Fantasy Football: Week Eight Wide Receiver Sleepers – The Doctson is in

I’m a bit calmer about these sleeper options as compared to the quarterback ones. No fuss or muss in this intro. These guys are around in over half of Yahoo! fantasy football leagues and one guy is around in 95% of said leagues. And I won’t ever quit Marquise Goodwin so just stop asking already Jesus.

Josh Doctson versus Dallas (36% owned)
The thought of an emerging Jamison Crowder and a hot pickup in Terrelle Pryor had everyone forgetting about Doctson in Washington. He gradually increased in snaps this year until he went nearly two-to-one to Pryor on Monday Night Football. With a running back (Chris Thompson) and a backup tight end (Vernon Davis) being his only reliable receivers, Kirk Cousins is desperate for a WR option, and Doctson might be it. This week they get a Cowboys squad allowing the seventh-most fantasy points per game to wide receivers on the year, and they rank up there having given up just 12 points last week to the hapless Niners.

JuJu Smith-Schuster at Detroit (30% owned)
America’s favorite yellow-and-black football team slash insane soap opera marches on. JuJu started to take snaps from Martavis Bryant. Bryant, noted genius, lashed out on social media, which caught the ire of pretty much everyone in Pittsburgh. He was demoted to scout team on Wednesday, so he may be out all of his snaps on Sunday, to JuJuSchu (I’ll make it happen trust me). Everything is trending upwards for the rookie, and he gets a Lions team that is middle-of-the-pack in terms of fantasy points allowed. Below the surface, however, is reliably giving up 8-10 fantasy points to multiple WRs in the same game. Smith-Schuster is out there in nearly three-fourths of fantasy football leagues, and he will be the hot waiver wire WR going into week nine (if it isn’t Doctson).

Marquise Goodwin at Philadelphia (5% owned)
Goodwin has popped up here a few times over the last month or so. Let’s do the transitive property on Aldrick Robinson’s targets in against the Cardinals (when Goodwin abruptly died to concussion and an eye injury). Robinson had twelve targets in that game, the vast majority after Goodwin was hurt. Give those to Goodwin, then give him his eleven targets three weeks ago and his eight last week. Toss in his 116 yards in week five, and his 80 last week (ignoring the Washington game where they switched QBs halfway). That’s a good base to start from. All the games that Goodwin has started and finished ended with him getting at least five targets… and those are great baselines to start from.