NFL Week 8 Preview

Halfway Point

By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)

It’s seven weeks into the NFL season, which means that we are at the halfway point of the Dynasty Owner regular season. The season is going too fast as Tim says all the time on the Livestream. He’s right as I can’t believe that we are halfway through our regular season now. Hopefully that’s just the start for your Dynasty Owner team(s) and you’re sitting pretty near the top of the standings and looking good to extend your season at least a week (or two) by making the playoffs.

The first half of the Dynasty Owner regular season has been interesting, and every season is unique in its own special way. For example, we saw the Miami Dolphins put up 70 points in a single game, nearly breaking the NFL regular season record of 72 points set back in 1966 by the Washington Redskins (not Commanders as they were called the Redskins back then). The final score of that Dolphins-Broncos game was 70-20, which was a NFL Scorigami.

You might be asking yourself, “What’s a NFL Scorigami?” According to the NFL Scorigami website, it’s a final score that has never happened before in NFL history. Not surprising that 70-20 was a NFL Scorigami, but in fact, we had two of them in Week 3 as the Eagles 25-11 victory over the Buccaneers was also a NFL Scorigami.  There was also one in Week 1 this year as the Ravens defeated the Texans by a final score of 25-9. None since Week 3 though.

I can’t imagine trying to keep track of Dynasty Owner Scorigami as with Bench scoring and scores to two decimal places, it seems like every matchup is a Scorigami. In Dynasty Owner, we’ve seen The Road Warriors at the top of the Chase for the Ring Leaderboard for a couple of weeks, but their current score through seven weeks of 1245.7 points is actually behind the pace they set in 2021 when they had 1282.1 points and were in first place after seven weeks and also behind the number of points scored by our 2022 Chase for the Ring winner Dynasty|Trade|School and four other teams last season. The Road Warriors have definitely been the Dynasty Owner MVP through the halfway point of the Dynasty Owner regular season.

Since we are halfway through the Dynasty Owner regular season, let’s hand out a few mid-season awards. As some NFL teams have only played six games, I’ve made sure to check and compensate for that in some circumstances.

• Dynasty Owner Player of the Year: This has to go to the player with the most Dynasty Owner fantasy points, so it’s Patrick Mahomes ($45,000,000) who has 199.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points after seven weeks. He is trailed very closely by Josh Allen ($43,005,667) who has 196.7 and Tyreek Hill ($30,000,000) who has 195.6. The only top 10 player who’s been on bye is Justin Herbert ($6,644,689), but his 161.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points equals 26.9 points per game, below Mahomes’ per game average of 28.44 points.
• Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Year: This was also close and not surprisingly came down to Brock Purdy ($934,252) against Puka Nacua ($1,021,244) who sit at #14 and #15 in Dynasty Owner scoring after seven weeks. This award is based on the lowest Cost per Point, so it goes to Purdy who has scored 151.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and has a $6,175 Cost per Point compared to $6,919 Cost per Point for Nacua who has scored 147.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.
• Rookie of the Year: There are two rookies in the top 20 in scoring at the halfway point. Even though Puka Nacua has more points than C.J. Stroud ($9,069,811). Nacua has played in seven games versus six games for Stroud. Stroud wins as he has scored 138.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, or 23.07 points per game. Nacua has scored 147.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points for an average of 21.09 points per game.
• Bust of the Year: This one is a little subjective, but the “winner” is Najee Harris ($3,261,862) who only has scored 48.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in six games played and is RB38 at the halfway point. It’s bad when your position ranking is a larger number than your startup draft ADP (32.7). That’s his largest ADP in three seasons, so nobody who drafted Najee has likely got what they wanted out of him this season so far.
• Backups of the Year: This is a tiny bit subjective, but was designed to go to the player who started the 2023 season as a backup but has scored the most Dynasty Owner fantasy points at the halfway point. It’s a tie between Zack Moss ($1,153,079) and Kyren Williams ($992,601) who both have played six games and scored 114.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Neither one was the Week 1 starter and Moss was injured, so if Deon Jackson ($808,333) had played well, Moss likely wouldn’t have taken over in Week 2. Williams also took over as the Rams starter in Week 2, but is now on Injured Reserve.
• Surprises of the Year: This is in lieu of a Comeback Player of the Year award that I originally planned to give out but then couldn’t really find a great winner. Instead, I wanted to give an award to the biggest surprise players of the year who are giving their Dynasty Owners a lot of production for not a lot of salary nor draft capital. Also, I wanted a way to acknowledge Puka Nacua. However, he has to split this award with Raheem Mostert ($2,800,000) who is only one spot behind him in Dynasty Owner mid-season scoring at #16 with 146.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.

