it’s still an opponent coming off their bye and a game that he will enter without Brandon Aiyuk.
Purdy’s yards per pressured pass attempt are down 18.3% from a season ago. Against the fifth-best team in terms of creating chaos, there’s more risk than reward in the profile of San Francisco’s signal-caller.
Assuming that Tua Tagovailoa returns, I’d rather play him against the Cardinals than Purdy this week.
Bryce Young, QB | CAR (at DEN)
Young is back under center for the Panthers, though it should be noted that the returning to QB1 honors is more the result of Andy Dalton and team struggles than it is anything we’ve seen on the field.
Not one of Young’s 65 passes has resulted in a touchdown this season. We’ve seen limited passers produce viable fantasy numbers in the past, but with just one rushing scored and 2.3 carries per game across his career, Young doesn’t have a clear path to mattering in most instances.
Could he show growth with time? Could Dave Canales sink his teeth in and have the second-year QB trending up by the time this season ends? Those things are within the range of outcomes, but asking him to give you even QB2 numbers this week against a defense that is top-5 in pressure rate, sack rate, touchdown rate, and yards per pass is — well, it’s a stretch. At best.
Caleb Williams, QB | CHI (at WAS)
Patience. We as a society lack it, and we are no different in the fantasy space. Williams was a mess to open his career, and that might be a disservice to the word “mess.”
Weeks 1-3:
- 59.3% completion percentage
- 5.3 yards per attempt
- 65.3 passer rating
- 13.7 pressure passer rating
- 0.5 touchdown-to-interception rate
Williams’ struggles were magnified by Jayden Daniels’ immediate success (through those three weeks, Williams had the fourth-lowest passer rating in the NFL while Daniels had the fourth-highest). That, naturally, resulted in plenty of people writing him off as an impact fantasy asset in 2024.
But what’s this? A player who can develop with time?
Weeks 4-6:
- 74.1% completion percentage
- 8.5 yards per attempt
- 122.8 passer rating
- 109.6 pressure passer rating
- 7.0 touchdown-to-interception rate
That stretch included scoring the seven-most fantasy points at the position, a mere 1.02 behind the seemingly already-crowned Rookie of the Year in Daniels.
Williams certainly has plus-athleticism in his profile, but it’s less overwhelming than what Daniels or Lamar Jackson has access to. His rushing profile is somewhere in the middle of reckless Baker Mayfield, run-when-needed Joe Burrow, and schemed-up Daniel Jones. All three of those QBs have posted top-seven finishes against the Commanders this season, a plausible outcome for Chicago’s rookie with an extra week of prep time.
C.J. Stroud, QB | HOU (vs IND)
The receiver position has been gaining steam in terms of how valuable it is considered within the NFL, something that we’ve seen in the contracts at the top of the totem pole. We’ve also seen it by way of the Houston Texans.
Nico Collins was injured on Stroud’s way to a second straight game with over 330 passing yards and has missed two games now — Stroud has a total of 278 yards through the air in those contests. In Weeks 1-5, Stroud completed 51.2% of his 8.2 deep pass attempts per game and was threatening defenses vertically on a consistent basis. Since then, he’s at 36.4% on 5.5 attempts per game.
Stroud picked apart these Colts in the season opener (24/32 for 234 yards and a pair of touchdowns), but it should be noted that Collins accounted for 25% of his completions and 50% of his passing yards. This matchup doesn’t scare, but the limited ceiling does in a week where no teams are on a bye and a few of the fringe QB1s have plus matchups.
As of right now, I have Caleb Williams (at Commanders), Sam Darnold (at Rams), and Kirk Cousins (at Buccaneers on short rest) ranked ahead of Stroud for me, a sentence I didn’t think I’d type at any point in my life, let alone before Halloween.
Dak Prescott, QB | DAL (at SF)
In today’s NFL, any quarterback who doesn’t offer upside with their legs is walking a thin line between viable and liability. Prescott is typically thought of as a QB who has enough mobility to pick up a few points when the opportunity presents itself, but that simply isn’t the case anymore.
Over his past seven regular-season games, Prescott has averaged 28.9 pass attempts for every rush, and he’s totaled three yards on the ground over his past three contests.
