NFL 2026 Week 8 Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em: Buy the dip on Chase Brown

Week 8 is upon us, meaning we have another round of crucial Start/Sit decisions as teams jockey for spots in the fantasy postseason. These are my biggest stands and fades for Sunday’s slate.

▶ Quarterback

Start: Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars

We’re getting all Jags in our lineups this week, starting with Lawrence. Jacksonville has the fourth-highest implied team total of the week at 28. They get a Colts defense that is below-average in EPA per dropback and above-average fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. Lawrence has been lights out this year and ranks top-10 in both EPA per play and completion percent over expected. He’s looking like a high-end QB1 this week.

Start: Jacoby Brissett, Cardinals

Brissett’s numbers are down this year, but that is partially due to a brutal schedule. He has faced four top-10 passing defenses by EPA per dropback and only one defense outside the top 20. That was the Lions, and he passed for 292 yards with three touchdowns. His Week 8 opponent, Dallas, has allowed the sixth-most fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks and ranks 30th in EPA per dropback allowed. The matchup features a 54.5-point total. This is as good as streaming spots get.

Sit: Bo Nix, Broncos

Nix crushed as a fantasy option last week on the back of a 62-yard rushing touchdown. Without the score, he looks like the same old Nix. The Broncos had him push the ball downfield more often versus the Cardinals, but Nix couldn’t get anything going and completed just 1-of-8 deep passes. He has been a below-average passer at every depth of the field this year by both yards per attempt and completion rate, with the exception of throws behind the line of scrimmage. Now he gets a Chiefs team that has smothered quarterback production, allowing the third-fewest fantasy points per game to opposing passers.

Sit: Kyler Murray, Vikings

Murray’s matchup with the Lions would normally thrust him into the QB1 mix. His dreadful play is keeping him out of the top 12. Murray is the QB28 by EPA per dropback. His rushing should be a massive boost to the fantasy output, but he’s averaging a pedestrian 26.4 yards per game on the ground. That is the lowest mark of his career, and there’s no reason to expect his numbers to increase. Kevin O’Connell has called one designed run for Murray all year. He has no interest in Murray using his legs, which is tanking any fantasy potential for the former Cardinal.

▶ Running Back

Start: Chase Brown, Bengals

Brown is currently the league leader in fantasy points under expected among running backs. Is that a good thing? Of course not. Should we expect it to hold true for the rest of time? No. Entering Week 7, the lowest expected fantasy point totals belonged to Ashton Jeanty, Tony Pollard, J.K. Dobbins, and Quinshon Judkins. Three of them finished as RB1s, and Dobbins found the end zone as well. Volume predicts fantasy production better than anything else and Brown is seeing plenty of it. He’s the RB14 in expected points per game. Facing a Titans defense that just got mangled by the aforementioned Judkins, I’m betting on Brown getting back on track this week.

Start: Rachaad White, Commanders

With Jacory Croskey-Merritt on injured reserve in the Commanders’ previous game, White was on the field for 70 percent of the snaps. He earned 54 percent of the Commanders’ designed carries and ran a route on 55 percent of Jayden Daniels’ dropbacks. All three of those marks were season-highs. He’s now favored at home by 6.5 points over the Eagles, who rank 31st in EPA per carry allowed.

Sit: Aaron Jones, Vikings

Jones got banged up in Week 8 but is expected to play. His role had already taken a huge hit before suffering a knee injury early in the fourth quarter. Through three quarters, Jordan Mason out-snapped Jones 22-14 and out-carried him 10-7. Mason even ran three more routes and saw two targets to Jones’s one. It’s hard to imagine Jones getting more work as his health continues to decline.

Sit: Tony Pollard, Titans

Pollard’s three-score explosion was a welcome change of pace for fantasy managers who stuck with him. I’d suggest they take their chips off the table. Pollard took advantage of a middle-of-the-road matchup versus Cleveland. Now he gets a brutal spot at Cincinnati. The Titans are underdogs of 12.5 points, which is the third-largest spread of the season. Teams have generally abandoned the run against Cincy this year. They have faced the fifth-fewest running back carries per game. It’s a low-volume sport for Pollard on a low-efficiency offense.

▶ Wide Receiver

Start: DJ Moore, Bills

As a Moore fader, this one hurts to write, but he’s in a phenomenal spot this week. Moore has run 69 percent of his routes from out wide as a Bill. The Ravens have allowed the sixth-most yards and completions to players lined up out wide. On the whole, Moore’s role has been phenomenal. He’s being targeted on 26 percent of his routes with a 15.9 aDOT. He is the only player in the league who is targeted that often at that high of a target depth.

Start: Makai Lemon, Eagles

Dontayvion Wicks and DeVonta Smith both appear to be out again for Week 8. The duo missed Week 7 and Lemon finally got his chance to shine. Lemon ran 92 percent of the routes and earned a 25 percent target share. He was the intended target on 43 percent of Tanner McKee’s first-read throws. The offense was built around Lemon. With a 7/67/1 receiving line, the rookie did enough to keep that role for Week 8.

Sit: Jordan Addison, Vikings

Addison has seen at least 57 percent of his targets come 10+ yards downfield in every season of his career. His bread gets buttered on chunk gains. Kyler Murray simply can’t make those throws. Pro Football Focus has him charted with a 38.2 percent accurate throw rate when going 10+ yards downfield. That is 27th out of 34 qualified quarterbacks. Murray also ranks outside the top 20 quarterbacks in the rate of his throws that travel 10 yards downfield. Addison does not fit what Murray is capable of or interested in doing.

Sit: Josh Downs, Colts

It’s looking more over for Downs with every passing week. Downs is averaging 10 expected fantasy points per game to Keenan Allen’s 12. Allen is being targeted on 23 percent of his routes while Downs sees the ball on just 19 percent of his reps. I don’t want either of these players in my fantasy lineups if possible, and somehow Downs is unquestionably the worse bet of the two.

▶ Tight End

Start: Brenton Strange, Jaguars

Strange has come online over his past four games. He has seen 23 percent of the Jags’ targets and 20 percent of their air yards over that stretch. Both marks would rank top-five among all tight ends this year. Can I interest you in a Lawrence, Strange, Parker Washington stack in DFS this week?

Start: Dalton Kincaid, Bills

I’m getting fooled again. Kincaid is 12th among tight ends in targets per route run (.22) and second in yards per route run (2.35). His matchup with the Ravens has a 54.5 total and the Bills are projected to be the third-highest-scoring team of the week. Good player. Great game environment. Hit start.

Sit: Travis Kelce, Chiefs

The Chiefs are once again in a bad spot as they prepare to take on the Broncos. Their 21-point team total is lower than 18 teams. Kelce got off to a hot start this year, but the usage has waned over the past month. In his previous four appearances, Kelce has earned a mediocre 16 percent target share while being targeted on 17 percent of his routes. With Rashee Rice coming back this week, his role isn’t getting better anytime soon.

Sit: Mike Gesicki, Bengals

Gesicki is getting away with it at levels rarely seen in modern football. He has five touchdowns this year and is scoring on 27.8 percent of his targets. His TD rate is nine percent higher than any other tight end with at least 15 targets. It’s eight percent higher than the best single-season mark for a tight end since the turn of the century. I’m fully expecting him to fade back into fantasy obscurity over the second half of the season.