There you have it. The Dynasty Owner mid-season awards for 2023. Now, on to the usual preview article stuff.

Every week in this weekly preview article, I’ll present a player at each position (QB, RB, WR, TE) who you should have as a Starter in your Dynasty Owner lineup. These won’t be the obvious choices. No recommendations to go ahead and start any of the guys listed above, except Najee Harris, as all of them are having great seasons. Other players who have scored lots of Dynasty Owner fantasy points won’t be mentioned either. Instead, I’m going to recommend you Start players outside the top players at their position, players drafted to be on your Bench or Practice Squad, or players who aren’t on a roster in every Dynasty Owner league.

After that, I’ll name one player per position who should be on your Bench or Practice Squad. For these Bench recommendations, it’s just the opposite. I’ll suggest players doing well so far, drafted early in Dynasty Owner startup drafts to be Starters, and also projected in the top 12 (QBs and TEs) or top 36 (RBs and WRs) in scoring this year. This section is where you might see some surprising players appear. However, the recommended Bench players shouldn’t be in your Starting lineup for the week based on matchups, past performance against a team or something else.

All stats cited are based on the Standard Dynasty Owner scoring system as outlined in the Dynasty Owner Constitution. Standard Dynasty Owner scoring gives you .1 points for every yard rushing or receiving, .1 point for every 2 yards passing, 1 point per reception, 6 points for a rushing, receiving or passing touchdown and 2 points for a successful 2-point conversion (rushing, receiving, or passing). Interceptions or fumbles lost cost you 3 points, while a fumble that is recovered by the player’s team is a loss of only 1 point. Bonus points are available for 100-199 yards rushing (2 points), 200 yards rushing or receiving (6 points), 300-399 yards passing (1 point) and 400 yards passing (4 points). There is also a 3 point bonus for clutch scoring, which is a score that results in a lead change in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter or overtime. Kickoff and punt return touchdowns are worth 6 points for the player and kickoff and punt returns are worth 1 point for every 40 yards.

Any salaries, ADPs and roster percentages listed were current as of the morning of October 26th. All 2023 contract information is currently what is listed on the Dynasty Owner platform (number of years and salaries) and has been taken from Spotrac (https://www.spotrac.com/).

Dynasty Owner Player of the Week

Before we get into Week 8, let’s look at Week 7 and announce the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week. This week, we end the streak of first time winners, but still have someone who hadn’t won the Player of the Week award yet this season. However, he is the most decorated player in Dynasty Owner history, the only player to win a Player of the Week award in all five Dynasty Owner seasons, and the winner of the mid-season Player of the Year award. That’s right, the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week was Patrick Mahomes.

What more can I say about Mahomes that hasn’t already been said? This is his ninth Player of the Week award in four and a half seasons of Dynasty Owner. That’s four more awards than Josh Allen who has five. He’s the only player to win the award in all five Dynasty Owner seasons. He has the most Dynasty Owner fantasy points so far this season with 199.1 and the highest per game average (28.44). De’Von Achane ($1,359,362) with a per game average of 27.68 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game (110.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 4 games played) is close but not quite as good as Mahomes this year.

In Week 7, Mahomes had 49.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (424 passing yards, 29 rushing yards, 4 TDs, 1 INT). His 424 passing yards is the second highest of the season behind only the 466 yards by Tua Tagovailoa ($7,568,859) in Week 1. Both of them came against the Los Angeles Chargers by the way. By winning in Week 7, Mahomes was able to avoid having the latest Player of the Week award win of his career as he won his first (and only) Player of the Week award in Week 8 of the 2020 season. Congrats (again) to Patrick Mahomes on being the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week.