Like it or not, Prescott is essentially a pocket-locked quarterback these days, which has resulted in just one fantasy finish this season better than QB10. His passing TD rate and EPA per dropback are both pacing for the worst marks of his career — numbers that I don’t think will bounce back in a significant way any time soon.
What is it that a quarterback like this needs? We’ve seen Matthew Stafford and Kirk Cousins do it in the past, both with the benefit of a feared running game and receiver depth, two things that Prescott simply doesn’t have.
The 49ers handled him with relative ease last October (153 passing yards with three interceptions). While I’m not forecasting struggles at that level on Sunday, I never had a thought of ranking Prescott as a reasonable starter in one-QB formats.
Daniel Jones, QB | NYG (at PIT)
I thought Jones did a good job of completing two-thirds of his passes last week against the Eagles given the pressure he was under (sacked seven times, more takedowns than he had in his previous three games combined). Those completions, however, did no damage, and things don’t project to get any better this week against maybe the best defense in the NFL.
Jones’ mobility is his path to putting together top-15 weeks, but did you know that he only has one game this season with four points as a rusher? I expect him to be on the run regularly this week with a spy preventing his ability to impact the game with his legs and that’s a problem — his out-of-pocket completion rate sits at a career-low 44.4% with just 16.7% of such attempts resulting in a first down.
Jones had a run of viability in Weeks 2-5, and he might be able to put together another stretch. I just don’t think it starts this week. After this week, the Giants get the Commanders and Panthers — assuming that the team stands by him, Brock Purdy/Jordan Love managers should have Jones identified as a great streamer with their starter’s bye week approaching.
Derek Carr, QB | NO (at LAC)
Carr looked like an MVP candidate through two weeks of leading the new generation’s Greatest Show on Turf. But before his injury, the clock had struck midnight, and now without the field-stretching talents of Rashid Shaheed (knee, out for the season), asking Carr to return anything close to viable production when cleared is a long shot.
In the season’s first two games, Carr completed 61.5% of his deep passes with a 113.0 passer rating on such passes. Since then, his numbers (45.4 passer rating and 35% complete) look more like Spencer Rattler than an MVP candidate.
The Chargers are a top-10 pass defense across the board and ultra-methodical on the offensive end. If we get word that Carr will be returning this weekend, the value change sits with Chris Olave, but Carr shouldn’t be anywhere near your radar in any format.
Deshaun Watson, QB | CLE (vs. BAL)
Watson wasn’t leading an explosive offense last week against the Bengals, but he did complete 15 of 17 passes before a non-contact Achilles injury ended his afternoon and his season.
Through six weeks, the Browns were the worst offense in the league in yards per play, third-down conversion rate, and percentage of drives that reached the red zone, among other things.
As embarrassing as those numbers are, the Browns are on the hook for two more seasons of Watson, both of which carry a cap hit of $72,935,000. We can have the future discussion of Cleveland’s offense another day, but moving forward, this is a struggling unit that will look drastically different for the remainder of 2024.
Dorian Thompson-Robinson, QB |CLE (vs. BAL)
Thompson-Robinson averaged nearly 2.5 touchdowns per interception and ran for 28 scores during his collegiate career, demonstrating the type of skill set that fantasy managers love to target (see Richardson, Anthony). He took over for the Browns after the injury to Watson last week, and it didn’t take long for his athleticism to flash with a 34-yard carry.
It also didn’t take long for an injury to occur. We will see where his status nets out with time, but the middle finger injury puts this offense at risk of looking like when Malik Willis was leading the Packers. I like DTR more than I did Watson, but if he’s under center, this projects as a run-heavy script — that’s the last type of offense I want to invest in against the Ravens.
Drake Maye, QB | NE (vs. NYJ)
The Patriots have had seven different offensive line combinations in seven games, and that’s a tough way to make a living. That said, Maye has a 15+ yard rush and a 30-yard completion in both of his starts.
It’s pretty clear that Maye has a fantasy-friendly skill set and that the Patriots are willing to explore his upside. It’s only two starts, but he’s averaging 39 opportunities per game (pass + rush attempts). For reference:
- Jalen Hurts last season: 40.9
- Josh Allen last season: 40.6
- Lamar Jackson last season: 37.8
The Jets allow the fourth-lowest red-zone completion percentage (38.1%), and that keeps Maye out of my streaming ranks, but he won’t face this tough of an opponent every week — this kid is going to be an asset at some point down the stretch.
