Sell Kareem Hunt While You Still Can! 😧

After a week with six teams on bye, Week 8 gives us a taste of sweet relief: no teams on bye! (But injuries can’t be turned off, though 🥲)

What’s in store:

• It’s a complete mess in the Tennessee QB room. Tannehill’s missing practice, and that means it could be Malik Willis and Will Levis platooning at QB on Sunday.

• Are the Panthers barreling towards a backfield by committee? See what Frank Reich had to say - and what it could mean for your fantasy team.

• Wait - we should be TARGETING a Bears player in a trade? See who Zach is talking about when you read on!

• It’s feeding time! 🥄 Ezekiel Elliott has scored twice in the past two weeks - and that’s limited Stevensons’ ceiling.

• Titans QB Ryan Tannehill misses practice Tuesday with ankle injury suffered in Week 6

  • It was nice to defer decision making on the Titans offense for a while with Tennessee having their bye in Week 7, but it looks like fantasy managers will be forced to navigate an offense in Week 8 spearheaded by the likes of Malik Willis and Will Levis after all. You might be wondering: was the Titans passing offense relevant even with Tannehill under center? You can form your own opinion on that one, but what we do know is that it wasn’t fantasy conducive. Now imagine that, but consider the fact that the QB play could be taking another step or two back from there. Both DeAndre Hopkins and Treylon Burks profile as hail mary starts against a tough Falcons defense in Week 8, and the word out of Tennessee is that both Willis and Levis could see playing time in that game. It’s shaping up to be a complete dumpster fire in fantasy land for the Titans without Tannehill, who suddenly qualifies as the lesser of two evils.

• Cardinals TE Zach Ertz lands on injured reserve with quad injury, Trey McBride expected to step up

  • Ertz surprisingly established himself as one of the more dependable fantasy tight ends through seven weeks, and his absence vacates six targets per game in the Arizona offense. That opens the door for yet another young tight end in Trey McBride to potentially claim that workload. McBride was a second-round pick in the 2022 draft and has been doing his best to challenge the veteran Ertz for snaps this season; with Ertz now out of the picture for the immediate future, McBride should have no trouble getting the necessary playing time to be considered as a realistically viable option in Week 8. With the eventual return of Kyler Murray still on tap in the coming weeks, the situation can only get better around McBride, who should absolutely be picked up off of waivers in leagues where he’s still available.

• Panthers HC Frank Reich alluded to Carolina’s backfield approach resembling a committee

  • An interesting development here from Reich, who seems to be smelling what the fantasy community has been cooking about Chuba Hubbard potentially taking on a larger role in the offense even once Sanders returns. Outside of an RB14 performance in Week 3 against the Seahawks, Sanders has finished Top-24 or worse in every other game he’s appeared in this season. The Panthers also field a bottom-6 offense on a weekly basis, and the touchdown dependence Sanders was able to get away with last year behind a vaunted Eagles o-line isn’t covering the inefficiency for Sanders in 2023. At this point, neither running back will be a comfortable start moving forward, but both could warrant flex consideration in Week 8 against a Texans defense surrendering the 9th-most fantasy points to running backs this year.

• BUY WR D.J. Moore, CHI

  Before you come at me for saying that we should be buying a wide receiver with an undrafted rookie at quarterback, let’s put Moore’s situation into some context, shall we?

• It’s true – Fields is out right now, and could be for a little while longer. But it won’t be forever, and when he does come back, you’re gonna be putting Moore back in your lineup again without a second thought. Remember weeks 2-6 when Moore had a 32% target share, 48% air yards share, and two top-5 finishes after a tough game in Week 1? That ceiling is going to be there once Fields is back, and they’ve got some good matchups these next few weeks ahead of their Week 13 bye, including two games against teams inside the top-12 for most fantasy points allowed in the Vikings and Lions.

• And let’s also not forget that you’re not completely hung out to dry with Bagent at QB: he was hyper-targeting D.J. Moore in his first start. Moore had a 35% target share, and Bagent delivered 8 catchable targets out of 9 total on the day, including an end zone target that went in and out of his hands. That’s an 89% catchable target rate - but not everybody is going to look at Bagent and think that he’s capable of keeping these numbers up.

• All that stuff I just mentioned about D.J. Moore is great, but it hasn’t translated to great fantasy days from him these past two weeks. Whoever’s got him on their roster might not be thrilled at the prospect of Bagent under center for the near future, and I know I mentioned those good matchups coming up on the schedule – but before those two games, there are two tough matchups on the Bears schedule against the Saints and the Panthers. That could set you up with a layup of a trade - backup quarterback, tough matchups on deck, limited production recently, and uncertainty about when Fields will be back. Take a stab at picking him up.

• SELL RB Kareem Hunt, CLE

• All you need to do is look at the way Hunt has produced in the past two games to get an idea of why he’s a screaming sell this week – and you shouldn’t have any trouble doing that given the situation around him. Over the past two weeks, Hunt has scored three touchdowns and averaged 15.6 points per game. Show someone those game logs, and he looks like an RB2 with newfound RB1 upside because Ford is gone, but dive into the utilization, and you realize quickly not all that glitters is gold.

• Not only is he averaging just 3.4 yards per carry in that same time span, but he’s also splitting snaps regardless of who’s in the backfield with him. When Ford was in the lineup, he was the clear lead back and handled 30 of 44 snaps before going down with his injury. Once he was out, Pierre Strong actually out snapped Kareem Hunt 23-19! And it’s not difficult to figure out why Strong was getting more looks – out of 23 running backs since Week 6 with 20 or more carries, Hunt is forcing missed tackles at the third-lowest rate and averaging the 4th-fewest yards after contact per attempt. Not good.

• Take advantage of the people who are convinced that Hunt is suddenly in line to be the clear-cut RB1 in Cleveland with Jerome Ford going down and move off of him while he’s got two back-to-back top-15 finishes on the game log. Remember, Hunt is only getting snaps because of injuries to not one, but TWO running backs ahead of them –and even then Pierre Strong still figures to take some work.

When Ezekiel Elliott signed in New England ahead of the season, there were anxious rumblings among Rhamondre Stevenson managers about what Zeke’s presence in the backfield could mean for Patriots’ incumbent ball carrier. Through the first five weeks of the season, Zeke wasn’t a problem at all - he didn’t have a single goal line carry in that time frame. Now, that may have had something to do with the fact that New England had just one carry inside the five to go around in their first five games… which went to Rhamondre. But the Patriots’ offense has come on as of late and has looked pretty alright in two games against the Raiders and Bills – and that’s allowed Zeke to reclaim his post as a goal line back.

Over the past two weeks, Elliott has paced Rhamondre Stevenson in goal line touches 3-1, two of which came this past Sunday against the Bills. In that same game, Stevenson failed to log a goal line carry. Both backs handled one such carry apiece the week before against the Raiders, and Zeke was able to cash in with a touchdown on one carry in both games.

If you feel like we’ve seen Zeke make a living before by vulturing goal line touchdowns, it’s because he has: last year in Dallas, he went 9 straight games scoring a touchdown with just 60+ yards rushing in four of them. It’s a bit early to suggest that a similar trend could be picking up steam here - especially considering the fact that the Patriots offense still ranks in the bottom third of the league - but Zeke finding the end zone has hurt Stevenson’s weekly upside now two games in a row.