Week 7 Points: 49.1

2023 Salary: $45,000,000

Cost per Point: $916,497

Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week

Because this is Dynasty Owner and we’re all looking for value from the players on our roster, we also have the Value Player of the Week. It’s back to a familiar face as our winner this week. The competition was extremely fierce, and the winner didn’t have the most points among the contenders, but because his salary is about $350,000 lower than the highest-scoring low salary player, he had the lowest Cost per Point. For the third time this year, the Value Player of the Week is Puka Nacua.

Nacua had another solid game with 23.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (8 receptions for 154 receiving yards), which was just barely more than Amon-Ra St. Brown ($1,066,313) who had 23.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (13 receptions for 102 receiving yards) on a whopping 19 targets. St. Brown’s salary is just over $45,000 higher than Nacua, so he needed to score an additional 1.3 points to have a lower Cost per Point.

However, both of them had fewer points than Colts rookie WR Josh Downs ($1,380,115) who finished with 23.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions, 125 receiving yards, 1 TD). Downs has a higher salary than his fellow rookie WR because he was drafted in the middle of the third round (3.16) with the #79 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Nacua was the last pick of the fifth round (5.42) and taken with the #177 pick.

In addition, we had a trio of undrafted rookie free agents with excellent Week 7 games. All of them have salaries just above $900,000 and would have needed to score an additional 4.0-5.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points to be the Value of the Week. Bears QB Tyson Bagent ($906,667) had the most with 16.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (162 passing yards, 24 rushing yards, 1 TD), followed by Seahawks WR Jake Bobo ($901,667) who had 16.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions, 61 receiving yards, 1 TD) and Emari Demercado ($903,333) who had more total yards than Bobo, but just 11.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (58 rushing yards, 4 receptions, 17 receiving yards).

Out of all of the great performances by these low salary players, the best was turned in by Nacua. His Cost per Point was the highest for a winner this season, but that’s ok. Congrats to Puka on his third Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week award of the 2023 season.

Week 7 Points: 23.4

2023 Salary: $1,021,244

Cost per Point: $43,643

These Guys Should be Starters This Week

Before we get into the weekly recommendations, I always look at how my previous week’s recommendations did (Good, Bad or Just Ok) and give a recap. It was more of the same in Week 7 as in the past five weeks with just one Good recommendation. Let’s find out who was Good and what the others did.

QB: Desmond Ridder ($1,340,740) – 13.3 (Bad recommendation)

RB: D’Onta Foreman ($2,000,000) – 33.0 (Good recommendation)

WR: Wan’Dale Robinson ($2,046,292) – 3.2 (Bad recommendation)

TE: Luke Musgrave ($2,118,933) – 7.0 (Bad recommendation)

At least the Good recommendation was really good. D’Onta Foreman had the most Dynasty Owner fantasy points by a RB in Week 7 with 33.0 (89 rushing yards, 3 receptions, 31 receiving yards, 3 TDs). Even though I picked Roschon Johnson ($1,152,172), I did give myself some wiggle room by saying it would be Foreman if Johnson didn’t play (which he didn’t). However, Foreman as a replacement for Johnson was the only Good recommendation and the other three were all Bad. Not even a Just Ok this week.

Out of the Bad recommendations, the worst was Wan’Dale Robinson who didn’t get the targets he needed. Robinson was only targeted twice, which was the fewest of the season for him. As a result, he had his lowest production with just 3.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (1 reception for 22 receiving yards). Desmond Ridder started off the Falcons’ game well by going 4 for 4 on his pass attempts for 46 yards and scoring on a 2-yard run on their first drive. He didn’t do much after that and finished as QB22 with just 13.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (250 passing yards, 38 rushing yards, 1 TD, 3 lost fumbles). It was the fumbles that cost Ridder the chance to be a Just Ok recommendation. Finally, we have Luke Musgrave who didn’t do badly as he scored 7.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions for 30 receiving yards). However, that only ranked him as a mid-range Bench TE this week. He may have done better if he hadn’t gotten injured early in the fourth quarter of the Packers’ game against the Broncos.  

I said it last week, but now I really mean it. It’s time to start having more than one Good weekly Starting lineup recommendation. Here are the players who I think will start off the second half of the Dynasty Owner regular season positively and be worth having in your Week 8 Starting lineup.