Gardner Minshew II, QB | LV (vs. KC)
Minshew will take back over this Raiders offense after O’Connell was placed on IR, an offense that couldn’t support him ranking better than QB18 at any point before being benched and no longer having Davante Adams.
I think Minshew’s aggression is better for Brock Bowers and the receivers, but in terms of QB fantasy value, there is nothing actionable to do here — I give him better odds to post the worst QB+ grade of the week than threaten to produce an impactful stat line.
Geno Smith, QB | SEA (vs. BUF)
Smith finally got on the board with his first multi-touchdown pass game of the season in Week 7, but there are red flags left and right in his profile. On a basic level, the efficiency that made him viable two years ago has disappeared. Over the past two weeks, he’s completed just 60% of his passes, a major step backward from his 71.9% rate through Week 5.
In digging deeper, his in-pocket touchdown rate is trending down for a second consecutive season while his interception rate in such spots is continuing to tick up. Smith’s deep completion percentage is down to 41.8% from 50% in 2023, and if DK Metcalf is unable to suit up, the floor is much more in play than anything close to a ceiling. He’s not a QB1 for me this week; if he’s missing his WR1, I’d rather roll the dice on Tua Tagovailoa.
Jalen Hurts, QB | PHI (at CIN)
The double Tush Push got Jalen Hurts home last week. He now has a rushing score or multiple touchdown tosses in five of six games. This team has an embarrassment of riches, which allows Hurts to sustain elite weekly value, even if he’s not a perfect product as a passer.
Cincinnati ranks 22nd in pressure rate and 30th in sack percentage. The Bengals aren’t likely to make Hurts uncomfortable, and with Saquon Barkley running as hard as he currently is, that puts him in a position to thrive as a passer.
I’ve bet this game to be the highest-scoring game of the day, which should allow for all interested parties to reach their fantasy-point quota.
Jared Goff, QB | DET (vs. TEN)
Jared Goff’s worst passer rating over the past month is 11.7 points higher than Patrick Mahomes’ best game of the season.
Think about how crazy that is. The Titans prefer to sit back in coverage (23rd in blitz rate and 31st in pressure rate), a defense that would be vulnerable to Jameson Williams’ speed working downfield. Goff, of course, won’t have his burner active, which hurts his ceiling, but I still think the floor is high enough to plug him in as a low-end QB1.
Jayden Daniels, QB | WAS (vs. CHI)
If you roster Jayden Daniels, you probably don’t need me to tell you that he left early last week and his status is unknown for Week 8. In the meantime, the team has gone out of its way to say how cautious they will be with their franchise centerpiece.
At this point, Daniels is matchup-proof, so if the Commanders play him, you do the same. He hardly played last week, and yet, he still extended his streak of consecutive games with a 30+ yard run or multiple touchdowns to three straight (and four of his past five).
Joe Burrow, QB | CIN (vs. PHI)
Joe Cool has multiple touchdown tosses in five of his past six games, and I like his chances of making it six of seven. The Eagles are more vulnerable through the air than on the ground, and with them ranking 27th in interception rate, there’s no reason to think that the Bengals won’t air it out this week as they try to win ball games despite a porous defense.
Cincinnati’s ability to hit home runs in the passing game is no secret, with both Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins earning targets at a high rate. So the fact that Philadelphia allows the eighth-most yards per catch after the reception only adds fuel to the Burrow fire.
Jordan Love, QB | GB (at JAX)
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 Allen, QB | BUF (at SEA)
Allen has posted two straight top-five finishes this season and has four such performances this season. His quick-pass rate is pacing for a career-high, and with his passing numbers trending up of late, it would appear that he is gaining comfort with his current set of teammates.
The addition of Amari Cooper can’t be overstated, and his impact figures to be felt with more time. Allen is locked in weekly, as he has access to a rare floor and ceiling.
Justin Herbert, QB | LAC (vs. NO)
Per our NFL Week 8 Stats and Insights piece, Herbert became the first QB since Ryan Tannehill (Week 2, 2021) to throw for 345 yards without a touchdown or interception. That’s just a fancy stat to tell you that Herbert had a historically boring fantasy game and that has pretty much been the story of his 2024 season.
