We’re roughly halfway through the NFL’s regular season and the fantasy football playoffs are on the horizon. These are the 10 storylines you need to know coming out of Week 8.
Troy Franklin is getting hot just as the fantasy football playoffs are on the horizon and Tyrone Tracy is now the starting running back for the Giants. Tracy and Franklin headline the list of best waiver wire adds for Week 9.
1) Saquon Barkley is back
Barkley entered Week 8 averaging 3.3 yards per carry with a season-high of 88 rushing yards. He eviscerated the Giants with a 14/150/1 rushing line plus a receiving touchdown. Nothing changed with his ability to create yards after contact versus the Giants. He averaged 2.4 YAC per attempt, the exact same mark as his season-long average. The big shift was the Eagles’ blocking. They created 114 yards before contact for the reigning OPOY, easily the team’s best mark of the season. Barkley logged his first and second 20-yard gains on the ground of the season, one of which was a 65-yard score.
All four of Barkley’s longest runs this year have come against the Giants, split between two games. Coming out of the bye, Barkley faces a Packers defense giving up the eighth-fewest yards before contact per carry. After that:
- Lions – 26th
- Cowboys – 30th
- Bears – 31st
- Chargers – 22nd
2) RJ Harvey explodes for three scores
Of all the possible three-touchdown games on the menu for Week 8, an RJ Harvey trifecta was not particularly high on my shortlist of guesses. Harvey ran seven times for 46 yards and two scores while finding paydirt for a third time on his only catch of the day.
RJ Harvey’s three TDs in Week 8
1. Look at Pat Bryant pin, so Garrett Bolles can pull out. RG Quinn Meinerz decleats Shemar James. Then drives Corey Ballentine to the ground. Harvey goes untouched after reading each block perfectly.
2. 3rd down. Harvey shifts pre-snap. Broncos… pic.twitter.com/UMTowewvns
— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris) October 27, 2025
With a Wildcat snap and a designed target at the goal line, Harvey is flirting with the “Joker” role. The mathematicians among you will notice that he only touched the ball eight times. When looking at just his opportunity shares, not much changed in Week 8. His 28 percent snap share and 27 percent route rate were both slightly below his season-long rates. He earned 28 percent of the carries, which is an improvement over his season-long average, though it’s not an impressive number. Harvey had three red zone carries and one attempt inside the five heading into Week 8. He picked up two more red zone attempts, both of which were I5 carries, versus the Cowboys. Even if his touch totals don’t explode, maybe Harvey can increase the value of his touches going forward.
Follow the latest injury news for fantasy football lineups in Week 9.
3) Just how good are the Colts?
The Colts are currently averaging .155 EPA per team rush attempt with a 46.9 percent success rate on the ground. That is easily the best mark by EPA per carry since 2015. Their success rate is the ninth-highest during that stretch. Dating back to 2010, only rookie Cam Newton’s Panthers moved the ball more efficiently on the ground. The fact that the Colts are so dominant at running the ball without a hyper-mobile quarterback makes their feats even more impressive. Since 2020, three of the five best rushing seasons by EPA per play have been helmed by Lamar Jackson, Jayden Daniels, and Jalen Hurts.
The passing attack, as you would expect, is not quite as good. It only ranks 17th among all offenses since 2015, merely a 95th percentile season. Their success rate of 55.1 percent is even better, sitting in sixth place. All in, the Colts are the second-most efficient offense since 2015, trailing only the 2018 Chiefs.
4) Rashee Rice encore
I wrote about Rice’s immediate breakout in this column last week, but a 9/93/1 performance in Week 8 earned him another mention. Rice is now two targets shy of Marquise Brown for a team-high in red zone looks. He has three touchdowns in two games and was taken down at the one or two-yard line twice on Monday. At 24.4 PPR points per game, Rice is now the WR1 overall (by points per game). He upped his route rate to 83 percent and his target share to 29 percent versus the Commanders. Andy Reid even drew up a Wildcat play for him in the red zone which he nearly scored on. Between his elite target-commanding and his role near the end zone, Rice is a strong candidate to be the WR1 overall from here on out.
5) Ladd McConkey stacking games
McConkey appears to be almost all the way back after a dreadful start to the 2025 season. He has 27 catches for 294 yards and three scores over his past four weeks, good for 18.6 points per game and a WR6 finish in October. Most importantly, Quentin Johnston has been back for two weeks and McConkey is running circles around him. McConkey has a 31 percent target share over the past two weeks compared to seven percent for Johnston. ESPN’s Open Score was high on McConkey all year — he currently ranks eighth in the metric — and his ability to separate is now bearing fruit in the form of fantasy points.