Derek Carr (QB – NO): Four games of around 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points plus three poor games during which he averaged only 7.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game has put Derek Carr ($37,500,000) as QB21 in his first season in New Orleans. He has only 6 TDs all season and just one 2 TD game (Week 5 against New England), but four games with over 200 yards passing. Things look like they might be joining together for this week’s Saints-Colts game in favor of Carr and the Saints’ passing offense though.

First, the Colts have allowed 37 and 39 points in their past two games. Most of the TDs have been on the ground (5) versus the air (2), but allowing 7 TDs and 7 FGs in the past two weeks is not the sign of a good defense. Second, Carr has played much better since Week 4 when he played through his AC joint injury and scored an average of 21.57 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game and scored between 21.0 and 22.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in each game.

Devin Singletary (RB – HOU): Another player who could have won the Bust of the Year award was Texans RB Dameon Pierce ($1,118,858) who hasn’t played very well so far. Pierce had a startup ADP of 35.7 but is RB32 at this point in the season with just 51.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in six games. His Dynasty Owners were expecting more.

His backup Devin Singletary ($2,750,000) might not be producing more than Pierce, but he’s been steadily given more opportunities to play and even had more snaps (34 to 21) than Pierce in Week 6. They both had 13 touches, but Singletary did a little more with his chances than Pierce and scored 7.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (58 rushing yards, 1 reception, 4 receiving yards, 18 return yards). In contrast, Pierce only had 34 rushing yards (3.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points).

I’m expecting Singletary to get more opportunities this week and with the Texans visiting the Carolina Panthers, it just gets better for him. The Panthers have given up 13 TDs and 978 yards of offense to RBs in just six games this season. That’s a lot of Dynasty Owner fantasy points and the main reason why Singletary should be in your Starting lineup this week.

Rashee Rice (WR – KC): Obviously Travis Kelce ($14,312,500) is the real WR1 in Kansas City, but it appears that the Chiefs may have found an actual WR to complement Kelce this season in their 2023 second round NFL Draft pick Rashee Rice ($1,623,802). Kelce is averaging nearly 10 targets (9.83) and eight receptions per game. He also leads the team in receiving yards (525) and receiving TDs (4). You know who’s second in all of those categories?

That’s right, it’s Rashee Rice. Rice has scored a total of 74.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points this season, but is still ranked as WR40. That makes him a top level Bench WR option, but not quite a FLEX Starter quite yet. That might change if he has another game like last week against the Chargers when he had 17.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions, 60 receiving yards, 1 TD). The Chargers pass defense is the only one in the NFL allowing over 300 yards passing per game (310.0), so it seems like assessing Rice based on how he did against the Chargers isn’t a great idea.

However, Rice has been targeted at least five times and scored double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points in five out of seven games this season. Double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points is usually enough to make a WR a low-end Starter in your FLEX position and he gets to face another below average defense against the pass this week in Miami. Good passing offense with the mid-season Player of the Year at QB facing a subpar defense should equal enough Dynasty Owner fantasy points to make Rashee Rice worth putting in your Starting lineup.

Trey McBride (TE – ARI): With Zach Ertz ($10,550,000) being placed on Injured Reserve, it’s time for Trey McBride ($1,574,916) to show everyone why he was the first TE taken in the 2022 NFL Draft. So far this season, the Arizona TE combination has been solid with a total of 83.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. If they were one player, he would be TE5 for the season between Sam LaPorta ($2,366,498) and Darren Waller ($17,000,000). It looks to be McBride mainly as the receiving TE with Geoff Swaim ($1,700,000) receiving plenty of snaps this season (160 snaps, which is 35% of Cardinals’ offensive snaps) but only four targets and 6.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions for 30 receiving yards).

It’s not just that the Arizona TEs have been productive overall, they have been consistently producing nearly all season. Only once, in Week 3, did Ertz and McBride have fewer than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points combined. In three games, one of them has more than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Admittedly, those games with double-digit points have been only slightly over the mark (11.6, 11.3 and 10.2) and in no single game did Ertz and McBride combine for more than 16.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, but Dynasty Owners should be happy with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points from their TE if they don’t have one named Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews ($14,000,000) or T.J. Hockenson ($9,392,000).

