Fantasy Football 2024 -- week 8 recap

In honor of Halloween this week, here’s a look at how closely some NFL teams track with classic horror movies:

** Kansas City Chiefs — Friday the 13th, part 8
It doesn’t matter how many times they look dead or how dull the play gets, the Chiefs just keep coming back again and again and again and again.

** Tennessee Titans — Night of the Living Dead
Can you name anyone on this team anymore? It’s a monotone collection of zombie players, all shuffling towards oblivion.

** New Jersey Jets — Scary Movie
People keep dying left and right, and yet somehow this whole thing is just a slapstick comedy.

** Philadelphia Eagles — The Birds
They don’t seem like they should be scary, but they are 5-2 and starting to swarm. Also, they’re both birds. Not sure if you caught that subtlety.

** Jacksonville Jaguars — An American Werewolf in London
Through eight games, the only time the Jacksonville team has really bared any teeth was when they beat up the Patriots in England in week 7.

** New Jersey Giants — Frankenstein
At this point. QB Daniel Jones is really just a loose collection of poorly assembled parts.

** Carolina Panthers — Cats
Honestly, the only way Panthers games could be scarier to watch is if the players started chanting “jellicle” on the sidelines after every play. 

QB: Jalen Hurts, 37.14 — started by me
WR: CeeDee Lamb, 28.73 pts — started by Paul
RB: James Cook, 26.07 pts — started by Ant
TE: Cade Otton, 21.90 pts — started by Sam
K: Anders Carlson, 16.00 pts — on the wire
DEF: Detroit, 17.00 pts — on Dad’s bench
D: T.J. Watt, 10.50 pts — started by Dad

FYI, the number two QB on the week was Kirk Cousins, with 36.64 pts … on my bench.

RB Saquon Barkley is second in the league in rushing yds and has five rushing TDs. That would be good enough to be in the lead or tied for the best on 24 teams in the NFL this season, but only good enough for second on the Eagles. Hurts has seven, thanks to three on Sunday.

You know WR CeeDee Lamb (Or “Mr. Debacle, wee!” as we like to call him around here), but can you name the rest of the top five wideouts on the week?

** Ladd McConkey, 22.96 pts
** Cedric Tillman, 22.10 pts
** Calvin Austin III, 18.56 pts
** Kalif Raymond, 17.73 pts

Unlike Lamb, they all played for winning teams this weekend, and I’m willing to bet you never heard of any of them before now. Go ahead, guess what roster they’re on, or what QB was throwing to them.

“Getting defensive” edition

2nd place: (tie) Dee Williams, -2.00 pts — on the wire
2nd place: (tie) Tennessee, -2.00 pts — on the wire
1st place: Cincinnati, -6.00 pts — on Jeff’s bench

Congrats to the Bengals, the first defensive squad to manage the lowest score possible this season. Cincy recorded no sacks, no turnovers, and no signs of life in their 37-17 loss to the Eagles. Even the Titans managed to get a few positive points in their game, and they lost 52-14 to the Lions. Ouch.

But even more amazing are the Panthers, whose defense tallied 3.00 fantasy points this week to bring their season-long total to … -2.00 pts. For the whole season. They’ve given up a league-worst 265 defensive pts so far and have scored negative fantasy points in five of their eight games. And yet they somehow managed to win one game. Go figure.


** Fox college football analyst Joel Klatt previewed Saturday's Ohio State/Nebraska contest by noting that “both teams are coming off almost the exact same situation heading into this game.” He predicted the preceding losses would both weigh heavily on the coaches’ minds.

For Ohio State, their previous game was a last-second 32-31 loss to #1 Oregon. Two days later, college football execs actually changed rules regarding “too many men on the field” penalties because the Ducks exploited a loophole to cheat the Buckeyes out of a game-winning FG attempt.

Nebraska had a nearly identical heartbreak in their prior game: A last-second, 56-7 loss to Indiana. Just like the Buckeyes, they were in it for the whole game, as long as you consider the “game” to be only the first seven minutes of competition. If the Cornhuskers had just landed that one 50-point play in the fourth quarter, they could have escaped with a win.

** Watching the Sunday night game, the refs threw a flag for offensive pass interference after the 49ers second touchdown, but decided to waive off the penalty after a short conference. NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay agreed with the decision and said it was “a correctly picked up flag.”

As Jo pointed out immediately, that’s dumb. There is no such thing as a correctly picked up flag. It’s a “wrongly thrown flag.” If there wasn’t a penalty, stop slowing down the contest to get yourself air time.

Incidentally, the score came just minutes after a Dak Prescott interception, or a “incorrectly thrown completed pass” as the refs like to call it.