6) Drake Maye is him
Maye is currently the QB3 in fantasy points per game and EPA per play. He ranks first in CPOE and fourth in PFF’s passing grade. The Patriots coaching staff has taken notice, too. New England quietly sits at seventh in the NFL in pass rate over expected.
The only frustrating aspect of Maye’s ascendance has been the lack of a consistent beneficiary, outside of Maye himself. Kayshon Boutte has four WR2 weekly finishes this year and four performances that landed him outside of the top 50 wideouts. Stefon Diggs has been more consistent, but that has come at the cost of his fantasy bottom line. Boutte has a narrow edge in overall fantasy points on the back of five receiving touchdowns. Frustrating as they might be, Maye is playing well enough to keep both Diggs and Boutte in lineups every week.
Eric Samulski breaks down his fantasy football defense rankings for Week 9 of the NFL season
7) Your new TE1: Tucker Kraft
Kraft took the lead in the tight end ranks in Week 8 with a 7/143/2 receiving line. He is up to 16.2 PPR points per game, narrowly edging out Trey McBride for the TE1 crown on a points-per-game basis. Kraft’s 2.46 yards per route run is the second-best mark by a tight end this year. His 11.3 YAC per catch is the best mark for a tight end…ever? Among players with at least 30 targets in a season, these are the highest YAC seasons since 2010:
- Tucker Kraft – 11.3
- Marcedes Lewis – 9.9
- George Kittle – 9.9
- Jermichael Finley – 9.5
YAC data only goes back so far, but it’s at least possible that he is having the best YAC season ever. His 2024 mark of 9.3 was also one of the best of the past 15 years. He has gotten even better in that regard and is now earning targets at a much higher clip. Kraft was targeted on 14.8 percent of his routes last year. He is being targeted at a 19.4 percent clip this year. My money is still on McBride to finish the year as the TE1 overall, but Kraft has cemented his status as a top-five fantasy tight end.
8) Ja’Marr Chase is really good at football
I’ve been in the lab lately cooking up takes, and one inescapable truth I’ve come to is that Ja’Marr Chase is pretty good at football. Chase already had the most targets in a single game this year before Joe Flacco took over. His 16 targets in Week 2 were tied for the highest mark with a few other players for a while. Then journeyman Joe came to town and threw at Chase 23 times in Week 7. He peppered Chase with 19 looks in Week 8. Chase now has the most, second-most, and third-most targets in a game this year. The record for targets in a single season is 205. Chase is on pace for 210. His numbers have exploded on all fronts with Flacco under center.
Chase’s pace with Flacco under center would be good for the most catches and targets by a receiver in the history of the league. He would come up three yards shy of the yardage record.
9) Is Tua back?
It was as over as it’s ever been for Tua Tagovailoa in Week 7 when he tossed three interceptions in a blowout loss to the Browns. Is he equally as back after throwing four touchdowns with no interceptions in a decimation of the Falcons? He at least deserves his flowers for the Week 8 breakout. PFF graded him as their No. 4 overall quarterback last week and he ranked seventh in EPA per play. We got all of the good Tua without any of the bad.
That has not been the case for the bulk of the season. We have gotten some of the good Tua and way too much of the bad. His accuracy hasn’t been the issue. He ranks ninth in PFF’s accurate throw rate and 13th in CPOE. The problem has been an unending run of dangerous plays. PFF has charted him with the second-most turnover-worthy plays. Tagovailoa also has the 11th-highest pressure-to-sack rate this year at 20 percent. That is his highest TWP rate and second-highest P2S rate in the Mike McDaniel era.
10) Emeka Egbuka’s slump
Egbuka suffered a hamstring injury in Week 6 and has been playing through the issue for two weeks. His splits before and after the injury are stunning.
Egbuka was averaging 20.5 fantasy points per game before Week 6. He is down to 6.9 per game over his past three appearances. His pre-injury output was never going to hold. Egbuka was scoring on 13.2 percent of his targets, an unsustainable rate even for great players. On the other hand, Egbuka hasn’t scored since suffering the injury despite his volume increasing. His target share is up by two percent and he went from 13.8 expected fantasy points per game to 15.5. The lack of big plays and touchdowns can partially be attributed to him playing through the injury. Baker Mayfield has also been in a bit of a slump in recent weeks, missing Egbuka on a few throws that could have changed the narrative entirely. With a Week 9 bye on tap, I expect Egbuka to come back firing on all cylinders in Week 10.