The matchup against Baltimore is tough, but Arizona is making their TEs a prominent part of the offense with 64 targets in 7 games (9.14 per game) and five games with 10 or more targets. With a similar number of targets and little competition from the other TEs on the roster, McBride should break double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points and be worthy of inclusion in your Week 8 Starting lineup.

These Guys Should Be on the Bench (or Practice Squad) This Week

Now it’s the time to look at how each of my Bench recommendations from Week 7 worked out (Good, Bad or Just Ok).

QB: Kirk Cousins ($35,000,000) – 28.8 (Bad recommendation)

RB: Rachaad White ($1,282,500) – 15.9 (Bad recommendation)

WR: George Pickens ($1,688,045) – 15.7 (Bad recommendation)

TE: Evan Engram ($13,750,000) – 9.5 (Just Ok recommendation)

This was my worst week of recommendations so far this season with no Good recommendations and only one Just Ok. My Good recommendation percentage fell under 50% for the first time and now sits at 46% (13 out of 28). About one in five (21%) recommendations on the season have been Just Ok and about one-third (32%) have been Bad.

The recommendation to Bench Evan Engram was Just Ok as he was TE12 for the week with 9.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions for 45 receiving yards) last Thursday night. Rachaad White was a low-end RB1 with his second best outing of the season, 15.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (34 rushing yards, 6 receptions, 65 receiving yards), while George Pickens had 15.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions for 107 receiving yards) and was a mid-range WR2 option for the week. I was wrong about the Steelers offense not being well equipped enough to support both Pickens and Diontae Johnson ($18,355,000) as worthy of being in your Starting lineup as Johnson had 12.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions for 79 receiving yards) in his first game off on Injured Reserve. Kirk Cousins had an inspired performance on Monday Night Football and scored 28.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (378 passing yards, -1 rushing yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT) to finish as QB6 for the week. Obviously, a Bad recommendation as were the White and Pickens recommendations.

It’s time to turn the page on Week 7 and start the second half of the Dynasty Owner regular season with some Good Week 8 Bench recommendations.

Russell Wilson (QB – DEN): Russell Wilson ($48,517,647) is the QB9 and eligible for this spot even though he is rostered in few than ten percent of Dynasty Owner leagues (9.96%). It’s the second time in three weeks that the Broncos will play the Chiefs and things didn’t go so well for Russ the last time. In that Week 6 game, he threw for just 95 yards, had 31 rushing yards, a TD pass and 2 interceptions (7.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). It was his worst game of the season.

On the other hand, this game will be at home, and he did fare well against the Chiefs in 2022 with two of his best three games statistically (33.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 14 and 25.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 17) coming against the Chiefs. The 33.0 point outing was also in Denver. Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton is out, and Sean Payton is now the Broncos’ coach, not Nathaniel Hackett. Those are all real things that could derail this recommendation.

Still, I’m going to ride with Russ on this one and suggest to the small number of Dynasty Owners and apparent Wilson truthers that they don’t put him in their Starting lineup this week.

Brian Robinson (RB – WAS): My fellow Dynasty Owner writer Jay Pounds was the first to mention that Commanders coach Ron Rivera might be souring on Brian Robinson ($1,261,227) just as he did last year (and appears to be continuing to do this season) with Antonio Gibson ($1,233,159). After coming back from an illness in Week 6, third string RB Chris Rodriguez ($1,004,422) hasn’t been really cutting into playing time for Robinson and Gibson, but he has been touching the ball more in the few opportunities that he’s been getting to play. In the past two weeks, Rodriguez has played only 15 snaps on offense, but he’s touched the ball on 11 of them (all rushing attempts).

Meanwhile, Robinson saw the fewest number of touches he has all season in Week 7 with just eight rushing attempts and one target. He parlayed that into 8.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (23 rushing yards, 1 TD) which sounds ok, but wouldn’t have been without the TD.

It gets worse for all three Commanders RBs as they play Philadelphia this week and the Eagles held Raheem Mostert to just 6.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (45 rushing yards, 1 reception, 6 receiving yards) and have allowed only 343 yards rushing to RBs in seven games this season (49 yards per game).