** Headline in the Washington Post on Tuesday: “The Commanders’ Hail Mary wasn’t about luck. It was about hope.”

The thrust of the article seemed to be that while the Maryland football team won on a fortunate play, you can’t call it lucky because they practiced those kinds of tip drills in the past, in anticipation of it mattering one day. I guess they did a good job hoping the whole Bears defense would misplay a long bomb and allow a receiver to stand unguarded when a tipped ball hoped his way.

The Eagles could cement their place in football lore by simply doing nothing for the rest of the season.

Philadelphia has an impressive streak going for their past seven games (and two more last year): zero points scored in the first quarter. Right now they’re 10 points behind the next closest team (the Bears) and 72 points behind the leader in early scoring, the Minnesota Vikings.

But that’s all in the past. Let’s focus on the future.

It feels inevitable that the Eagles will score in the first quarter again. They almost did it Sunday, when they kicked a field goal on their opening drive, a series which started in the first and ended in the early second quarter. At this point, they’ll need to score 29 points in the next nine first quarters to average just 1.8 points for the opening period on the season.

Why is that 1.8 points mark significant? Over the last 20 years, only eleven teams have scored at that rate or worse in the opening quarter. And of that group, none have had a winning record. Only the 2004 Saints (29 first quarter points) had a .500 record. Of the rest, eight were 4-12 or worse. The 2009 Rams managed only 16 points in the first all year, and finished with a 1-15 record.

So the record books are there for the rewriting. Right now, the Eagles are averaging the lowest first-quarter scoring in the league and have a winning record. They could be the first team to make the playoffs without ever really playing in the first quarter. It’s a lofty goal, and one that can really only be achieved if they set their mind to continuing to flounder early in games, digging themselves into a hole from which they later pull themselves out.

FYI, the worst Eagles first-quarter scoring mark of the last two decades? That was in 2012, when they scored 30 points in that period over the whole 16 game schedule. They went 4-12 that year, one less win than the 2024 Eagles already have recorded.


Offensive lineman Terence Steele has evolved into a key contributor for Dallas since he was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2020. The impact isn’t really seen too much on the field — the Cowboys stink this season — but he has been a critical culture guy for the locker room. That’s no surprise, just look at what his name clearly spells out:

Dallas Right Tackle Terence Steele
** Degenerate: Kills tact, creates hell

Creating hell is a key component for the Cowboys practice schedule. Without it, they’re just another mediocre, underachieving team.

** Great news — I made a mistake again in the season contest against Dad last week, and we were actually tied (instead of me being one down). Now, thanks to a 2-1 week against him, I’m plus-1 on the year. My picks have been so good, I could double or even triple that season-long margin this weekend.

** McConkey is on the Chargers, Tillman is on the Browns, Austin is a punt returner/WR for the Steelers, and Kalif Raymond is the #17 wideout on the Lions. No idea how any of them got on to the top of the WR scoring this week.

** Some folks in the DC area are trying to label Sunday’s Hail Mary win for the Commanders “the miracle on the mall,” which is hilarious because the stadium isn’t even in the city and sits nowhere near the National Mall. However, not gonna lie, “Hail Maryland” is kinda awesome.

Week 8 standings

1 — Still The Best (Jonathan), 1015.98 pts
2 — Kodos for President (Jo), 969.83 pts
3 — Murder Hornets (Mike), 961.30 pts
4 — Jabronis (Ant), 943.06 pts
5 — Blue Collar Killers (Jeff), 935.05 pts
6 — Chop Block to the Artery (Capt. Awesome), 934.89 pts
7 — DeVonta’s Inferno (Mom D), 900.22 pts
8 — No One Likes Us We Don't Care (Bob), 897.49 pts
9 — Beer 'n Chips (Pop), 897.08 pts
10 — The Fightin Pickles (Sam), 799.35 pts
11 — Overachievers Anonymous (Paul), 786.36 pts
12 — All Rogers No Sauce (Joel), 679.04 pts

We’ve got our first team to top the 1,000 points barrier this season, and it’s the reigning Awesome Cup champion. Jonathan’s squad posted an impressive 137.67 pts week, the fourth time in the last five weeks he has scored at least 130. He’s got a 46-point lead over his mother and the rest of the field, with half a season remaining.

Mike and Sam also scored over 140 fantasy points each, improving their positions. Ten teams scored over 100 points, and Jeff just missed the cut at 95.42. We’ll just quietly leave Joel alone for this week…

Only two byes next week (49ers and Steelers) and all the games are happening in the United States. Well, maybe not the Dolphins/Bills game, since Buffalo is pretty much Canada. But it fits the right time zone profile. So get those rosters set and ready early.