Week 9 is underway, kicked off by an ugly Thursday night game between the Jaguars and Ravens. Sunday’s slate has a handful of shootouts to redeem the week. These are my biggest targets and fades of Week 9.

Quarterback

Start: Malik Willis, Dolphins

Willis gets a Lions defense that has given up the fifth-most catches for the sixth-most yards on throws 10+ yards downfield. That’s where 35 percent of Willis’s throws have gone this year. On the whole, the Lions are kingmakers for fantasy purposes. They are giving up 24.7 points per game to quarterbacks. That is the highest number of the past 25 years. Willis hasn’t been much of a factor in fantasy circles this season, but Week 9 is his best chance at a QB1 finish.

Start: J.J. McCarthy, Giants

The Lions are bad against the deep ball because they’re bad against every kind of ball. The Eagles, on the other hand, specialize in getting beat deep. They have allowed the third-most catches and the third-most touchdowns on deep shots. McCarthy leads the league in deep throw rate at 20.4 percent. He’s also second in YPA (21.5) and completion rate (60 percent) on downfield throws. This is the perfect matchup to keep McCarthy red hot.

Sit: Baker Mayfield, Bucs

The Bears were already coming into their own as a solid pass defense before acquiring Jeffery Simmons. They rank 12th in EPA per dropback allowed on the year and 10th in pressure rate. Their pressure rate jumped by five percent in Week 8 despite the team going from a top-10 blitz rate pre-Simmons to the lowest blitz rate in the league last week. Having done next to nothing for fantasy managers this year, there’s no reason to go back to the well with Mayfield in Week 9.

Sit: Bryce Young, Panthers

Young has fallen off over the past few weeks and this isn’t the spot to bet on a rebound. The Broncos are seventh in the league in EPA per dropback and sportsbooks like them to shut down the Panthers on Sunday. Carolina has a team total of 21, which is below teams like the Saints, Dolphins, Texans, and Colts. Young should get back on track versus the Saints next week, but it’s smart to keep him on the bench for Week 9.

Running Back

Start: Jadarian Price, Seahawks

Price and Zach Charbonnet rotated drives when both returned to action in Week 8. Charbonnet didn’t hold his usual, high-value-touch role, allowing Price to pick up extra work on the snaps we care about. Price ran 41 percent of the routes and earned a 10 percent target share. He was also on the field for half of the team’s short-down-and-distance snaps. The Seahawks are now favored by 8.5 points. Both Price and Charbonnet are in good spots this week.

Start: Jonah Coleman, Broncos

Coleman took over the Denver backfield in Week 8. He saw over half of the team’s designed carries and ran exactly half of the routes. He has a carry share north of 40 percent in each of his past three appearances. Most importantly, Coleman saw 4-of-5 goal line carries. Coleman is earning targets and seeing work at the goal line while also leading the team in total carries. You can’t ask for more from a rookie after just a handful of games. As narrow favorites over the Panthers, the Broncos should get to establish their ground game via Coleman this week.

Sit: Saquon Barkley, Eagles

The Eagles are 3.5-point dogs and Barkley is no longer a workhorse. He logged a 32 percent snap share and a 15 percent route rate in Week 8. Both of those marks would have been season-lows for him in 2025 and 2024. His 52 percent carry share, while good, would have also been his lowest mark in 2025. In the middle of a lost season, the Eagles are taking it easy on Barkley, who is valiantly playing through multiple injuries. He’s looking more like an RB3 than a locked-in RB2 these days.

Sit: Kenneth Gainwell, Bucs

The Bucs have run the ball 104 times over the past two weeks. That’s 52 attempts per game. On the season, the Bears lead the league in rush attempts per game at 35. Needless to say, Tampa Bay’s rushing volume will crater when they face Chicago on Sunday. Gainwell had seen 14 percent of the Bucs’ carries before their rushing explosion. That was good for 3.2 attempts per game. Unless things get weird for the third week in a row, Gainwell’s breakout will be short-lived.

Wide Receiver

Start: Caleb Douglas, Dolphins

Buckle up, we’re stacking Dolphins this week. Douglas followed up his Week 7 explosion with a quiet Week 8, but his role took a step forward. He earned 20 percent of Miami’s targets with a team-high 34 percent air yards share. Douglas is inching toward a WR1 role and he gets the best matchup in the league as his breakout spot.

Start: Omar Cooper, Jets

With Garrett Wilson ruled out, there’s enough room in the offense for Cooper and Adonai Mitchell—who is also a solid play—to coexist. Luckily for Cooper, this week sets up much better for him than his field-stretching teammate. The Chiefs have allowed the fifth-most targets to slot receivers this year. No team has given up fewer targets to receivers lined up out wide. Cooper has run 64 percent of his routes from the slot compared to 20 percent for Mitchell. Even after his Week 8 zero, Cooper should be ranked ahead of Mitchell this week.

Sit: Chris Godwin, Bucs

Whether or not Emeka Egbuka is back this week doesn’t matter for Godwin. It’s not happening this year. He’s averaging a pitiful 1.1 yards per route run and hasn’t hit 50 yards in a single game. Godwin’s .15 targets per route is already low, and that’s exacerbated by his running-back-level aDOT of 3.5. He can be cut in redraft formats.

Sit: Ladd McConkey, Chargers

With an extra week to kickstart the offense via their bye, the Chargers came out in Week 8 and looked exactly the same as their previous six games. Justin Herbert was horrible and McConkey’s role was largely unchanged. He earned a modest 17 percent target share and was targeted on 15 percent of his routes. By points per game, the Chargers are the 10th-worst offense we’ve seen since 2010. There’s no reason to put Chargers in our fantasy lineups.

Tight End

Start: Greg Dulcich, Dolphins

Dulcich is up to a 21 percent target share over his past three games. That’s been good for 10.5 PPR points per game during that stretch, and the numbers are going to get supercharged versus Detroit. Just like the quarterback matchup, it’s also a historically great one for tight ends. The Lions are giving up 27.9 points every week to tight ends. That is comfortably the highest mark by a defense since the turn of the century.

Start: Eli Raridon, Patriots

This one is contingent on Hunter Henry being ruled out, which looks rather likely. Raridon is averaging an impressive 1.75 yards per route run, good for 10th among tight ends. And that’s despite him being targeted on a modest 18 percent of his routes. His target rate could rise, even with an uptick in routes. The Patriots are without their top two receivers in addition to the likely absence of Henry. If Henry is ruled out, Raridon will be a high-upside TE2.

Sit: Dallas Goedert, Eagles

The Eagles are making an effort to get rookie Eli Stowers some reps, and they’re coming at Goedert’s expense. He has run a route on 64 percent of the team’s passing plays over the past two weeks. The declining route rate has dropped his target share to a middling 16 percent. That’s not going to cut it on one of the worst passing offenses in football.

Sit: Juwan Johnson, Saints

Like Goedert before him, Johnson’s biggest issue is a lack of routes. His route rate has dipped below 60 percent in each of his past two games. Despite the decrease in routes, his target rate of seven percent is also a far cry from what it was over the first month of the year. Johnson is being phased out of the offense and the team might be getting their top-10 pick at wide receiver back this week. It’s over for Juwan.