Week 8 Fantasy Football Sneaky Starts & Sleepers

Oct 23, 2024

Scott Galvin-Imagn Images

All but the luckiest fantasy owners at some point need to find the proverbial diamond in the rough—a waiver wire or bench player capable of putting up some points in a pinch. This weekly feature is dedicated to that part of fantasy football. It's not pretty, but it's part of the game.

I’ll put the defense’s aFPA (adjusted fantasy points allowed) rank in parentheses below. As of Week 4, we are now using only 2024 data for our signature strength of schedule metric, which makes it a great apples-to-apples comparison of each defensive matchup.

Last week’s Sneaky Starts featured Baker Mayfield (QB2), Geno Smith (QB10), Sam Darnold (QB13), Drake Maye (QB6), Kareem Hunt (RB11), Tank Bigsby (RB7), Bucky Irving (RB17), Tyler Goodson (RB24), Jordan Addison (WR28), Romeo Doubs (WR15), David Njoku (TE2), Hunter Henry (TE6), and Cade Otton (TE5).

Let’s see who might surprise this week:

Quarterbacks

Jared Goff, Lions (vs. TEN, 17)

The Goff Gambit–drafting and starting Goff only at home or in favorable road matchups–was one of my suggested draft strategies this year and it got off to a rocky start when he only managed 217/1 against the Rams and didn’t throw a touchdown against the Bucs in Week 2. But he bounced back against the Seahawks (292/2) and played well in two indoor road games against Dallas (315/3) and Minnesota (280/2) in the last two weeks. The Titans have been mediocre against the pass so Goff should be able to deliver in Detroit.