I’d leave any and all Commanders RBs on my Dynasty Owner Bench (or Practice Squad if you’ve got room with everyone playing this week), including Robinson. Even though he’s RB12 for the season, this week’s matchup doesn’t look promising.

Amari Cooper (WR – CLE): It’s been one average game (13.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 6) and one poor game (4.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) for Amari Cooper ($20,000,000) with P.J. Walker ($2,075,000) under center for the Browns. That doesn’t bode well for Cooper this week, nor does the fact that the Browns are travelling to Seattle to play the Seahawks. I’ve written several times in the past about how Cooper has always been better at home than on the road during his NFL career. In addition, since the return of several members of their secondary in Week 3, Seattle has been doing a good job defending against WRs, particularly those who play primarily on the perimeter like Cooper. Admittedly, they got to face the Cardinals and Giants in two of those games. Bengals WRs Ja’Marr Chase ($7,704,910) and Tyler Boyd ($10,750,000) did have 14.0 and 16.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points respectively against them in Week 6. However, P.J. Walker isn’t Joe Burrow ($9,047,534) and that’s a big difference.

To recap, P.J. Walker at QB is strike one, playing on the road is strike two and facing the Seattle secondary is strike three. Three strikes and you’re out so Amari Cooper should be out of your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup and take a seat on your Bench.

Jonnu Smith (TE – ATL): Jonnu Smith ($12,500,000) is another expensive top 12 player (see Wilson, Russell) who isn’t on a lot of Dynasty Owner rosters (15.33%), but if he’s on yours, then you likely are playing him since he’s TE11 for the season and costing you $12.5 million in salary. I know it’s trendy to complain on Twitter/X about how Falcons coach Arthur Smith is using Smith vs. Kyle Pitts ($8,227,624), but if you go past all of the complaining and whining by people with Pitts on their fantasy rosters and actually look at some statistics, they’d see things aren’t so bad. They might even change their minds if their expectations for Pitts weren’t way too high and their grasp on reality and what’s actually happening in Atlanta (the Falcons are 4-3 and in first place in the NFC South) weren’t way too low.

In each of the past three weeks, Pitts has gotten more targets and Dynasty Owner fantasy points than Smith. In that time, it’s 21 targets and 37.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points for Pitts versus 15 targets and 29.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points for Smith. Of course, those doing the complaining think that Pitts should have gotten all 36 TE targets and that he would have scored 163.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (36 receptions, 559 receiving yards, 12 TDs) if he had gotten all of them.

That’s not going to happen. And I’m not even sure that Pitts will be worth having in your Starting lineup this week as Smith might run the ball 60 times if that’s what he thinks will win the game for the Falcons. He doesn’t care about your fantasy team! However, I do see Smith’s ceiling as lower than Pitts’ and that he likely won’t be able to sustain being the TE11 for the entire season. If you used him and got some quality production in either your Starting lineup or Bench, then kudos to you, but don’t count on Smith being worth filling the TE spot in your Starting lineup much anymore and not this week against the Titans.

Free Agent Auction Targets Update

Now it’s time to recap the players recommended in Jay’s weekly Free Agent Auction targets article and see how much their Dynasty Owner roster percentage has increased since the start of Week 8. It was another bonus week from Jay as he gave us six players, including two New England Patriots, instead of his usual five players.

There have been two Free Agent Auction runs already this week – Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern) and Thursday at 5 AM (Eastern), so some Dynasty Owners have had two chances to go pick up these guys in the Free Agent Auction. Hope you bid enough if you wanted to get them!

Player	Position	Team	Salary	Week 7 Roster %	Current Roster %	Change
Darrell Henderson	RB	LAR	$1,053,001	38.70%	75.86%	37.16%
P.J. Walker	QB	CLE	$2,075,000	31.03%	36.02%	4.99%
Kendrick Bourne	WR	NE	$5,000,000	77.01%	83.14%	6.13%
Demario Douglas	WR	NE	$993,333	49.43%	59.39%	9.96%
Chris Rodriguez	RB	WAS	$1,004,422	77.01%	77.78%	0.77%
Jauan Jennings	WR	SF	$940,000	56.32%	57.09%	0.77%

It took half a season, but Kendrick Bourne is finally rostered in over 80% of Dynasty Owner leagues. He crossed that threshold by getting picked up in an additional 6.13% of Dynasty Owner leagues at the start of Week 8 after two consecutive double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy point weeks. He ranks as WR25 for the season. Darrell Henderson is close to 80% and might get there before his game on Sunday. His roster percentage nearly doubled from 38.7% to 75.86% now.

