Fantasy Football Week 8 Running Back Preview: Waiver adds, deep stashes, starts, sits, and more

We entered Week 7 with all kinds of questions about Tampa Bay’s running back room. I’m not sure we’re leaving Week 7 with enough answers. On Monday night, we saw 16 touches for Rachaad White, 12 for Bucky Irving, and six for Sean Tucker. This was a highly unusual game, where the Buccaneers ran 78 plays and lost their top two wide receivers to injury. The percentages paint an even messier picture moving forward.

In terms of target share, White saw a 13% share, with Irving at 6.7% and Tucker at 4.4%. That’s mostly bad news for Irving and Tucker, as I would consider anything below eight percent a negative for running backs in PPR. Rush share was even worse, with White at 33%, Irving at 30%, and Tucker at 16.7%, but continuing to be by far the most efficient rusher. In a normal week, those ratios aren’t going to make anyone a starting running back.

The question is, what does a normal week look like for this team if they’re without Chris Godwin and Mike Evans for the foreseeable future? It may very well mean more rushes and more running back targets. It may also mean that this is a much worse offense that doesn’t score as often.

For Week 8, I’m viewing White and Irving as high-end flexes, and I’m trying to continue stashing Tucker for at least one more week. Eventually, one of these backs may fall out of the rotation or get hurt, and then two of them could be very valuable in an offense with a lot of available opportunities. 

Now, let’s get to the rest of the Week 8 RB Preview:

Week 8 RB Preview

The following players are not being projected to play in Week 8 at this time. Here’s what it means:

• 26 — Kareem Hunt has averaged 26 touches in his two games with the Chiefs. I’m not sure how long he can hold up, but he’s a must-start for as long as that is.
• 79% – Alexander Mattison had a 79% rush share in Zamir White’s first game back. Mattison is the clear lead back in Las Vegas now.
• 4.57 — Tank Bigsby is averaging 4.57 yards after contact per rush attempt, the best mark in the league. It will be hard for Doug Pederson to go away from him.
• 13.6% — Chase Brown’s 13.6% explosive rush rate ranks third amongst backs with at least 35 rush attempts. Don’t fret over one bad week.
• 25.6% — Najee Harris’ avoid rate is up to 25.6%, by far the best mark of his career.
• 9.7 — Sean Tucker is averaging 9.7 yards per touch. 

My full set of Week 8 Fantasy football projections for every position are now available on SportsLine. You’ll find them here. Find out which of my favorite plays are projected to score higher than consensus rankings and which don’t live up to their draft hype, at least in Week 8. Projected stats for all starting running backs are available, so be sure to check out the full set of projections at SportsLine.