This is the most run-centric team in the NFL, and even in a game where they asked their franchise QB to cut it loose, he didn’t produce top-15 numbers. The Saints’ defense is taking on water (26+ points allowed in four straight games), but I expect that to further encourage Jim Harbaugh to attempt to impose his will upon the visitors, not to attack through the air.
Herbert is a talented QB without any path to fantasy upside. In two-QB leagues, I prefer Trevor Lawrence and Drake Maye to him with relative ease.
Kirk Cousins, QB | ATL (at TB)
Cousins broke franchise records with 509 passing yards on 58 pass attempts in the Week 5 overtime win over the Buccaneers. If you exclude that game, he’s been QB20 or worse in four straight. If Bijan Robinson is going to be featured on the ground, I’ve got volume concerns.
Without the ability to produce with his legs, Cousins needs to be near perfect through the air to return top-12 value, and while I think he can have some success this week, will Atlanta need him to put up big numbers?
The Bucs lost a ton of firepower last week, and with a leaky run defense (30th in yards per carry allowed to running backs and 24th in overall rush defense by EPA), this script doesn’t set up nearly as cleanly as the first meeting between these teams.
Cousins is my QB13 right now, a ranking that could fall based on some injury news that impacts the QBs ranked just below him.
Kyler Murray, QB | ARI (at MIA)
Did you know that the Dolphins rank seventh-best among defenses in terms of yards per pass attempt? Or the best in terms of passing touchdown rate?
Murray has been held without multiple passing touchdowns in five straight games, and that limitation in this matchup means he can’t be considered a Tier 1 play for me. His ability to break the game with his legs is unique (45+ rushing yards in five of seven games) and elevates his fantasy floor to an elite level, even if we’ve yet to see much in the way of a ceiling as a passer in 2024.
Lamar Jackson, QB | BAL (at CLE)
Jackson was close to perfect on Monday night, and with the Browns being one of two defenses yet to intercept a deep pass, I see no reason why he can’t continue to build his case for a second consecutive MVP award.
He has a 15+ yard carry in every game this season and a 40+ yard completion in five of seven games. There is nothing Jackson can’t do right now, and he’s going to rank as a top-three quarterback for me every week moving forward without much thought.
Matthew Stafford, QB | LAR (vs. MIN)
Stafford opened the season with a QB13 performance but hasn’t been a top-20 option since. Of course, plenty of that had to do with the receiver injuries, and we get to correct some of that this week with Cooper Kupp expected back.
That’s the good. The bad is this matchup.
The Vikings ranked second in the league in blitz rate (41.6%, league average: 26%) and have brought the heat on at least 44.6% of dropbacks in four of their past five games (Week 7: season-high 55.2%). Stafford has thrown just two touchdown passes on 96 dropbacks against the blitz over his past nine games and the struggles extend even further than that:
Yards per blitzed pass attempt:
- 2021: 9.1 yards (137.6 passer rating)
- 2022: 7.5 yards (107.4 passer rating)
- 2023: 7.0 yards (82.4 passer rating)
- 2024: 6.7 yards (78.2 passer rating)
Stafford could work his way back into our good graces, but this is certainly a situation where I’ll be a week late rather than a week early.
Patrick Mahomes, QB | KC (at LV)
Mahomes has been surpassed as the MVP favorite, something fantasy managers have known for some time now. Kansas City is winning games, they just don’t need their All-Pro signal caller to do much. Mahomes was the 12th-highest-scoring quarterback to open the season, but he hasn’t had a top-15 finish since.
In fact, his longest play on Sunday was a deceptive run that netted 33 yards along the sideline. It was the first time since the 2022 Super Bowl in which his longest play came with his legs and not his arm, further proof that Mahomes is already in do-what-it-takes-to-win mode as opposed to pile-up-numbers mode.
It’s working for Kansas City, not for us. Mahomes struggled in the Christmas Day upset against these Raiders last season (5.3 yards per pass with one touchdown and one interception), so don’t take for granted that he is destined to leverage this plus matchup.
Mahomes is a low-end QB1 this week, ranking next to Caleb Williams and Sam Darnold — a sentence I definitely thought I’d be typing in October.
That said, Mahomes’ stock should rebound in short order with the team marrying his career-high deep completion percentage with DeAndre Hopkins after the Wednesday morning trade. I’m not sure that trade impacts Week 8 at all, but it certainly will moving forward, which should trend Mahomes back toward a top-five producing quarterback.