Demario Douglas “only” saw his roster percentage increase by just under ten percentage points, which is surprising considering that he surpassed DeVante Parker ($7,625,000) in snaps last week and also Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Both have played in the same number of games this season. Dynasty Owners must not be buying into the fact that P.J. Walker has won two games for the Browns this season and looking at his putrid stats of 8.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (370 passing yards, 4 rushing yards, 3 INTs, 1 fumble) in two games. That’s the only explanation for a potential starting NFL QB making barely over $2 million having his roster percentage increase by just under five percentage points.

Finally, few Dynasty Owners have picked up either Chris Rodriguez (again) or Jauan Jennings as their roster percentages have increased by less than one percentage point. That’s two weeks in a row with little movement for Rodriguez, while I can only assume Dynasty Owners don’t think Jennings will continue to do much upon the return of Deebo Samuel ($23,850,000) to the 49ers’ lineup.

Happy bidding and hope everyone got who they wanted, even guys not on Jay’s list, in the Free Agent Auction.

Match-Up of the Week and Chase for the Ring Leaderboard

Are you missing the Dynasty Owner Match-Up of the Week and Chase for the Ring standings that used to appear here? It has been back over on Twitter/X sporadically over the past few weeks and if you follow me there (@SteveVT33), you may have seen it. If you have a good match-up for the start of the second half of the Dynasty Owner regular season, send it to me so I can make it the Week 8 Match-up of the Week.

The updated Chase for the Ring Leaderboard has also been sporadically posted on Twitter/X during the first half of the regular season. However, anyone can access it 24/7 at https://app.dynastyowner.com/chase-for-the-ring. Check it out before things change during the Thursday Night Football game since the leaderboard is live and can change at any time. That means your team name could pop up in the top 100 during the game.

Slightly longer versions of the Match-up of the Week and the Chase for the Ring Leaderboard have also appeared on a hit or miss basis on the Dynasty Owner thread on Reddit, as well as Facebook and Instagram. The Chase for the Ring leaderboard Top 10 has been appearing regularly in a weekly newsletter sent out on Fridays by Dynasty Owner.

Conclusion

We’ve reached the halfway point of the 2023 Dynasty Owner season and once the Tampa Bay-Buffalo Thursday Night Football game starts, it’ll be past that point. We haven’t even reached Halloween yet!

Don’t worry, there’s still 10 or 11 regular season NFL games remaining and up to 10 weeks of Dynasty Owner for the season if your team can make it all the way to your League Championship game (or even to the third place game). Lots of time to get your team in shape to make the playoffs, start your run to a League Championship, make it on to the Chase for the Ring Leaderboard and for one person, win the Ring. Don’t let up now that half of the season has passed. Make those roster moves, don’t be afraid to use your Amnesty Provisions on unperforming and expensive veterans, looking at you Daniel Jones ($40,000,000), offer up those trades, bid on players you need in the Free Agent Auction and set your best Starting lineup and Bench to score as many points as you can every week.

Let me (and your fellow Dynasty Owners) know what roster moves you are making by reaching out to me or Dynasty Owner on Twitter/X, or posting those moves on Facebook, Instagram or Reddit. It would be great if you could please comment in all of those places when this article is published and let everyone know if you like, or dislike, my weekly recommendations, or think you can do better. You can even agree and like the article on any of those social media platforms as well. We appreciate the feedback from our fellow Dynasty Owners.

The Week 8 Free Agent Auction targets article was published on Tuesday and Jay Pounds will be back every Tuesday during the 2023 season with a list of at least five widely available players in Dynasty Owner to help everyone with their Free Agent Auction bids for the first Auction run of the week on Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern). We also have the weekly Livestream with me and Dynasty Owner CEO Tim Peffer. We’re going to go live on Friday morning at 11 AM (Eastern) this week. Please watch us live or catch us whenever you can by watching on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner

Follow us on Twitter/X: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner