Week 8 in the NFL will be the fourth straight week with 10 games on the main DFS fantasy football slate. Even with six teams on a bye, there are still 20 teams in the player pool, providing plenty of interesting options to consider. The main slate kicks off at 1:00 p.m. ET with seven games, followed by just three games in the later wave.
The Colts have the highest implied team total on the board as they host the Titans, followed closely by the Ravens, who come off their bye week and face the Bears. The highest point total on the board is from the late matchup between the Cowboys and Broncos, who have both been involved in plenty of thrilling, close finishes in their first part of the season. While kickoff is still a few days away, it’s never too early to start strategizing for your NFL DFS lineups for Week 8. Even in the middle of the week, some potential values are already popping in our early projections, and you definitely want to have these values on your radar.
Throughout the season, every Wednesday, I’ll be taking a look at the players who are standing out as top values for the coming week by using the early projections in our NFL Player Models. Of course, these models update frequently.
Things will likely change between now and Sunday, but it’s still good to have a plan of attack.
If there’s news between now and lock — and there will be — the models will update to reflect that.
As always, they’re powered by Sean Koerner — one of the most accurate fantasy rankers in the industry.
Finally, make sure to check out all the projections available for purchase (Chris Raybon’s come included with a FantasyLabs subscription) within the FantasyLabs Models. Subscribers now have the option to purchase Derek Carty’s THE BLITZ from our Marketplace. Projections from One Week Season and Establish the Run are available if you’re a subscriber to those specific sites (our optimizer is a separate add-on feature).
You can also combine them to create your own aggregate projections:
NFL DFS Quarterback Values
Bo Nix ($6,000) Denver Broncos (-3.5) vs. Dallas Cowboys (50.5 total)
The Broncos got a huge comeback win over the Giants last week, and Nix racked up 40 DraftKings points in his best performance of the season. In a favorable spot against the Cowboys, he should be set to build off that showing with another big week.
Throughout this post, we’ll rely heavily on an evenly blended three-way aggregate of the projections from Koerner, Carty, and Raybon, highlighted above. In those aggregated projections, Nix has the highest Projected Plus/Minus at quarterback on DraftKings’ main slate by a significant margin.
Nix is relatively affordable at $6,000, which is just the eighth-highest salary for quarterbacks, even though he has the fifth-highest median projection at the position. He had to attempt 50 passes in last week’s furious comeback and finished with 279 passing yards, two passing scores, and 48 rushing yards with two more scores on the ground. He typically chips in a few rushing yards, but this was a big outlier in terms of his ground contributions. Ultimately, he did what he needed to do to outduel Jaxson Dart in one of the best games of the season.
He gets a good matchup this week against the Cowboys, who have allowed the most DraftKings points per game to opposing quarterbacks this season. Opposing QBs have thrown 16 touchdown passes and added three rushing scores in the Cowboys’ seven games this season, averaging a robust 276.9 passing yards per contest.
In a smash spot, Nix brings elite value and matches Lamar Jackson for the most Pro Trends on the board as well.
NFL DFS Wide Receiver Values
Zay Flowers ($5,400) Baltimore Ravens (-6.5) at Cincinnati Bengals (50 total)
With Jackson expected to return, the Ravens offense should be set to get back on track as they visit the Bengals in an AFC North rivalry game. Flowers is expected to be healthy coming out of the bye week as well, and in this much-improved situation, he has the highest Projected Plus/Minus of all receivers on the board this week in the aggregate projections.
Flowers had a monster Week 1 against the Bills, racking up seven catches for 143 yards, a touchdown, and 31.1 DraftKings points. He hasn’t found the end zone or hit 100 yards since then, but he should be set up to bounce back.
The Ravens’ top receiver has at least five catches in five of his six games this season, including each of his last three games. He hauled in six of his 10 targets in Week 6 from Cooper Rush, even though he was given the questionable tag with a shoulder injury.
After a bye week and with Jackson back at quarterback, Flowers looks like a great value at $5,400 with lots of upside for a play under $6,000. He gets plenty of targets in the Ravens’ offense as their top receiver, averaging 7.7 targets per game.
The Bears have been a good matchup for wide receivers this season, allowing four receiver touchdowns in the last two games and 10 receiver touchdowns in their six games this season. Opposing receivers have produced 138.3 receiving yards per game, and Chris Olave had a pair of receiving touchdowns and a big game against them last week.
The Bears are a slightly favorable matchup for Flowers, and along with his salary dipping and Jackson’s return, all the signs point to him being a great value option in Week 8.
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NFL DFS Running Back Values
Breece Hall ($6,100) New York Jets (+6.5) at Cincinnati Bengals (44.5 total)
The Jets are the last winless team in the NFL, and the comments from their owner have put them in the spotlight all week. A quarterback change may be coming, but either way, Breece Hall has enough upside to be a good value option. Hall has the highest Projected Plus/Minus at running back this week and should be the focus of the offense against the Bengals.
In the last two weeks, Hall struggled to get much going with the offense stuck in neutral. He had only 5.9 DraftKings points and 7.2 DraftKings points in those two games, but he did have 16.1 and 21.5 DraftKings points in the two previous weeks, showing he still has upside.
If Tyrod Taylor takes over as QB, that should leave more rushing production for Hall, who won’t have Justin Fields vulturing touchdowns. Hall needs something from the passing game to create some space, but if he gets that, he could have a monster game this week against the Bengals.
The Bengals have given up more DraftKings points to running backs than any other team in the NFL this season, allowing 10 running back touchdowns in seven games and 122.7 rushing yards to go with 44.3 receiving yards per game to the position. The Steelers running backs ran wild against them last Thursday, even though they didn’t have any touchdowns, and the Bengals ultimately got the victory.
With a heavy workload in a smash spot, Hall brings great value potential in Week 8.
Don’t forget to check out our SimLabs Lineup Generator to create advanced DFS lineups using the power of simulation:
NFL DFS Tight End Values
Dalton Schultz ($3,300) Houston Texans (-1.5) vs. San Francisco 49ers (41.5 total)
It has been tough to trust the Texans’ offense this season, but Schultz has been a reliable PPR producer. He has the highest Projected Plus/Minus of all tight ends this week, since he should get even more work in Week 8.
The Texans went into their bye week with a roar after stomping the Ravens, but they came back on Monday with a whimper as their offense struggled badly against the Seahawks on Monday Night Football. They were already without Christian Kirk (hamstring) in that matchup and lost Nico Collins (concussion) to an injury before the end of the game. With both of those options out, Schultz stepped up and led the team with nine catches on 10 targets for 98 yards and a season-high 18.8 fantasy points.
While Schultz hasn’t found the end zone yet, he has had at least five catches in four straight games. His yardage total hasn’t been extremely high either, but he keeps getting enough catches to have decent totals.
Over his six games this year, he has averaged 5.0 catches on 6.2 targets for 47.3 yards per game. With more work potentially coming his way if Kirk or Collins is out against the 49ers, he has a very high floor and a very high ceiling this week, making him a great value play at $3,300.
Pictured: Bo Nix
Photo Credit: Imagn