Russell Wilson, QB | PIT (vs. NYG)
Wilson scored 24.9 fantasy points against the Jets on Sunday night — that was his most fantasy points scored in a game in 400 days and the most a QB has scored against the Jets in 1,388 days (Tom Brady, Week 17, 2021). I thought Wilson looked good in his season debut, though I think we are still a ways away from him being considered for a starting role in standard fantasy leagues.
Last week, he posted an 8.2-yard aDOT, but only seven of his 29 attempts (24.1%) went over that number. We remember the “moon balls” he was throwing to George Picken,s and those were fun, but it was a lot of underneath passing and those passes are going to struggle to return top-15 value due to the lack of playmakers on this roster.
In my opinion, Wilson taking over this offense means more for his pass catchers than it does for his trajectory as an asset.
Sam Darnold, QB | MIN (at LAR)
After three straight finishes inside the top 10 at the position, this is three straight outside of it, as regression seems to be setting in. Even if you don’t want to regress his efficiency in a major way due to your trust in Kevin O’Connell’s system, the fact that he doesn’t run and has cleared 28 pass attempts just once makes him a bad bet based on math alone.
The Rams offer very little in the way of resistance, and that has Darnold ranked as a low-end QB1 for me this week, a tier I expect him to occupy for the next few games with similarly positive matchups awaiting him (Colts and Jaguars in Weeks 9-10).
Spencer Rattler, QB | NO (at LAC)
Despite posting a quick pass rate of at least 65% in both of his starts, Rattler has been sacked on over 11% of his dropbacks in both of those outings, a clear sign that this offensive line is struggling the way we worried it might when evaluating this team in the preseason.
Of course, getting Chris Olave (concussion) back is a boost, but Rattler needs much more than that when you consider that he hasn’t finished as a top-20 producer at the position in either start, and we now have all 32 teams in action.
The Chargers are a top-8 defense in yards per completion, touchdown pass rate, and interception rate – Rattler himself isn’t close to fantasy relevant, and his ability to support any of his talented teammates is a legitimate concern.
Trevor Lawrence, QB | JAX (vs. GB)
Lawrence has laid some breadcrumbs of late, and that’s good to see.
Average passer rating:
- Weeks 2-4: 75.4
- Weeks 5-7: 110.9
The problem is that, given his early season struggles, we need a lot more than breadcrumbs to get him into the QB1 conversation. Lawrence still isn’t looking to run, and that has him without a top-10 finish in 2024 (45 rush yards against the Browns in Week 2; 42 total since).
The weapons are on this roster for him to have spike weeks, and maybe you guess right in a DFS setting, but for season-long, there’s no reason to dig this deep. Lawrence has failed to throw multiple TD passes in the majority of his starts this season. He has also failed to complete 20 passes in the majority of his starts, leaving him without quality or quantity.
Tua Tagovailoa, QB | MIA (vs. ARI)
Tagovailoa was QB8 in the season-opening win over the Jaguars (338 passing yards, highlighted by an 80-yard Tyreek Hill touchdown) before getting injured in Week 2. The team has opened up his window to return to action, and the hope is that returns to play this week.
There is no way to know exactly what Tagovailoa looks like, and that is why I’m going to be cautiously optimistic. Right now, I have him ranked as my QB15 against the worst per-pass defense in the league, a ranking that could shift up a few spots should we get positive reports from Adam Beasley in the coming days.
Will Levis, QB | TEN (at DET)
Levis (AC sprain in his right shoulder) was forced to sit out Sunday, but if he is the answer to your fantasy lineup concerns, you’re very much asking the wrong questions.
There are flashes of fantasy viability on a week-to-week basis (12+ rushing yards in all four healthy games this season and 66.4% completion percentage, up from 58.4% as a rookie), but they are offset by inconsistent decision-making that makes sustaining drives a near impossibility.
The second-year QB will have his job back when healthy, but I found it telling that Mason Rudolph had no issue in completing 12 of his first 15 passes for 100 yards and a score. He spread those 12 completions around to six different players, with four of his teammates having a 10+yard gain.
Levis’ development is slow, if not non-existent, at this point in time. And with DeAndre Hopkins now a Chief, projecting that to change in a meaningful way is irresponsible. That combination makes him the rare QB who I’d consider sitting in a Superflex setting.