Week 8 Fantasy Football RB Sleepers
It’s finally week eight, which means that the fantasy football season is already half over. This isn’t true if you play in a league with a week seventeen championship, but if you play in a league with a week seventeen championship, find a new league. Each week, we try to help you out with RB sleepers to help get you through injuries, bad performance, bye weeks, or good ol’ fashioned streaming. These RB sleepers are available in at least 50% of Yahoo! fantasy football leagues, with one of the week 8 RB sleepers available in at least 90% of these leagues. Ownership figures are as of Friday afternoon.
If one of these guys can’t help you, then you probably already lost. Might I suggest Kyle Juszczyk as a RB sleeper, in that case? Good luck searching for his name, though.
Raheem Mostert at Arizona (48% owned)
Man, oh man. Matt Breida was able to practice for the 49ers today. He has a high ankle sprain, which is supposed to be a multi-week injury. Instead, he’s doing his best The Black Knight impression and declaring it, “but a scratch.” Still, I think he gets limited reps as the 49ers don’t want their suddenly amazing running back to finally snap in half. He’s already only played half a game twice this season, and always misses series. This opens the door for Mostert to produce. Even with Breida in the game, Mostert has played well. He has just 23 touches in the last two games, but he’s turned that into 165 yards across the two contests. Considering that is part-time production, I’d be pretty happy with just that. The upside is that Mostert gets a porous Cardinals defense that allows the most fantasy points per game to opposing running backs, and might be the worst run defense in the NFL (now that the Lions have Snacks Harrison). Even if Mostert splits time, the Cardinals have allowed ten games of at least ten fantasy points in half-PPR to running backs this season in just seven contests. They’re a sieve. Start him, no matter what Breida’s status might be.
Kenjon Barner at Buffalo (30% owned)
Thank the fantasy football gods for saving me from writing about Peyton Barber in some sort of false flowery prose, acting like he’s any good at running back. He isn’t, we know that. Guess who we don’t know if they suck or not at running back? Kenjon Barner! Sony Michel isn’t going to play after he came very close to blowing out his knee, and the Pats love a two-back system. That leaves the following two backs getting touches: James White, and Kenjon Barner. Barner has gotten sporadic touches on the year, so there’s not a lot to pull from there, but being the next man up in the LeGarrette Blount/Rex Burkhead/Sony Michel “big ol’ banger” goal line back role is not the worst fate a man can endure. That holds doubly true against a disastrous Buffalo Bills squad that gives up the ninth-most fantasy points to running backs on the year. They were last seen futility grasping at the air near and around Marlon Man en route to Mack running for 126 yards on nineteen carries. Plus, you know, the Monday Night Football bump. You want a reason to watch Bills-Patriots, right?
Devontae Booker at Kansas City (3% owned)
Booker isn’t that great of a running back, but the guy ahead of him (Royce Freeman) won’t be playing this weekend. It’s been the Lindsay-Freeman-Booker show in Denver, but excising Freeman from that equation means more touches for Booker this weekend. Freeman’s averaged ten touches per game, and those would funnel to Booker to preserve Lindsay. The kicker is that Booker would likely get the goal line looks, making a desperation touchdown-based play the move here. There are worse things to bet against than getting a touchdown against the Chiefs. They give up the second-most fantasy points to running backs, and opposing RBs have five touchdowns against them in their last three games. It’s a Hail Mary of week 8 RB sleepers, but your best bet under 10% owned.
Looking for more sleepers advice? Check out our other sleepers & streamers pieces for week eight below:
Week 8 Fantasy Football QB Sleepers – Throwing May-Bakers
Week 8 Fantasy Football WR Sleepers – This Land is Courtland
Week 8 Fantasy Football TE Sleepers – McDonald’s Happy Meal
Week 8 Fantasy Football DEF Sleepers – Between Anderson and Peterman, I Choose Death
Also, we have Hot Takes from Crazy People: Eric Reid vs Malcolm Jenkins Edition
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